Parnassus on Wheels

by Christopher Morley

  The greasy ruffian shouted down to his pals in the quarry, but I did not hear what he said, as just then the Professor asked me to keep our captive covered while he got a stick. I stood with the pistol pointed at his head while Mifflin ran back into the birchwood to cut a cudgel.

  The tramp’s face became the colour of the under side of a fried egg as he looked into the muzzle of his own gun.

  “Say, lady,” he pleaded, “that gun goes off awful easy, point her somewhere else or you’ll croak me by mistake.”

  I thought a good scare wouldn’t do him any harm and kept the barrel steadily on him.

  The rascals down below seemed debating what to do. I don’t know whether they were armed or not; but probably they imagined that there were more than two of us. At all events, by the time Mifflin came back with a stout birch staff they were hustling out of the quarry on the lower side. The Professor swore, and looked as if he would gladly give chase, but he refrained.

  “Here, you,” he said in crisp tones to the tramp, “march on ahead of us, down to the quarry.”

  The fat ruffian shambled awkwardly down the trail. We had to make quite a detour to get into the quarry, and by the time we reached there the other three tramps had got clean away. I was not sorry, to tell the truth. I thought the Professor had had enough scrapping for one twenty-four hours.

  Peg whinneyed loudly as she saw us coming, but Bock was not in sight.

  “What have you done with the dog, you swine?” said Mifflin. “If you’ve hurt him I’ll make you pay with your own hide.”

  Our prisoner was completely cowed. “No, boss, we ain’t hurt the dog,” he fawned. “We tied him up so he couldn’t bark, that’s all. He’s in the ‘bus.” And sure enough, by this time we could hear smothered yelping and whining from Parnassus.

  I hurried to open the door, and there was Bock, his jaws tied together with a rope-end. He bounded out and made super-canine efforts to express his joy at seeing the Professor again. He paid very little attention to me.

  “Well,” said Mifflin, after freeing the dog’s muzzle, and with difficulty restraining him from burying his teeth in the tramp’s shin, “what shall we do with this heroic specimen of manhood? Shall we cart him over to the jail in Port Vigor, or shall we let him go?”

  The tramp burst into a whining appeal that was almost funny, it was so abject. The Professor cut it short.

  “I ought to pack you into quod,” he said. “Are you the Phoebus Apollo I scuffled with down the lane last night? Was it you skulking around this wagon then?”

  “No, boss, that was Splitlip Sam, honest to Gawd it was. He come back, boss; said he’d been fightin’ with a cat-o’-mountain! Say, boss, you sure hit him hard. One of his lamps is a pudding! Boss, I’ll swear I ain’t had nothin’ to do with it.”

  “I don’t like your society,” said the Professor, “and I’m going to turn you loose. I’m going to count ten, and if you’re not out of this quarry by then, I’ll shoot. And if I see you again I’ll skin you alive. Now get out!”

  He cut the knotted handkerchief in two. The hobo needed no urging. He spun on his heel and fled like a rabbit. The Professor watched him go, and as the fat, ungainly figure burst through a hedge and disappeared he fired the revolver into the air to frighten him still more. Then he tossed the weapon into the pool near by.

  “Well, Miss McGill,” he said with a chuckle, “if you like to undertake breakfast, I’ll fix up Peg.” And he drew the horse-shoe from his pocket once more.

  A brief inspection of Parnassus satisfied me that the thieves had not had time to do any real damage. They had got out most of the eatables and spread them on a flat rock in preparation for a feast; and they had tracked a good deal of mud into the van; but otherwise I could see nothing amiss. So while Mifflin busied himself with Peg’s foot it was easy for me to get a meal under way. I found a gush of clean water trickling down the face of the rock. There were still some eggs and bread and cheese in the little cupboard, and an unopened tin of condensed milk. I gave Peg her nose bag of oats, and fed Bock, who was frisking about in high spirits. By that time the shoeing was done, and the Professor and I sat down to an improvised meal. I was beginning to feel as if this gipsy existence were the normal course of my life.

  “Well, Professor,” I said, as I handed him a cup of coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs and cheese, “for a man who slept in a wet haystack, you acquit yourself with excellent valour.”

  “Old Parnassus is quite a stormy petrel,” he said. “I used to think the chief difficulty in writing a book would be to invent things to happen, but if I were to sit down and write the adventures I’d had with her it would be a regular Odyssey.”

  “How about Peg’s foot?” I asked. “Can she travel on it?”

  “It’ll be all right if you go easy. I’ve scraped out the injured part and put the shoe back. I keep a little kit of tools under the van for emergencies of all sorts.”

  It was chilly, and we didn’t dawdle over our meal. I only made a feint of eating, as I had had a little breakfast before, and also as the events of the last few hours had left me rather restless. I wanted to get Parnassus out on the highway again, to jog along in the sun and think things over. The quarry was a desolate, forbidding place anyway. But before we left we explored the cave where the tramps had been preparing to make themselves comfortable for the winter. It was not really a cave, but only a shaft into the granite cliff. A screen of evergreen boughs protected the opening against the weather, and inside were piles of sacking that had evidently been used as beds, and many old grocery boxes for tables and chairs. It amused me to notice a cracked fragment of mirror balanced on a corner of rock. Even these ragamuffins apparently were not totally unconscious of personal appearance. I seized the opportunity, while the Professor was giving Peg’s foot a final look, to rearrange my hair, which was emphatically a sight. I hardly think Andrew would have recognized me that morning.

  We led Peg up the steep incline, back into the lane where I had strayed, and at length we reached the main road again. Here I began to lay down the law to Redbeard.

  “Now look here, Professor,” I said, “I’m not going to have you tramp all the way back to Port Vigor. After the night you’ve had you need a rest. You just climb into that Parnassus and lie down for a good snooze. I’ll drive you into Woodbridge and you can take your train there. Now you get right into that bunk. I’ll sit out here and drive.”

  He demurred, but without much emphasis. I think the little fool was just about fagged out, and no wonder. I was a trifle groggy myself. In the end he was quite docile. He climbed into the van, took off his boots, and lay down under a blanket. Bock followed him, and I think they both fell asleep on the instant. I got on the front seat and took the reins. I didn’t let Peg go more quickly than a walk as I wanted to spare her sore foot.

  My, what a morning that was after the rain! The road ran pretty close to the shore, and every now and then I could catch a glimpse of the water. The air was keen—not just the ordinary, unnoticed air that we breathe in and out and don’t think about, but a sharp and tingling essence, as strong in the nostrils as camphor or ammonia. The sun seemed focussed upon Parnassus, and we moved along the white road in a flush of golden light. The flat fronds of the cedars swayed gently in the salty air, and for the first time in ten years, I should think, I began amusing myself by selecting words to describe the goodness of the morning. I even imagined myself writing a description of it, as if I were Andrew or Thoreau. The crazy little Professor had inoculated me with his literary bug, I guess.

  And then I did a dishonourable thing. Just by chance I put my hand into the little pocket beside the seat where Mifflin kept a few odds and ends. I meant to have another look at that card of his with the poem on it. And there I found a funny, battered little notebook, evidently forgotten. On the cover was written, in ink, “Thoughts on the Present Discontents.” That title seemed vaguely familiar. I seemed to recall something of the kind from my school days—more than twent
y years ago, goodness me! Of course if I had been honourable I wouldn’t have looked into it. But in a kind of quibbling self-justification I recalled that I had bought Parnassus and all it contained, “lock, stock, barrel and bung” as Andrew used to say. And so.…

  The notebook was full of little jottings, written in pencil in the Professor’s small, precise hand. The words were rubbed and soiled, but plainly legible. I read this:

  I don’t suppose Bock or Peg get lonely, but by the bones of Ben Gunn, I do. Seems silly when Herrick and Hans Andersen and Tennyson and Thoreau and a whole wagonload of other good fellows are riding at my back. I can hear them all talking as we trundle along. But books aren’t a substantial world after all, and every now and then we get hungry for some closer, more human relationships. I’ve been totally alone now for eight years—except for Runt, and he might be dead and never say so. This wandering about is fine in its way, but it must come to an end some day. A man needs to put down a root somewhere to be really happy.

  What absurd victims of contrary desires we are! If a man is settled in one place he yearns to wander; when he wanders he yearns to have a home. And yet how bestial is content—all the great things in life are done by discontented people.

  There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning, and yearning. A man should be learning as he goes; and he should be earning bread for himself and others; and he should be yearning, too: yearning to know the unknowable.

  What a fine old poem is “The Pulley” by George Herbert! Those Elizabethan fellows knew how to write! They were marred perhaps by their idea that poems must be “witty.” (Remember how Bacon said that reading poets makes one witty? There he gave a clue to the literature of his time.) Their fantastic puns and conceits are rather out of our fashion nowadays. But Lord! the root of the matter was in them! How gallantly, how reverently, they tackle the problems of life!

  When God at first made man (says George Herbert) He had a “glass of

  blessings standing by.” So He pours on man all the blessings in His

  reservoir: strength, beauty, wisdom, honour, pleasure—and then He

  refrains from giving him the last of them, which is rest, i.e.,

  contentment. God sees that if man is contented he will never win

  his way to Him. Let man be restless, so that

  “If goodness lead him not, yet weariness

  May toss him to My breast.”

  Some day I shall write a novel on that theme, and call it “The Pulley.” In this tragic, restless world there must be some place where at last we can lay our heads and be at rest. Some people call it death. Some call it God.

  My ideal of a man is not the Omar who wants to shatter into bits this sorry scheme of things, and then remould it nearer to the heart’s desire. Old Omar was a coward, with his silk pajamas and his glass of wine. The real man is George Herbert’s “seasoned timber”—the fellow who does handily and well whatever comes to him. Even if it’s only shovelling coal into a furnace he can balance the shovel neatly, swing the coal square on the fire and not spill it on the floor. If it’s only splitting kindling or running a trolley car he can make a good, artistic job of it. If it’s only writing a book or peeling potatoes he can put into it the best he has. Even if he’s only a bald-headed old fool over forty selling books on a country road, he can make an ideal of it. Good old Parnassus! It’s a great game.… I think I’ll have to give her up soon, though: I must get that book of mine written. But Parnassus has been a true glass of blessings to me.

  There was much more in the notebook; indeed it was half full of jotted paragraphs, memoranda, and scraps of writing—poems I believe some of them were—but I had seen enough. It seemed as if I had stumbled unawares on the pathetic, brave, and lonely heart of the little man. I’m a commonplace creature, I’m afraid, insensible to many of the deeper things in life, but every now and then, like all of us, I come face to face with something that thrills me. I saw how this little, red-bearded pedlar was like a cake of yeast in the big, heavy dough of humanity: how he travelled about trying to fulfil in his own way his ideals of beauty. I felt almost motherly toward him: I wanted to tell him that I understood him. And in a way I felt ashamed of having run away from my own homely tasks, my kitchen and my hen yard and dear old, hot-tempered, absent-minded Andrew. I fell into a sober mood. As soon as I was alone, I thought, I would sell Parnassus and hurry back to the farm. That was my job, that was my glass of blessings. What was I doing—a fat, middle-aged woman—trapesing along the roads with a cartload of books I didn’t understand?

  I slipped the little notebook back into its hiding-place. I would have died rather than let the Professor know I had seen it.

  XI

  We were coming into Woodbridge; and I was just wondering whether to wake the Professor when the little window behind me slid back and he stuck his head out.

  “Hello!” he said. “I think I must have been asleep!”

  “Well, I should hope so,” I said. “You needed it.”

  Indeed he looked much better, and I was relieved to see it. I had been really afraid he would be ill after sleeping out all night, but I guess he was tougher than I thought. He joined me on the seat, and we drove into the town. While he went to the station to ask about the trains I had a fine time selling books. I was away from the locality where I was known, and had no shyness in attempting to imitate Mifflin’s methods. I even went him one better by going into a hardware store where I bought a large dinner bell. This I rang lustily until a crowd gathered, then I put up the flaps and displayed my books. As a matter of fact, I sold only one, but I enjoyed myself none the less.

  By and by Mifflin reappeared. I think he had been to a barber: at any rate he looked very spry: he had bought a clean collar and a flowing tie of a bright electric blue which really suited him rather well.

  “Well,” he said, “the Sage is going to get back at me for that punch on the nose! I’ve been to the bank to cash your check. They telephoned over to Redfield, and apparently your brother has stopped payment on it. It’s rather awkward: they seem to think I’m a crook.”

  I was furious. What right had Andrew to do that?

  “The brute!” I said. “What on earth shall I do?”

  “I suggest that you telephone to the Redfield Bank,” he said, “and countermand your brother’s instructions—that is, unless you think you’ve made a mistake? I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

  “Nonsense!” I said. “I’m not going to let Andrew spoil my holiday. That’s always his way: if he gets an idea into his head he’s like a mule. I’ll telephone to Redfield, and then we’ll go to see the bank here.”

  We put Parnassus up at the hotel, and I went to the telephone. I was thoroughly angry at Andrew, and tried to get him on the wire first. But Sabine Farm didn’t answer. Then I telephoned to the bank in Redfield, and got Mr. Shirley. He’s the cashier, and I know him well. I guess he recognized my voice, for he made no objection when I told him what I wanted.

  “Now you telephone to the bank in Woodbridge,” I said, “and tell them to let Mr. Mifflin have the money. I’ll go there with him to identify him. Will that be all right?”

  “Perfectly,” he said. The deceitful little snail! If I had only known what he was concocting!

  Mifflin said there was a train at three o’clock which he could take. We stopped at a little lunch room for a bite to eat, then he went again to the bank, and I with him. We asked the cashier whether they had had a message from Redfield.

  “Yes,” he said. “We’ve just heard.” And he looked at me rather queerly.

  “Are you Miss McGill?” he said.

  “I am,” I said.

  “Will you just step this way a moment?” he asked politely.

  He led me into a little sitting-room and asked me to sit down. I supposed that he was going to get some paper for me to sign, so I waited quite patiently for several minutes. I had left the Professor at the cashier’s window, where they would give him his m
oney.

  I waited some time, and finally I got tired of looking at the Life Insurance calendars. Then I happened to glance out of the window. Surely that was the Professor, just disappearing round the corner with another man?

  I returned to the cashier’s desk.

  “What’s the matter?” I said. “Your mahogany furniture is charming, but I’m tired of it. Do I have to sit here any longer? And where’s Mr. Mifflin? Did he get his money?”

  The cashier was a horrid little creature with side whiskers.

  “I’m sorry you had to wait, Madam,” he said. “The transaction is just concluded. We gave Mr. Mifflin what was due him. There is no need for you to stay longer.”

  I thought this was very extraordinary. Surely the Professor would not leave without saying good-bye? However, I noticed that the clock said three minutes to three, so I thought that perhaps he had had to run to catch his train. He was such a strange little man, anyway.…

  Well, I went back to the hotel, quite a little upset by this sudden parting. At least I was glad the little man had got his money all right. Probably he would write from Brooklyn, but of course I wouldn’t get the letter till I returned to the farm as that was the only address he would have. Perhaps that wouldn’t be so long after all: but I did not feel like going back now, when Andrew had been so horrid.

  I drove Parnassus on the ferry, and we crossed the river. I felt lost and disagreeable. Even the fresh movement through the air gave me no pleasure. Bock whined dismally inside the van.

  It didn’t take me long to discover that Parnassing all alone had lost some of its charms. I missed the Professor: missed his abrupt, direct way of saying things, and his whimsical wit. And I was annoyed by his skipping off without a word of good-bye. It didn’t seem natural. I partially appeased my irritation by stopping at a farmhouse on the other side of the river and selling a cook book. Then I started along the road for Bath—about five miles farther on. Peg’s foot didn’t seem to bother her so I thought it would be safe to travel that far before stopping for the night. Counting up the days (with some difficulty: it seemed as though I had been away from home a month), I remembered that this was Saturday night. I thought I would stay in Bath over Sunday and get a good rest. We jogged sedately along the road, and I got out a copy of “Vanity Fair.” I was so absorbed in Becky Sharp that I wouldn’t even interrupt myself to sell books at the houses we passed. I think reading a good book makes one modest. When you see the marvellous insight into human nature which a truly great book shows, it is bound to make you feel small—like looking at the Dipper on a clear night, or seeing the winter sunrise when you go out to collect the morning eggs. And anything that makes you feel small is mighty good for you.