“Well, now, that’s strange. I never heard of a one of them—I must get two or three and see how you write.”
“That’s good of you,” I chuckled, in the best of spirits.
“Bertie Wilkerson—you remember Bertie, don’t you?—he was the son of the justice of the peace here—well, he’s on one of the Cleveland papers now, writing in some way. There’s a woman over here in Wabash (I knew the name of the novelist coming now) has made a big reputation for herself with her books. They have whole stacks of ’em here in the stores, I see. I read one of ’em. They tell me she’s worth four or five hundred thousand dollars by now. You’ve heard of her, haven’t you?” She gave me her name.
“Yes,” I replied very humbly, “I have.”
“Well, I don’t suppose you make that much, anyhow, do you?” she queried.
“No,” I replied. “I’m very sorry, I don’t.”
I could see by the stress she laid on the four or five hundred thousand dollars and the stacks of books in the local store that my type of authorship would never appeal to her.
Be that as it may, we found other things equally interesting to both to talk about. The town had changed. She began to tell when and in what manner and why the old pond had been filled in; why the leading banker, whose wide verandahed house had been a subject of wonder and envy to me, had moved it off the old property and built an even more splendiferous home. Children and grand-children had come to live with him. I could see the old house in its new position on the other side of the pond—a poor affair compared to what I thought it was. Why do our memories lie so? Could anyone or anything be a greater liar than the average memory?
When I came out of there after a time and returned to the car Franklin was still patiently sketching, making good use of his time, whereas Speed was sitting with his feet on a part of his engine equipment cleaning a chain. They were partly surrounded now: (1) by old Mr. Gridley, he of my former room, who was retailing the story of his son’s death; (2) by a short, dusty, rotund, rather oily-haired man who announced that he was the owner of the property which had formerly sheltered me, and who by virtue of having cut down all the trees and built the two abominable houses in front seemed to think that he was entitled to my friendship and admiration—a non sequitur which irritated me greatly; (3) by a small boy from somewhere in the vicinity who stood with his legs very far apart, his hands in his pockets, and merely stared and listened while Mr. Gridley related the moving details of his son’s death and the futility of the campaign at the Dardanelles. The owner of the houses in front kept trying to interject bits of his personal history as carpenter, builder, land speculator, and the like. It was most entertaining.
“I was just saying to your friend here,” said the latter, who had never met me until this moment, “that if you’re in town long enough you must come and take dinner with me. We’re just plain people, but we can give you plenty to eat. Anyone who lived here as long ago as you did——”