[186]
[187]

THEIR JUST REWARD

I looked and beheld, and there were a vast number of girls standing in rows. Many of them wore pigtails, and most of them chewed gum.

"Who are they?" I asked my guide.

And he said: "They are the girls who wrote 'Lovely' or 'Perfectly sweet' or 'Horrid old thing!' on the fly-leaves of library books. Some of them used to put comments on the margins of the pages—such as 'Served him right!' or 'There! you mean old cat!'"

"What will happen to them?" I inquired.

"They are to stand up to the neck in a lake of ice cream soda for ten years," he answered.

"That will not be much of a punishment to them," I suggested.

But he told me that I had never tried it, and I could not dispute him.

"The ones over there," he remarked, pointing to a detachment of the girls who were chewing gum more vigorously than the others, "are sentenced for fifteen years in the ice cream soda lake, and moreover they will have hot molasses candy dropped on them at intervals. They are the ones who wrote:

If my name you wish to see
Look on page 93,

and then when you had turned to page 93, cursing yourself for a fool as you did it, you only found:

If my name you would discover
Look upon the inside cover,

and so on, and so on, until you were ready to drop from weariness and exasperation. Hang me!" he suddenly exploded, "if I had the say of it, I'd bury 'em alive in cocoanut taffy—I told the Boss so, myself."

I agreed with him that they were getting off easy.

"A lot of them are named 'Gerty,' too," he added, as though that made matters worse.

Then he showed me a great crowd of older people. They were mostly men, though there were one or two women here and there.

"These are the annotators," he said, "the people who work off their idiotic opinions on the margins and fly-leaves of books. They dispute the author's statements, call him a liar and abuse him generally. The one on the end used to get all the biographies of Shakespeare he could find and cover every bit of blank paper in them with pencil-writing signed 'A Baconian.' He usually began with the statement: 'The author of this book is a pig-headed fool.' The man next to him believed that the earth is flat, and he aired that theory so extensively with a fountain-pen that he ruined about two hundred dollars' worth of books. They caught him and put him in jail for six months, but he will have to take his medicine here just the same. There are two religious cranks standing just behind him. At least, they were cranks about religion. One of them was an atheist and he used to write blasphemy all over religious books. The other suffered from too much religion. He would jot down texts and pious mottoes in every book he got hold of. He would cross out, or scratch out all the oaths and cuss words in a book; draw a pencil line through any reference to wine, or strong drink, and call especial attention to any passage or phrase he thought improper by scrawling over it. He is tied to the atheist, you notice. The woman in the second row used to write 'How true!' after any passage or sentence that pleased her. She gets only six years. Most of the others will have to keep it up for eight."

"Keep what up?" I asked.

"Climbing barbed-wire fences," was the answer; "they don't have to hurry, but they must keep moving. They begin to-morrow at half-past seven."

We walked down the hill toward a group of infamous looking people. My guide stopped and pointed toward them.

"These are snippers, cutters, clippers, gougers and extra-illustrators. They vary all the way from men who cut 'want ads' out of the newspapers in the reading-rooms, to those who go into the alcoves and lift valuable plates by the wet-string method. You see they come from all classes of society—and there are men and women, girls and boys. You notice they are all a little round-shouldered, and they keep glancing suspiciously right and left. This is because they got into the habit of sinking down in their chairs to get behind a newspaper, and watching to see if anyone was looking. There is one man who was interested in heraldry. He extended his operations over five or six libraries, public and private. When they found him out and visited his room it looked like the College of Heralds. He had a couple of years in prison, but here he is now, just the same. The man next to him is—well, no need to mention names,—you recognize him. Famous millionaire and politician. Never went into a library but once in his life. Then he went to see an article in a London newspaper, decided he wanted to keep it, and tore out half the page. Library attendant saw him, called a policeman, and tried to have him arrested. You see, the attendant didn't know who he was."

"Did anything come of it?" I asked.

"Yes," replied the guide, "there did. The library attendant was discharged. Blank simply told the Board of Trustees that he had been insulted by a whippersnapper who didn't look as if he had ever had a square meal in his life. One or two of the board wanted to investigate, but the majority would have jumped through hoops if Blank had told them to. He is in this section for five years, but he has over eight hundred to work off in other departments. The men on the end of the line, five or six dozen of them, used to cut plates out of the art magazines—a common habit. Woman standing next, used to steal sermons. Man next but one to her was a minister. He was writing a book on the Holy Land, and he cut maps out of every atlas in a library. Said he didn't mean to keep them long."

This group interested me, and I wondered what was to be done with them.

"You will see in a minute," said the guide; "they are going to begin work right away."

As he spoke, a number of officials came down the hill with enormous sheets of sticky fly-paper. These were distributed among the "snippers, cutters, clippers, gougers and extra-illustrators," who thereupon set to work with penknives, cutting small bits out of the fly-paper. In a few minutes the wretched creatures were covered from head to foot with pieces of the horrible stuff; pulling it off one hand to have it stick on the other, getting it in their hair, on their eyebrows, and plastering themselves completely.

"That is not very painful," I observed.

"No," said my companion, "perhaps not. Gets somewhat monotonous after four years, though. Come over to the end of this valley. I want you to see a dinner party that is taking place."

We left the sticky fly-paper folks behind us, and proceeded through the valley. On the side of the hill I noticed a small body of people, mostly men.

The guide pointed over his shoulder at them, remarking: "Reformed Spellers."

They were busily engaged in clipping one another's ears off with large scissors. There was a sign on the hill beside them. It read:

ears are unnecessary. why not get rid of them? leave enuf to hear with. don't stop til you are thru.

At the end of the valley there was a large level space. Something like a picnic was going on. People were eating at hundreds of little tables, and some were dancing, or strolling about on the grass. The guide stopped.

"The Boss is prouder of this than of anything else in the whole place," he said. "The people who are giving this party are the genealogists. Nearly all women, you notice. These are the folks who have driven librarians to profanity and gray hairs. Some of them wanted ancestors for public and social reasons; some of them for historical or financial purposes; some merely to gratify personal pride or private curiosity. But they all wanted ancestors for one reason or another, and ancestors they would have. For years they charged into libraries demanding ancestors. Over there, you see that big crowd? They are the two hundred and fifty thousand lineal descendants of William Brewster. Next to them are six thousand rightful Lords Baltimore. That vast mob beginning at the big tree, and extending for six miles to the northeast are the John Smith and Pocahontas crowd—some descended from one and some from the other—we haven't got them sorted out yet."

"How many of them are there?" I demanded.

"According to our best estimates," he replied, "in the neighborhood of eight million at present; but of course we are receiving fresh additions all the time. Thirty-five hundred came in last month. There is no time to count them, however."

I laughed at this.

"Time!" I exclaimed, "why, you've got eternity!"

But he merely waved his hand and went on.

"They are the largest crowd here, anyway, with the possible exception of the Mayflower descendants. They have a whole valley to themselves, beyond the second hill. Some say there are twelve million of them, but no one knows. Recently they applied for another valley, for theirs is full. You see it is so thickly planted with family trees that they have to live in deep shade all the time, and it is very damp and chilly. Then there are upwards of three hundred thousand tons of grandfather's clocks, brass warming-pans, cradles, chairs and tables, so they hardly can find standing room."

We walked down amongst the people who were giving the picnic. I wanted to see what was the object of this lawn party, for it struck me that it looked more like the Elysian Fields than any other place.

I soon discovered my mistake. Near the first group of tables was a sign with the inscription: "Grand Dames of the Pequot War," and at one of the tables sat Mrs. Cornelia Crumpet. I remembered the hours I had spent hunting up two ancestors to enable Mrs. Crumpet to join the Grand Dames. I had found them at last, and so, apparently, had Mrs. Crumpet, for there could be no doubt that the pair of sorry-looking rascals whom she was entertaining at luncheon were the long-lost ancestors. One of them was the most completely soiled individual I have ever seen. He was eating something or other, and he did not waste time with forks or any other implements. The other had finished his meal, and was leaning negligently back in his chair. He was smoking a large pipe, and he had his feet on the table.

Mrs. Crumpet wore an expression that showed that her past desire to discover these ancestors was as a passing whim, compared with her present deep, overpowering anxiety to be rid of them. I felt sorry for the poor lady; but she was not alone in her misery. All about her were Grand Dames of the Pequot War, engaged in entertaining their ancestors. Some of the ancestors were more agreeable, some far more distasteful to their descendants than Mrs. Crumpet's pair. None of the Grand Dames seemed to be having what could be called a jolly time.

My guide at last led me through the maze of tables and out into the open.

"We have a good many Japanese visitors in this section," said he. "They come to get some points from the Americans on ancestor-worship."

"What do they say?" I asked him.

"They just giggle and go away," he replied.

Beyond the genealogists we found a large group of people, who, the guide said, were the persons who borrow books and never return them. The complainants, in their case, were mainly private individuals rather than public libraries.

"They are not particularly interesting," remarked the guide, "but their punishment will appeal to you."

As we passed them I shuddered to see that they were all engaged in filing catalogue cards in alphabetical order.

"How long do they have to keep that up?" was my question, and I was horrified to learn that the terms varied from twenty to thirty-five years.

"Why, that is the most damnable thing I ever heard," I said—"the sticky fly-paper folks were nothing to this!"

The guide shrugged his shoulders—"It's the rule," he said.

The next lot of people we came on were curiously engaged. Long lines of bookshelves were set up about them, and they wandered up and down, forever taking a book from the shelf, only to sigh and put it back again. As we came amongst them I could see the cause of their weariness. The shelves seemed to be lined with the most brilliant looking books in handsome bindings. They were lettered in gold: "Complete Works of Charles Dickens," "Works of Dumas, Edition de Luxe," "Works of Scott," and so on. Yet when I took one of the books in my hand to look at it, it was no book at all, but just a wooden dummy, painted on the back, but absolutely blank everywhere else. They were like the things used by furniture dealers to put in a bookcase to make it look as if it were full of books, or those used on the stage, when a library setting is required. There were many cords of wood, but there was not a real book in any of the cases.

I asked one of the sufferers why he was doing this, and he stopped for a moment his patrol, and turned his weary eyes upon me.

"We are all alike," he said, indicating his associates. "We are the literary bluffers. Most of us were rich—I was, myself," and he groaned heavily. "We bought books by the yard—expensive ones, always—editions de luxe, limited editions—limited to ten thousand sets and each set numbered, of which this is No. 94," he added in a dull, mechanical fashion, as though he were repeating a lesson. "We were easy marks for all the dealers and agents. Especially illustrated editions, with extra copies of the engravings in a portfolio; bindings in white kid, or any other tomfool nonsense was what we were always looking for. And they saw that we got them. Whispered information that this set of Paul de Kock or Balzac was complete and unexpurgated, and that if we would buy it for $125, the publishers would throw in an extra volume, privately printed, and given away to purchasers, since it was against the law to sell it—this was the sort of bait we always bit at—cheerily! And now here we are!"

And he began again his tramp up and down, taking down the wooden dummies and putting them back again, with dolorous groans.

I could not stand this dismal spectacle very long, so we hurried on to a crowd of men bent nearly double over desks. They were pale and emaciated, which my guide told me was due to the fact that they had nothing to eat but paper.

"They are bibliomaniacs," he exclaimed, "collectors of unopened copies, seekers after misprints, measurers by the millimetre of the height of books. They are kept busy here reading the Seaside novels in paper covers. Next to them are the bibliographers—compilers of lists and counters of fly leaves. They cared more for a list of books than for books themselves, and they searched out unimportant errors in books and rejoiced mightily when they found one. Exactitude was their god, so here we let them split hairs with a razor and dissect the legs of fleas."

In a large troop of school children—a few hundred yards beyond, I came across a boy about fifteen years old. I seemed to know him. When he came nearer he proved to have two books tied around his neck. The sickly, yellowish-brown covers of them were disgustingly familiar to me—somebody's geometry and somebody else's algebra. The boy was blubbering when he got up to me, and the sight of him with those noxious books around his neck made me sob aloud. I was still crying when I awoke.