"Sure!"
"It"s the sound," he said, holding his breath, then nodding, "of someone writing."
"Yes, sir."
"Writing with a pen. And . . . and writing . . ."
"What?"
"Poetry," gasped Mr. d.i.c.kens. "That"s it. Someone off there in a room, how many fathoms deep, Pip, I swear, writing a poem. There! Eh? Flourish, flourish, scratch, flourish on, on, on, that"s not figures, Pip, not numerals, not dusty-dry facts, you feel it sweep, feel it scurry? A poem, by G.o.d, yes, sir, no doubt, a poem!"
"Ma"am," I called.
The moth-sound ceased.
"Don"t stop her!" hissed Mr. d.i.c.kens. "Middle of inspiration. Let her go!"
The moth-scratch started again.
Flourish, flourish, scratch, on, on, stop. Flourish, flourish. I bobbed my head. I moved my lips, as did Mr. d.i.c.kens, both of us suspended, held, leaned forward on the cool marble air listening to the vaults and stacks and echoes in the subterrane.
Flourish, flourish, scratch, on, on.
Silence.
"There." Mr. d.i.c.kens nudged me.
"Ma"am!" I called ever so urgently soft.
And something rustled in the corridors.
And there stood the librarian, a lady between years, not young, not old; between colors, not dark, not pale; between heights, not short, not tall, but rather frail, a woman you often heard talking to herself off in the dark dust-stacks with a whisper like turned pages, a woman who glided as if on hidden wheels.
She came carrying her soft lamp of face, lighting her way with her glance.
Her lips were moving, she was busy with words in the vast room behind her clouded gaze.
Charlie read her lips eagerly. He nodded. He waited for her to halt and bring us to focus, which she did, suddenly. She gasped and laughed at herself.
"Oh, Ralph, it"s you and-" A look of recognition warmed her face. "Why, you"re Ralph"s friend. Mr. d.i.c.kens, isn"t it?"
Charlie stared at her with a quiet and almost alarming devotion.
"Mr. d.i.c.kens," I said. "I want you to meet-"
""Because I could not stop for Death-"" Charlie, eyes shut, quoted from memory.
The librarian blinked swiftly and her brow like a lamp turned high, took white color.
"Miss Emily," he said.
"Her name is-" I said.
"Miss Emily." He put out his hand to touch hers.
"Pleased," she said. "But how did you-?"
"Know your name? Why, bless me, ma"am, I heard you scratching way off in there, runalong rush, only poets do that!"
"It"s nothing."
"Head high, chin up," he said, gently. "It"s something. "Because I could not stop for death" is a fine A-1 first-cla.s.s poem."
"My own poems are so poor," she said, nervously. "I copy hers out to learn."
"Copy who?" I blurted.
"Excellent way to learn."
"Is it, really?" She looked close at Charlie. "You"re not . . .?"
"Joking? No, not with Emily d.i.c.kinson, ma"am!"
"Emily d.i.c.kinson?" I said.
"That means much coming from you, Mr. d.i.c.kens," she flushed. "I have read all your books."
"All?" He backed off.
"All," she added hastily, "that you have published so far, sir."
"Just finished a new one." I put in, "Sockdolager! A Tale of Two Cities."
"And you, ma"am?" he asked, kindly.
She opened her small hands as if to let a bird go.
"Me? Why, I haven"t even sent a poem to our town newspaper."
"You must!" he cried, with true pa.s.sion and meaning. "Tomorrow. No, today!"
"But," her voice faded. "I have no one to read them to, first."
"Why," said Charlie quietly. "You have Pip here, and, accept my card, C. d.i.c.kens, Esquire. Who will, if allowed, stop by on occasion, to see if all"s well in this Arcadian silo of books."
She took his card. "I couldn"t-"
"Tut! You must. For I shall offer only warm sliced white bread. Your words must be the marmalade and summer honey jam. I shall read long and plain. You: short and rapturous of life and tempted by that odd delicious Death you often lean upon. Enough." He pointed. "There. At the far end of the corridor, her lamp lit ready to guide your hand . . . the Muse awaits. Keep and feed her well. Good-bye."
"Good-bye?" she asked. "Doesn"t that mean "G.o.d be with you"?"
"So I have heard, dear lady, so I have heard."
And suddenly we were back out in the sunlight, Mr. d.i.c.kens almost stumbling over his carpetbag waiting there.
In the middle of the lawn, Mr. d.i.c.kens stood very still and said, "The sky is blue, boy."
"Yes, sir."
"The gra.s.s is green."
"Sure." Then I stopped and really looked around. "I mean, heck, yeah!"
"And the wind . . . smell that sweet wind?"
We both smelled it. He said: "And in this world are remarkable boys with vast imaginations who know the secrets of salvation . . ."
He patted my shoulder. Head down, I didn"t know what to do. And then I was saved by a whistle: "Hey, the next train! Here it comes!"
We waited.
After a long while, Mr. d.i.c.kens said: "There it goes . . . and let"s go home, boy."
"Home!" I cried, joyfully, and then stopped. "But what about . . . Mr. Wyneski?"
"O, after all this, I have such confidence in you, Pip. Every afternoon while I"m having tea and resting my wits, you must trot down to the barbershop and-"
"Sweep hair!"
"Brave lad. It"s little enough. A loan of friendship from the Bank of England to the First National Bank of Green Town, Illinois. And now, Pip . . . pencil!"
I tried behind one ear, found gum; tried the other ear and found: "Pencil!"
"Paper?"
"Paper!"
We strode along under the soft green summer trees.
"t.i.tle, Pip-"
He reached up with his cane to write a mystery on the sky. I squinted at the invisible penmanship.
"The-"
He blocked out a second word on the air.
"Old," I translated.
A third.
"C.U." I spelled. "R.I. . . . Curiosity!"
"How"s that for a t.i.tle, Pip?"
I hesitated. "It . . . doesn"t seem, well, quite finished, sir."
"What a Christian you are. There!"
He flourished a final word on the sun.
"S.H.O. . . . Shop! The Old Curiosity Shop."
"Take a novel, Pip!"
"Yes, sir," I cried. "Chapter One!"
A blizzard of snow blew through the trees.
"What"s that?" I asked, and answered: Why, summer gone. The calendar pages, all the hours and days, like in the movies, the way they just blow off over the hills. Charlie and I working together, finished, through. Many days at the library, over! Many nights reading aloud with Miss Emily done! Trains come and gone. Moons waxed and waned. New trains arriving and new lives teetering on the brink, and Miss Emily suddenly standing right there, and Charlie here with all their suitcases and handing me a paper sack.
"What"s this?"
"Rice, Pip, plain ordinary white rice, for the fertility ritual. Throw it at us, boy. Drive us happily away. Hear those bells, Pip? Here goes Mr. and Mrs. Charlie d.i.c.kens! Throw, boy, throw! Throw!"
I threw and ran, ran and threw, and them on the back train platform waving out of sight and me yelling good-bye, Happy marriage, Charlie! Happy times! Come back! Happy . . . Happy . . .
And by then I guess I was crying, and Dog chewing my shoes, jealous, glad to have me alone again, and Mr. Wyneski waiting at the barbershop to hand me my broom and make me his son once more.
And autumn came and lingered and at last a letter arrived from the married and traveling couple.
I kept the letter sealed all day and at dusk, while Grandpa was raking leaves by the front porch I went out to sit and watch and hold the letter and wait for him to look up and at last he did and I opened the letter and read it out loud in the October twilight: "Dear Pip," I read, and had to stop for a moment seeing my old special name again, my eyes were so full.
"Dear Pip. We are in Aurora tonight and Felicity tomorrow and Elgin the night after that. Charlie has six months of lectures lined up and looking forward. Charlie and I are both working steadily and are most happy . . . very happy . . . need I say?
"He calls me Emily.
"Pip, I don"t think you know who she was, but there was a lady poet once, and I hope you"ll get her books out of the library someday.
"Well, Charlie looks at me and says: "This is my Emily" and I almost believe. No, I do believe."
I stopped and swallowed hard and read on: "We are crazy, Pip.
"People have said it. We know it. Yet we go on. But being crazy together is fine.
"It was being crazy alone I couldn"t stand any longer.
"Charlie sends his regards and wants you to know he has indeed started a fine new book, perhaps his best yet . . . one you suggested the t.i.tle for, Bleak House.