“‘We must find a good place for it.’”–Page 17.
17“No, no, I’ll come,” Catherine answered hastily. She had counted, without conceit, on her own popularity to offset Algernon’s handicap. The daughter of the Doctors Smith could not be turned coldly away. And after all, Miss Ainsworth’s novels might better be read than standing idle. Two years ago, a young bicyclist had sprained an ankle at Miss Ainsworth’s door, and she had promptly taken him in and cared for him, scornfully refusing pay. Therefore the youth, upon returning to his home, had sent out to her a great box full of modern fiction, an article which he had deeply and vainly desired while under her roof. Miss Ainsworth had never been given to the reading of novels. Her life had been quite too busy for such frivolities, and now her eyes were making it impossible for her to read without using glasses, which, as a confession of frailty, she despised. So the books stood, new and unopened, in a fascinating row upon the “secretary” shelf. No one so far had ventured to ask for them. It had been reserved for these young adventurers to demand them in the name of public spirit.
“We will have your name put inside them, Miss Ainsworth, on a neat little card,–‘Gift of Miss Anna Ainsworth,’ you know. Just as they do in large libraries,” Catherine explained persuasively, when Algernon had stated the object of their call, and Miss Ainsworth was regarding them in a silence which they took to be ominous.
18“And your name will go down in the records with Dr. Smith’s as one of the first contributors to the library. We intend to keep very full records and have them buried under the corner stone of the new building when we get it. We hope to get a Carnegie building, you know,” Algernon went on calmly while Catherine caught her breath. “He always insists that the townspeople do their share.”
“The young people will use the library if we have good novels,” Catherine put in helpfully, when Algernon’s imagination showed signs of exhaustion. “And then we can get them to reading more serious books by and by.”
Then Catherine too, subsided, and the clock behind its painted glass door ticked obtrusively. Presently Miss Ainsworth opened her thin lips.
“I’m perfectly willin’ ’t you should have the books,” she said grimly. “They ain’t no manner o’ use to me, and never was. I don’t care to have my name wrote inside ’em, though. And I ain’t perticular about havin’ it buried under any corner stones. But I’ll be much obliged if you’ll take ’em away soon, for I’ve just subscribed to a set of me-mores of missionaries an agent was sellin’ yesterday, and I’d like that top shelf to put ’em on.”
The enthusiasts, feeling a trifle quenched, but yet pleased at having accomplished their purpose, rose and withdrew with what grace they could 19 summon, mingling thanks with promises to remove the undesired literature as soon as possible.
“Now for Judge Arthur and the building,” sighed Catherine, as they reached the street again. “He can’t be any more gloomy about it than she was, and maybe he’ll do what we want.”
The judge was not in his office, so they sat down to wait in the stuffy room where dusty books and papers sprawled and spilled over desk, table and the top of a big black safe. Algernon attached himself to a grimy magazine, having first jotted down Miss Ainsworth’s gift in his ever-present note-book. Catherine, looking about her, soon found herself unable to restrain her housewifely fingers. She was busily sweeping the dust off the big table with a dilapidated feather duster, and putting the papers into trim piles when the door opened and Judge Arthur, little and weazened and gray, slipped softly in.