Read Online The 42nd Parallel by John Dos Passos - Free Book Online

halfopen package to Fainy, who snatched it to him. Then he stooped and picked the book up from under his foot with a slow sweeping gesture of the hand and slipped it in his pocket. “I suppose I’ll have to go find them myself,” he went on in his purringest voice. When the kitchen door closed behind them he snarled in Fainy’s ear, “Under the seat, you little rat . . . If you play a trick like that again I’ll break every goddam bone in your body.” And he brought his knee up so hard into the seat of Fainy’s pants that his teeth clacked together and he shot out into the rain towards the barn. “Honest, I didn’t do it on purpose,” Fainy whined. But Doc Bingham was already back in the house and his voice was burbling comfortably out into the rainy dusk with the first streak of lamplight.
    This time Fainy was careful to open the package before he brought it in. Doc Bingham took the books out of his hand without looking at him and Fainy went round behind the stovepipe. He stood there in the soggy steam of his clothes listening to Doc Bingham boom. He was hungry, but nobody seemed to think of offering him a piece of pie.
    “Ah, my dear friends, how can I tell you with what gratitude to the Great Giver a lonely minister of the gospel of light, wandering among the tares and troubles of this world, finds ready listeners. I’m sure that these little books will be consoling, interesting and inspirational to all that undertake the slight effort of perusal. I feel this so strongly that I always carry a few extra copies with me to dispose of for a moderate sum. It breaks my heart that I can’t yet give them away free gratis.”
    “How much are they?” asked the old woman, a sudden sharpness coming over her features. The scrawny woman let her arms drop to her side and shook her head.
    “Do you remember, Fenian,” asked Doc Bingham, leaning genially back in his chair, “what the cost price of these little booklets was?” Fainy was sore. He didn’t answer. “Come here, Fenian,” said Doc Bingham in honied tones, “allow me to remind you of the words of the immortal bard:
     
Lowliness is your ambition’s ladder
Whereto the climber upward turns his face
But when he once attains the topmost round
He then unto the ladder turns his back
     
    “You must be hungry. You can eat my pie.”
    “I reckon we can find the boy a piece of pie,” said the old woman.
    “Ain’t they ten cents?” said Fainy, coming forward.
    “Oh, if they’re only ten cents I think I’d like one,” said the old woman quickly. The scrawny woman started to say something, but it was too late.
    The pie had hardly disappeared into Fainy’s gullet and the bright dime out of the old tobaccobox in the cupboard into Doc Bingham’s vest pocket when there was a sound of clinking harness and the glint of a buggylamp through the rainy dark outside the window. The old woman got to her feet and looked nervously at the door, which immediately opened. A heavyset grayhaired man with a small goatee sprouting out of a round red face came in, shaking the rain off the flaps of his coat. After him came a skinny lad about Fainy’s age.
    “How do you do, sir; how do you do, son?” boomed Doc Bingham through the last of his pie and coffee.
    “They asked if they could put their horse in the barn until it should stop rainin’. It’s all right, ain’t it, James?” asked the old woman nervously. “I reckon so,” said the older man, sitting down heavily in the free chair. The old woman had hidden the pamphlet in the drawer of the kitchen table. “Travelin’ in books, I gather.” He stared hard at the open package of pamphlets. “Well, we don’t need any of that trash here, but you’re welcome to stay the night in the barn. This is no night to throw a human being out inter.”
    So they unhitched the horse and made beds for themselves in the hay over the cowstable. Before they left the house the older man made them give up their matches. “Where