Editor Nathaniel b.u.t.ters had a weakness of the heart for all tender things--a weakness "under oath," however, as he once replied when I charged him with it, and as I knew, for I myself heard him one summer afternoon, as he sat, shirt-sleeved and pipe in mouth, perched on a stool, and setting type hard by a window where I stood beneath fishing with a dogwood wand.
"The-oc-ri-tus! Humpf! Now, who in thunder cares a tinker"s d.a.m.n for Theocritus, in Gra.s.sy Ford? Some old Greek G.o.d, I suppose, who died and went to the devil; and here"s a parson--a Christian parson who ought to know better--writing an ode to him, for Hank Myers to read, and Jim Gowdy, and Old Man Flynn. And I don"t get a cent for it, not a blank cent, Sam--well, he doesn"t either, for that matter--but it"s all tommy-rot, and here I"ve got to sweat, putting in capitals where they don"t belong and hopping down to the darned old dictionary every five minutes to see if he"s right--Sam [turning to his printer] there"s some folks think it"s just heaven to be a country editor, but I"ll be--"
He was a rough, white-bearded, little, round, fat man, who showed me type-lice, I remember (the first and only time I ever saw the vermin), and roared when I wiped my eyes, though I"ve forgiven him. He was good to Let.i.tia in an hour of need.
Dr. Primrose, it seems, had written his masterpiece, a solemn, Dr.
Johnsonian thing which he named "Jerusalem," and reaching, so old man b.u.t.ters told me once, chuckling, "from Friday evening to Sat.u.r.day night." The muse had granted him a longer candle than it was her wont to lend, and Let.i.tia trembled for that sacred fire.
"Print it, child? Of course he"ll print it. It"s the finest thing I ever did!"
"True, father, but its length--"
"Not longer than Milton"s "Lycidas," my dear."
"I know, but--he"s so--he looks so fierce, father." She laughed nervously.
"Who? b.u.t.ters?"
"Yes."
"Tut! b.u.t.ters has brains enough--"
"It isn"t his brains," replied Let.i.tia. "It"s his whiskers, father."
"Whiskers?"
"Yes; they bristle so."
"Don"t be foolish, child. b.u.t.ters has brains enough to know it is worth the printing. Worth the printing!" he cried, with irony. "Yes, even though it isn"t dialect."
Dialect was then in vogue; no Gra.s.sy Ford, however small, in those days, but had its Rhyming Robin who fondly imagined that he might be another Burns.
"Dialect!" the doctor repeated, scornfully, his eyes roving to the shabby ancients on his shelves. "Bring me Horace--that"s a good girl.
No--yes." His hand lingered over hers that offered him the book.
"Child," he said, looking her keenly in the eyes, "do you find it so hard to brave that lion?"
"Oh no, father. I didn"t mean I was afraid, only he"s so--woolly. You can hardly make out his eyes, and fire sputters through his old spectacles. I think he never combs his hair."
"Does he ever grumble at you?"
"Oh no"--and here she laughed--"that is, I never give him time; I run away."
The old poet made no reply to her, but went on holding that soft little hand with the Horace in it, and gazing thoughtfully at his daughter"s face.
"We can send it by mail," he said at last.
That roused Let.i.tia.
"Oh, not at all!" she cried. "Why, I"m proud to take it, father. Mr.
b.u.t.ters isn"t so dreadful--if he _is_ fuzzy. I"m sure he"ll print it.
There was that letter from Mr. Banks last week, a column long, on carrots."
He smiled dryly at her over his opened book.
"If only my "Jerusalem" were artichokes instead of Saracens!" he said.
The fuzzy one was in his lair, proof-reading at his unkempt desk. The floor was littered at his feet. He was smoking a black tobacco in a blacker pipe. He wore no coat, no cuffs, and his sleeves were--um; it does not matter. He glared ("carnivorously," Let.i.tia tells me) at the opening door.
"Evening," he said, and waited; but the envelope did not arise. So he rose himself, offering a seat in the midst of his clutter, a plain, pine, rope-mended chair, from which he pawed soiled sheets of copy and tattered exchanges that she might sit.
"Looks some like snow," he said.
"Yes," she a.s.sented. "I called, Mr. b.u.t.ters--"
She paused uncertainly. It was her own voice that had disconcerted her, it was so tremulous.
"Another poem, I suppose," he said, fondly imagining that he had softened his voice to a tone of gallantry, but succeeding no better than might be expected of speech so hedged, so beset and baffled, so veritably bearded in its earward flight.
"You--you mentioned snow, I think," stammered Let.i.tia. He had frightened her away, or she may have drawn back, half-divining, even in embarra.s.sment, that the other, the more round-about, the snowy path, was the better way to approach her theme.
"Snow and east winds are the predictions, I believe, Miss Primrose."
"I dread the winter--don"t you?" she ventured.
"No," he replied. "I like it."
"That"s because you are--"
"Because I"m so fat, you mean."
"Oh no, Mr. b.u.t.ters, I didn"t even think of that; I meant so--"
And then--heavens!--it flashed across her that she had meant "woolly"!
To save her soul she could think of no synonyme. Her cheeks turned red.
"I meant--why, of course, I meant--you"re so well prepared."
"Well prepared," he grumbled.
"Why, yes, you--men can wear beards, you know."
"Egad! you"re right," he roared. "You"re right, Miss Primrose. I _am_ well m.u.f.flered, that"s a fact."
"But, really, it must be a great a.s.sistance, Mr. b.u.t.ters."
"Oh yes; it is--and it saves neckties."
And this, mark you, was the way to Poetry! Poor Let.i.tia, with the ma.n.u.script hidden beneath her cloak, was all astray. The image of the poet with Horace in his lap rose before her and rebuked her. She was tempted to disclose her mission, dutifully, there and then.