Part 45

"Oh my dear--my dear!" said my Mother.

The Old Doctor looked a little funny.

"Oh I admit it's worth something," he said, "to have you call me your 'dear.'--But I'm mad I tell you clear through. And when you've got as much 'through' to you as I have, that's some mad!--W-hew!" he said. "When I think of our village,--our precious, clean, decent, simple little All-American village--turned into a cheap--racketty--crowd-you-off-the-sidewalk Saturday Night Hell Hole...?"

"Oh--Oh--OH!" cried my Mother.

"Quick! Get him some raspberry shrub," cried my Father.

"Maybe he'd like to play the Children's new Game!" cried my Mother.

"It isn't a Game," I explained. "It's a Book!"

My Mother ran to get the Raspberry Shrub. She brought a whole pitcher. It tinkled with ice. It sounded nice. When the Old Doctor had drunken it he seemed cooled quite a little. He put the glass down on the table. He saw the Book. He looked surprised.

"Lanos--Bryant? Accounts?" he read. He looked at the date. He looked at my Father. "What you trying to do, Man?" he said. "Reconstruct a financial picture of our village as it was a generation ago? Or trace your son Carol's very palpable distaste for a brush, back to his grandfather's somewhat avid devotion to pork chops?" He picked up the book. He opened the first pages. He read the names written at the tops of the pages. Some of the names were pretty faded.--"Alden, Hoppin, Weymoth, Dun Vorlees," he read. He put on his glasses. He scrunched his eyes. He grunted his throat. "W-hew!" he said. "A hundred pounds of beans in one month?--Is it any wonder that young Alden ran away to sea--and sunk clear to the bottom in his first shipwreck?--'Roast Beef'?--'Roast Beef'?--'Malt and Hops'?--'Malt and Hops'?--'Roast Beef'?--'Malt and Hops'?--Is that where Old Man Weymoth got his rheumatism?--And Young Weymoth--his blood pressure?--Dun Vorlees?--Dun Vorlees?--What? No meat at all from November to February?--No fruit?--Only three pounds of sugar?--Great Gastronomics! Back of all that arrogance,--that insulting aloofness,--was real Hunger gnawing at the Dun Vorlees vitals?--Was that the reason why--?--Merciful Heavens!" cried the Old Doctor. "This book is worth twenty dollars to me--this very minute in my Practice! The light it sheds on the Village Stomach,--the Village Nerves,--the--"

"Please, Sir," I said. "The Book is Carol's. Mr. Lanos Bryant gave it to him.--And we're planning to get a great deal more than twenty dollars for it when we sell it!"

"Eh?" said the Old Doctor. "What?"

He jerked round in his chair and glared at Carol.

"This I'll have you understand, my Young Man," he said, "is in the cause of Science!"

Carol looked pretty nervous. He began to smooth his hair as well as he could without bristles. It didn't smooth much.

"Oh please, Sir," I explained, "people who write books never have smooth hair!"

"Who's talking about writing books?" roared the Old Doctor.

"Please, Sir, we're trying to talk about it," I said. My voice sounded pretty little. "It's the back part of the book that's the important part," I explained. "It's the back part of the book that we're writing!"

"Eh?" said the Old Doctor.

He slammed the book together. He stood up and began to look for his hat.

There didn't seem a moment to lose if we we're going to get him into our book. I ran and caught him by the hand. Even if his face was busy his hands always had time to be friends with Carol and me.

"Oh please--please--please," I besought him. "If you were a Beautiful Smell instead of a Beautiful Doctor,--what Beautiful Smell in the whole wide world would you choose to be?"

"What?" said the old Doctor. "What? W-h-a-t?" he kept saying over and over. He looked at my Father. He looked at my Mother. My Mother told him about our Book. He made a loud Guffaw. "Guffaw" I think is the noise he made. Carol is sure that it is! He looked at Carol. He looked at me. He began to Guffaw all over again.

"Well really, Young Authorettes," he said, "I hardly know how to answer you or how to choose. Ether or Chloroform and general Disinfectants being the most familiar savors of my daily life,--the only savors indeed that I ever expect to suggest to anybody--" He looked out the window. There was an apple-blossom tree. It made the window look very full of June. His collar seemed to hurt him. It made him pretty serious. It made his voice all solemn.

"But I'll tell you, Kiddies," he said quite suddenly. "I'll tell you the Sweetest Thing that I ever smelled in my life!--It was the first Summer I was back from College.--I was out on the Common playing ball. Somebody brought me word that my Father was dead.--I didn't go home.--I slunk off instead to my favorite trout-brook--and sat down under a big white birch tree--and cursed!--I was very bitter. I needed my Father very much that year. And my step-mother was a harsh woman.--Late that night when I got home,--ugly with sorrow,--I found that I'd left my Catcher's glove. It happened to be one that my Father had given me.--With matches and a tin-can lantern I fumbled my way back to the brook. The old glove lay palm-upward in the moss and leaves. Somebody had filled the palm with wild violets.--I put my face down in it--like a kid--and bawled my heart out.--It was little Annie Dun Vorlees it seemed who had put the violets there. Trailed me clear from the Ball Field. Little kid too. Only fourteen years to my twenty. Why her Mother wouldn't even let me come to the house. Had made Annie promise even not to speak to me.--But when Trouble hit me, little Annie--?" The Old Doctor frowned his eyebrows. "Words!" he said. "It's words after all that have the real fragrance to 'em!--Now take that word 'Loyalty' for instance. I can't even see it in a Newspaper without--" He put back his head suddenly. He gave a queer little chuckle. "Sounds funny, doesn't it, Kiddies," he laughed, "to say that the sweetest thing you ever smelled in your life was an old baseball glove thrown down on the mossy bank of a brook?"

I looked at Carol. Carol looked at me. His eyes were popping. We ran to the Book. We snatched it open. It bumped our heads. We pointed to the writing. I read it out loud.

The most beautiful smell in the world is the smell of an old tattered baseball glove that's been lying in the damp grass--by the side of a brook--in June Time.

My Mother looked funny.

"Good Gracious," she said. "Are my children developing 'Second Sight'?--First it was the 'Field of Tulips' already written down as their Father's choice before he could even get the words out of his mouth!--And now, hours before the Old Doctor ever even dreamed of the Book's existence they've got his distinctly unique taste in perfumes all--"