THE library arrived, and the books were covered, labelled, numbered, and shelved before the probable beneficiaries knew of their existence; then Master Scrapsey Green was employed to walk through the village streets, ringing a bell, and shouting:—

"Free—circulating—library—now—open—at—Somerton's—store!"

Notices to the same effect had already been mailed to all possible readers in the county. The self-appointed librarian had not believed that more than one in four of the inhabitants of the town or county would care to read, but neither had she taken thought of the consuming curiosity of villagers and country-folk. Within an hour the back room of the store was packed to suffocation, although Grace pressed a book on each visitor, with a request to make way for some one else.

After several hours of issuing and recording, Grace found herself alone; so she gladly escaped to the store proper to compare notes with Philip and Caleb, who had taken turns at dropping in to "see the fun," as Philip called it, and to announce, at the librarian's request, that only a single book a week would be loaned to a family, and to request the borrowers to return the books as soon as read.

On entering the store, Grace found herself face to face with Doctor and Mrs. Taggess and Pastor Grateway, all of whom greeted her cordially, and congratulated her on the successful opening of the Somerton Library.

"That's a cruel proof of the saying that one sows and another reaps," she replied; "but please understand in future that this is not the Somerton Library. It is the Caleb Wright Library."

"Je—ru—salem!" exclaimed Caleb, "an' I didn't put a cent into it!"

"You devised it," Grace replied. "'Twas like Columbus making the egg stand on end; any one could do it after being told how."

About this time some responses, in the forms of half-grown boys and girls on foot, began to arrive from the farming district, and Grace had occasionally to leave the store. As she returned from one of these excursions, Mrs. Taggess took her hands and exclaimed:—

"What a good time you must have had!"

"Oh, wife!" protested the Doctor. "Is this the place for sarcasm? The poor girl looks tired to death."

"Nevertheless, Mrs. Taggess is entirely right," said Grace. "It was a good time, indeed. How I wish I could sketch from memory! Still, I shall never forget the expression of some of those faces. What a dear lot of people there are in this town!"

"Hurrah!" shouted the Doctor. "I was afraid that, coming from the city, you mightn't be able to find it out. I apologize with all my heart."

"'Tis high time you did," said his wife. "The idea that a doctor, of all men, shouldn't know that a woman's heart rules her eyes."

"Yes," said the Doctor, affecting a sigh. "It's dreadful to be a man, and know so much that sometimes an important bit of knowledge gets hidden behind something else at the very time it's most needed. How many books have you remaining, to satisfy the country demand, Mrs. Somerton?"

"Not enough, I fear. We ought to have bought one or two hundred more volumes."

"Which means," said Philip, with a pretence at being grieved at having been forgotten during the congratulations, "that they will have to be purchased at once, and paid for, by the mere nobody of the concern."

"Nobody, indeed!" exclaimed Grace, with a look which caused the Taggesses to exchange delighted pinches, and the minister to say:—

"I don't think any one need go far to find a proof of the blessed mystery that one and one need make only one, if rightly added."

"No, indeed," said the Doctor, "but at least one-half of the one in question is so tired that it ought to get some rest, which it won't and can't while we visitors stay here to admire and ask questions. Come along, wife; we'll find some better time to talk her and these other good people to death about what they've done. I've only to say that if Brother Grateway doesn't give you his benediction in words, he will leave one for you all the same, and there'll be two others to keep it company—eh, wife?"

"Phil," Grace said, as soon as the visitors had departed, "I've a new idea. 'Tis not as good as Caleb's which has made this library, but 'twill give no end of surprise and satisfaction to people, as well as lots of fun to me and bring some business to the store. I want a camera. I don't see how we were so stupid as not to bring one with us from New York."

"A camera?" said Caleb. "What sort of a thing is it?"

"A contrivance for taking photographs. There are small cheap ones that any amateur can use. Two or three girls in our store in New York had them, and took some very fair pictures."

"I want to know! Well, if any gals done it, I reckon you can."

"You shall see. I want one at once, Phil; order it by the first mail, please, and with all the necessary outfit."

"Your will is law, my dear, but I shall first have to learn where to send the order and exactly what to get."

"Let me attend to it. I can order direct from the store in which I worked; they sold everything of the kind."

"There'll be no mail eastward till to-morrow. Won't you oblige your husband, at once, by going to the house, and making a picture of yourself, on a lounge, with your eyes shut?"

"Yes—if I must. But oh, what lots of fun I shall have with that camera!"

Caleb's eyes followed Grace to the door; then he said:—

"Been workin' about four hours, harder'n I ever see a Sunday-school librarian work, looked tired almost to death, an' yet full to the eyes with the fun she's goin' to have. Ah, that's what health can do for human nature. I wonder if you two ever know how to thank Heaven that you are as you are—both well-built an' healthy? 'Pears to me that if I was either of you, I'd be wicked enough, about a hundred times a day, to put up the Pharisee's prayer an' thank Heaven that I was not like other men."

"No man can be everything, Caleb," said Philip. "I don't doubt that there are thousands of men who'd gladly exchange their health for your abilities."

"Well, I s'pose it's human nature, an' p'r'aps divine purpose too, that folks should hanker most for what they haven't got; if it wa'n't so, ev'rybody'd be a stick-in-the-mud all his life, an' nobody'd amount to much; but I do tell you that for a man to spend most of his grown-up years in makin' of himself as useful a machine as he can, an' not especially with a view to Number One either, an' all the time bein' reminded that he hain't got enough steam in his b'iler to work the machine except by fits an' starts, an' there don't seem to be any way of gettin' up more steam except by gettin' a new b'iler, which ain't possible in the circumstances, why, it's powerful tough, an' that's a fact."

"We can't all run thousand-horse-power engines, Caleb," said Philip, hoping to console his friend. "If we could, I'm afraid a great lot of the world's necessary work would go undone. Watches, worked with what might be called half-mouse-power, are quite as necessary and useful in their way as big clocks run by ton weights; and a sewing machine, worked by a woman's foot, can earn quite as much, over running expenses, as a plough with a big horse in front and a big man behind it."

"Like enough. But the trouble with me is that the machine I've been makin' o' myself is the kind that needs an awful lot o' power, an' the power ain't there an' can't be put there."

"There are plenty more machines with exactly the same defect, old chap," said Philip, with a sigh, "so you've no end of company in your trouble. I could tell you of a machine of my own that lacks the proper power—sufficient steam, as you've expressed it."

"I want to know! An' you the pictur' of health!"

"Oh, yes. Health is invaluable, so far as it goes, but 'tisn't everything. Going back to steam for the sake of illustration, you know it comes of several other things—water, a boiler, some fuel, and draught, each in proper proportion to all the others. I don't doubt there's a similar combination necessary to human force, and its application, and that I haven't the secret of it, for I know I've failed at work I've most wanted to do, and succeeded best at what I liked least."

"Reckon you must have hated storekeepin' then, for you've made a powerful go of it."

"Thank you; I'm not ashamed to confess to you that 'tis the last business in the world that I'd have selected."

"Well, as to that, there's no difference of opinion between us, an' yet, here I've been storekeepin'—an' not for myself either—'most twenty year."

"And doing it remarkably well, too. As to not doing it for yourself, you may change your position and have an interest in the business whenever you wish it. I'm astonished that my uncle didn't say the same to you."

"But he did—after his fashion. He meant fair, but I said 'No,' for I hadn't given up hopes of what I'd wanted to do, so I didn't want to give the store all my waking hours, as an owner ought to do most of the time."

"Indeed he ought. If it isn't an impertinent question, what had you selected as your life's work?"

"The last thing you'd suspect me of, I s'pose. Long ago—before the war—I set my heart on bein' a great preacher, an' on beginnin' by gettin' a first-class education. I don't need to tell you that I missed both of 'em about as far as a man could. I wasn't overconceited about 'em at the start, for about that time there was a powerful movement in our denomination for an educated ministry. We had a few giants in the pulpit, but for ev'ry one of 'em there was dozens of dwarfs that made laughin'-stocks of 'emselves an' the church. Well, I was picked out as a young man with enough head-piece to take in an education an' with the proper spirit an' feelin' to use it well after I'd got it. Just then the war broke out, an' I went to it; when I got back I had a crippled leg, an' a dull head, an' a heavy heart—afterwards I found 'twas the liver instead of the heart, but that didn't make me any the less stupid. The upshot was that I was kind o' dropped as a candidate for the ministry, an' that made me sicker yet, an' I vowed that I'd get there in the course o' time, if I could get back my health an' senses. Once in a while, for many years, I had hopes; then again I'd get a knock-down—an extry hard lot o' chills an' fevers, or some other turn of malary that made my mind as blank an' flat as a new slate. I tried to educate myself, bein' rather old to go to school or college, an' I plodded through lots o' books, but I had to earn my livin' besides, an'—well, I reckon you can see about how much time a man workin' in a store has for thinkin' about what he's read."

"Oh, can't I!"

"An' you know, now, what losin' health an' not findin' it again has been to me."

"Indeed I do, and you've my most hearty sympathy. Perhaps good health would have seen you through; perhaps not. Your experience is very like mine, in some respects. I didn't start with the purpose of being a preacher, but I was going to become educated so well that whenever I had a message of any sort to give to the world,—for every man occasionally has one, you know,—I should be able to do it in a manner that would command attention. I was fortunate enough to get into a business position in which my duties were almost mechanical, so at night my mind was fresh enough for reading and study. My wife's tastes were very like my own, so we read and studied together; but my message has never come, and here I am where the only writing I'll ever do will be in account books and business correspondence. As to my art studies—"

"They help you to arrange goods on the shelves in a way that attracts attention; there can't be any doubt about that," Caleb interrupted.

"Thank you, Caleb. That is absolutely the first and only commendation that my art education has ever earned for me, and I assure you that I shall remember and prize it forever."

"I'm not an art-sharp," said Caleb, "but I shouldn't wonder if I could show you lots more signs of what you've learned an' think haven't come to anythin'. Same way with literature; nobody in this town, but you an' your wife, could an' would have got up that circulatin' library, an' knowed the names o' three hundred good books for it. Other towns'll hear of it, an' men there'll take up the idea—"

"Which was yours—not ours."

"Never mind; ideas don't come to anythin' till they're froze into facts. Other merchants'll hear of the library an' write you for names o' books an' other p'ints, an' the thing'll go on an' on till it'll amount to more than most any book that was ever writ. Bein' set on makin' a hit in literature an' art an' fetchin' up at dressin' store-shelves an' settin' up a circulatin' library reminds me of Jake Brockleband's steam engine. You hain't met Jake, I reckon?"

"I don't recall the name."

"He's in the next county below us, near the mouth of the crick. He goes in these parts by the name of the Great American Traveller, for he's seen more countries than anybody else about here, an' it all came through a steam engine. It 'pears that years ago Jake, who was a Yankee with a knack at anythin' that was mechanical, was picked out by some New Yorkers to go down to Brazil to preserve pineapples on a large scale for the American market: he was to have a big salary and some shares of the company's stock. Part of his outfit was a little steam engine an' b'iler an' two copper kettles as big as the lard kettles in your pork-house. Well, he got to work, with the idee o' makin' his fortune in a year or two, an' pretty soon he started a schooner load o' canned pineapples up North; but most o' the cans got so het up on the way that they busted, an' when the company found how bizness was, why, 'twas the comp'ny's turn to get het up an' bust. Jake couldn't get his salary, so he 'tached the engine an' kettles, an' looked about for somethin' to do with 'em. He shipped 'em up to a city in Venezuela, where there was plenty of cocoanut oil and potash to be had cheap, and started out big at soap-makin', but pretty soon he found that the Venezuelans wouldn't buy soap at any price: they hadn't been educated up to the use of such stuff. But there wa'n't no give-up blood in Jake, so he packed the engine an' soap over to a big town in Colombia—next country to Venezuela,—an' started a swell laundry, I b'lieve he called it,—a place where they wash clothes at wholesale. He 'lowed that as Colombia was a very hot country, an' the people was said to be of old Spanish stock an' quite up to date, there'd be a powerful lot o' stockin's an' underclothes to be washed. Soon after he'd hung out his shingle, though, he heerd that no Colombians wore underclothes, an' mighty few of 'em wore socks.

"Well, 'Never say die' was Jake's family brand, so he built a boat with paddle-wheels an' fitted the steam engine to it, an' started in the passenger steamboat business on a Colombian river; the big copper kettles he fixed, one on each side, with awnin's over 'em, to carry passengers' young ones, so they couldn't crawl about an' tumble overboard. He did a good business for a spell, but all of a sudden the revolution season come on an' a gang of the rebels seized his boat, an' the gov'ment troops fired on 'em an' sunk it.

"But Jake managed to save the engine an' kettles, an' thinkin' 'twas about time to go north for a change, he got his stuff up to New Orleans, where he got another little boat built to fit the engine, an' started up-stream in the tradin'-boat business. He got along an' along, an' then up the Missouri River; but when he got up near the mouth of our crick he ran on a snag, close inshore, that ripped the bottom an' sides off o' the boat an' didn't leave nothin' that could float.

"That might have been a deadener, if Jake had been of the dyin' kind, but he wasn't; an' as he was wrecked alongside of a town an' a saw-mill, he kept his eye peeled for business, an' pretty soon he'd put up a slab shanty, an' got a little circular saw, for his engine to work, an' turned out the first sawed shingles ever seen in these parts, an' when folks saw that they didn't curl up like cut shingles, he got lots o' business an' is keepin' it right along.

"''Tain't makin' me a millionnaire,' he says, 'an' the sight o' pineapples would make me tired, but at last I've struck a job that me an' the engine fits to a T, an' an angel couldn't ask more'n that, if he was in my shoes.'"

"That story, Caleb," said Philip, "is quite appropriate to my case. But see here, old chap, didn't it ever occur to you to apply it to yourself?"

"Can't say that it did," Caleb replied. "What put that notion into your head?"

"Everybody and everything, my own eyes included. You started to be a preacher—not merely for the sake of talking, but for the good that your talk would do. I hear from every one that for many years you've been everybody's friend, doing all sorts of kind, unselfish acts for the good of other people. Mr. Grateway says that your work does more good than his preaching, and Doctor Taggess says you cure as many sick people as he. It seems to me that your disappointments, like Jake Brockleband's, have resulted in your finding a place that fits you to a T."

"I want to know! Well, I'm glad to hear it—from you. Kind o' seems, then, as if you an' me was in the same boat, don't it?"