In dreams I see thee bending o'er me, To the old plantation home we rove, Where--
"Miss Sa', dat man say he ain' got nuthin' ter do wid kitch'n fixin's.--He say he's er furniss man. An' Tom done cut de wat'r off, an' I can't git dinn'r tell de plumb'r come."
A prolonged telephonic agony ensued with the plumber, which entirely dispelled the charm I had half invoked. On the way back to the library, I heard Tom at the front door: "Yassum, dat's her, but she's pow'ful busy ter day." The next moment Tom's tall figure appeared at the library door, and over his shoulder peered the taller one of a woman whose masculine features were shaded by a hat of garish variety.
"I simply could not pass without recalling myself to you, and getting one more peep," exclaimed my visitor as she brushed past Tom, "into this old-fashioned library with shelves up to the ceiling."
"Will you have this seat?" I murmured, trying to recall a previous meeting.
"Oh, no, I'll just sit in this seat in the corner."
This she did, upsetting pencil and paper on the table near-by. Both of us reached over,--I to rescue my lines, she to raise her skirt, from the narrow confines of which also she drew forth a book of dimensions that I hesitate to specify.
"I have here some literature," she drew forth yards of pasteboard arranged in economic design, "that I--"
"Madam," I raised a hand in protest, "let these over-crowded shelves be my answer," my mind the while dipping again into the past where Mammy Phyllis seemed to whisper: "Bett'r look out, dat's Cap'n Yall'r Jackit's ole lady youse foolin' wid." Thus, while my visitor rehearsed the merits of "The American People in Literature and Art," and differentiated between book agents and traveling educators, I listened to Mammy telling about Cap'n Hornet and Cap'n Yall'r Jackit and Mist'r Grab-All Spider, until finally Mammy and I sat together out under the old cherry tree and watched their famous battle.
"Being a traveling educator, may I see what books these shelves are lined with?"
"Certainly," I subconsciously assented, while the muse ran:
Thy hand my toddling steps did guide, Thy soft voice crooned to gentle sleep--
"Why on earth did you not tell me you had the books and save me this time and effort?" burst furiously from the far end of the room, putting to blush even Cap'n Yall'r Jackit's old Lady, "But you did not know it--did not know that such books as these existed, much less in your own library."