More Jonathan Papers

By Elisabeth Woodbridge
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY ELISABETH WOODBRIDGE MORRIS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published November 1915
TO JONATHAN
“What I find it hard to understand is, why a person who can see a spray of fringed gentian in the middle of a meadow can’t see a book on the sitting-room table.”
“The reason why I can see the gentian,” said Jonathan, “is because the gentian is there.”
“So is the book,” I responded.
“Which table?” he asked.
“The one with the lamp on it. It’s a red book, about so big.”
“It isn’t there; but, just to satisfy you, I’ll look again.”
He returned in a moment with an argumentative expression of countenance. “It isn’t there,” he said firmly. “Will anything else do instead?”
“No, I wanted you to read that special thing. Oh, dear! And I have all these things in my lap! And I know it is there.”
“And I know it isn’t.” He stretched himself out in the hammock and watched me as I rather ostentatiously laid down thimble, scissors, needle, cotton, and material and set out for the sitting-room table. There were a number of books on it, to be sure. I glanced rapidly through the piles, fingered the lower books, pushed aside a magazine, and pulled out from beneath it the book I wanted. I returned to the hammock and handed it over. Then, after possessing myself, again rather ostentatiously, of material, cotton, needle, scissors, and thimble, I sat down.