Whom the Gods Destroyed

by Josephine Daskam Bacon

"Oh, yes, he'll be here," the old lady returned comfortably. "He'll be here soon. We can wait."

The librarian pressed her lips together and retired into her work. The minutes passed. Presently the outer door opened softly, and the irregular tap of a crutch was heard. Jimmy's head peered around the partition into the ante-room. The old ladies uttered a chirp of delight, and slipped out into the hall for a brief, whispered consultation, returning with a modest request for "Griffith Gaunt, by Charles Reade." The elder of the two shut it carefully into her bag, remarking sociably, "I wanted to read the Cloister and the Hearth, by the same author, I'd heard there was so much travel in it, but he said sister never could bear the ending."

Going into the reading-room later, on some errand, the librarian was surprised to find the magazines neatly laid out in piles, the chairs straightened, the shades pulled level, and a fresh bunch of lilacs in the jar under the window. She guessed who had done it, but Jimmy was not to be seen. Once, during the next afternoon, she thought she saw a small, grey jacket disappearing into the waste-room, but much to her own surprise, forbore to make certain of it. During the next few days, when her time was entirely taken up with the catalogue in the front of the library, and the assistant transacted all business among the shelves, she was perfectly convinced that somewhere between sections A and K a little boy with a brown book was concealed, but found herself too busy to rout him out.

Even when a red-faced, liveried coachman presented her with a note, directed in a sprawling, childish hand to "Mr. Jimmy Reese, Esq.," she only coughed and said severely, "There is no such official in the library."

"It's just the little boy, ma'am, that's meant," the man explained deferentially. "Master Clarence is back for the summer—Mrs. Clarence Vanderhoof, ma'am—and he always sends a note to the little fellow. There was some book he mentioned to him last year as likely that he would enjoy, and Master Clarence wants it, if it's in. I was to give him the note."

"I will send a list of our juveniles to Mrs. Vanderhoof," said the librarian, in her most business-like manner, "and I will give you, for Master Clarence, the new Henty book. He will probably like that."

"I beg pardon, ma'am," persisted the coachman, "but Master Clarence says that there was a book that the little boy particularly recommended to him, and I was to be very special about it. He goes a good deal by the little fellow's judgment. I'll call in again when he's here, after my other errands."

Miss Watkins sighed, and gave way. "Will you see, Miss Mather, if Jimmy Reese is in the library?" she inquired, and Miss Mather, smiling, obeyed her.

He was never formally enfranchised, but he took up his place in the department of Travel and Adventure, and held it unchallenged. All the long, spring afternoons he sat there, throned on the books, leaning against them, banked safely in from the tumult of the world outside, a quiet little shadow among the shadowy throngs that filled the covers.