Every one felt a pride and personal interest in it, from the two solid men of the town who had given the land and the stone, and were consequently the heroes of the day, down to the small boys and girls who had all given their coppers. I felt that every one in town was my friend, and as I rode in state in the procession in a mud-bespattered buggy, the boys cheered, the bells rang, and I think every one felt that a new era had begun. The farmers’ boys and their “best girls” came in from all the country around, and I can’t describe to you all the droll and pathetic sights I saw.
I gave them a little talk on “Books and how to use them,” as short and as sensible as I could make it. At its close a white-haired old man, whom I had never seen before, came and took me by the hand, and said in a simple, childlike way: “Miss Martyn, I want to ask you to tell that rich young lady who has made this thing possible for us here to-day that the blessing of an old man rests upon her.
“I was born down in Maine, and never had much schooling. I came to this part of the country fifty-five years ago. My folks were killed by the Indians. It was mighty different here fifty-five years ago, I can tell you, Miss Martyn; there were Indians all about then, and wolves too. We had taken up government land, and after the old folks were killed I kept on the place as long as I could stand it, for the Indians had by that time been driven off, and there was no more danger. It was awful lonesome, though. There wasn’t a soul within twelve miles to speak to. Sometimes I thought I should go insane from lonesomeness.
“I had only two books,—my mother’s little Testament, and another book: perhaps you’ve heard of it: ’twas ‘Locke on the Human Understanding.’ Well, I’d always been fond of books. Somehow I never took to farming, and sometimes I felt as if I’d give every acre I had for a new book, or a newspaper that would tell me what was going on in the world; something that would give me new thoughts; I was so tired of thinking the old ones over and over.
“The fellows who were my nearest neighbors weren’t my kind; they hadn’t any books, and, if you’ll believe it, I’ve ridden many a time fifty miles to get a newspaper a week old.
“Well, at last I couldn’t stand it any longer. I was ashamed to ask any woman to be my wife, and to come out and live in my dreary log cabin, even if I’d known any woman to ask, but I didn’t. Unmarried women were scarce in those days. At last I sold all the land for a song,—I should have been rich now if I’d only kept it,—and I moved a little nearer folks.
“I knew my Bible, and at last, though I hadn’t much education, I began to go around preaching. But a home missionary without a salary has not much money or time for books; besides, before the railroad, I couldn’t get books any way if I’d had money, and sometimes I—perhaps you won’t believe it, ma’am, but I’ve actually cried for books, I felt so sort of hungry and starved. I was thirty years old before, to my knowledge, I ever saw a book of poetry. It was Longfellow’s. Well, ma’am, that book—I can’t tell you”—and the old man’s blue eyes filled with tears and his voice choked.
His simple, genuine feeling was so sweet and so unexpected that it fairly thrilled me. I think I never realized in my life before what mental starvation must be to a sensitive spirit. When I took him by the hand and led him around to see all the books nicely covered and numbered on the shelves, he could only smile through his tears, and touching them almost reverently, say, “Thank the Lord! I never expected to live to see so many books. Thank the Lord!”
I inquired afterwards who he was, but no one knew; they said he was a stranger who had come there simply for the day. I am sorry to have lost sight of him; he was a rare soul, I am sure.
I did the best I could with the money that you sent as a special gift for the first library. I sent to Houghton, Mifflin & Co., and bought their large lithographs of the American poets, and had them nicely framed in narrow oak frames, and hung around the reading-room, with a little biographical sketch pinned up underneath each one. The rest of the money I spent for a number of unmounted photographs from Soule’s, which I taught the young people here to mount and arrange in home-made frames. No doubt, most of them would have been much better pleased with some cheap chromos, but I thought of what would please them best ten years from now, and planned for that.