with the hundred dollars which she had found in the book mary started an account in the crowfield savings bank, under her own name. she was very proud of her little blue bank-book, and she hoped that some time, in some unexpected way, she would save enough money to go to college, as john was to do.
but the outlook was rather hopeless. the corliss family were far from well off. even in crowfield, where expenses were low, they had a hard time to live on the small income from what dr. corliss had managed to save while he was professor of philosophy in the city college. dr. corliss was writing a book which he hoped would some day make his fortune. but the book would not be finished for many a day. meanwhile, though there was very little money coming in, it was steadily going out; as money has a way of doing.
the best thing the family could do at present was to save as much as possible by going without servants and dainties and fine clothes—just[35] as people have to do in war-time; and by doing things themselves, instead of having things done for them. mrs. corliss was a clever manager. she had learned how to cook and sew and do all kinds of things with her deft fingers; and mary was a good assistant and pupil, while john did everything that a little boy could do to help. he ran errands and built the fires, and even set the table and helped wipe the dishes when his mother and sister were busy.
the neighbors were very friendly, and there were so many pleasant new things in crowfield that the family did not miss the pleasures they used to enjoy in the city, nor the pretty clothes and luxuries which were now out of the question. and mary did not spend much time worrying about college. there would be time enough for that.
after the finding of that hundred-dollar bill, mary and john spent a great deal of time in opening and shutting the leaves of books in the library, hoping that they would come upon other bookmarks as valuable as that first one. but whether aunt nan had left the bill there by mistake, as dr. corliss imagined, or whether she had put it there on purpose, as mary liked to think, apparently the old lady had not repeated[36] herself. the only foreign things they found in the musty old volumes were bits of pressed flowers and ferns, and now and then a flattened bug which had been crushed in its pursuit of knowledge.
john soon grew tired of this fruitless search. but mary came upon so many interesting things in the books themselves that she often forgot what she was looking for. many of the books had queer, old-fashioned pictures; some had names and dates of long ago written on the fly-leaf. in many mary found that aunt nan had scrawled notes and comments—sometimes amusing and witty; sometimes very hard to understand.
mary loved her library. she had never before had a corner all to herself, except her tiny bedroom. and to feel that this spacious room, with everything in it, was all hers, in which to do just as she pleased, was a very pleasant thing.
“where’s mary?” asked katy summers one afternoon, running into the corliss house without knocking, as she had earned the right to do.
“i think she is in the library,” said mrs. corliss, who was busy sewing in the living-room. “that is a pretty likely place in which to look nowadays, when she isn’t anywhere else!”
[37]“shall i go there to find her?” asked katy.
“yes, dear; go right in,” said mrs. corliss. “she will be glad to see you, i am sure.”
the door of the library was hospitably open. and katy summers, creeping up on tiptoe and peeping in softly, saw mary with her thumb between the leaves of a book, kneeling before one of the bookshelves.
“i spy!” cried katy. “what’s the old bookworm up to now? or perhaps i ought to say, considering your position, what’s she down to now?”
mary jumped hastily to her feet. “hello, katy,” she said cordially. “i was just looking up something. say, katy, do you know what fun it is to look up quotations?”
“no,” said katy, laughing. “i don’t see any fun in that. no more fun than looking up things in a dictionary.”
“well, it is fun,” returned mary. “i think i must be something like aunt nan. she loved quotations. just look at this row of ‘gems from the poets.’ they’re full of quotations, katy. i’m going to read them all, some time.”
“goodness!” cried katy. “what an idea! i think poetry is stupid stuff, sing-song and silly.”
“so daddy thinks,” said mary. “but it[38] isn’t, really. it is full of the most interesting stories and legends and beautiful things. this library bores daddy almost to death, because all the books on these two walls are poetry. i believe that aunt nan had the works of every old poet who ever wrote in the english language. and see, these are the lives of the poets.” she pointed to the shelves in one corner.
“huh!” grunted katy. “well, what of it?”
“well, you see,” said mary, looking up at aunt nan’s portrait, “the more i stay in this library, the more i like aunt nan’s books, and the more i want to please aunt nan herself. i like her, katy.”
“i don’t!” said katy, eyeing the portrait sideways. “you never had her for a neighbor, you see.”
“she never did anything to you, did she?” asked mary.
“no-o,” drawled katy reluctantly. “she never did anything either good or bad to me. but—she was awfully queer!”
“of course she was,” agreed mary. “but that isn’t the worst thing in the world, to be queer. and she was awfully kind to me.— say, katy, don’t you like shakespeare?”
“not very well,” confessed katy.
[39]“well, i do,” mary asserted. “i haven’t read much of him, but i’m going to. every time i look at that head of shakespeare on the mantelpiece, i remember that it was my composition about shakespeare that was at the bottom of almost everything nice that has happened in crowfield. why, if it hadn’t been for him, perhaps we shouldn’t have come to live here at all, and then i shouldn’t ever have known you, katy summers!”
“gracious!” exclaimed katy. “wouldn’t that have been awful? yes, i believe i do like him a little, since he did that. i wrote a composition about him once, too. it didn’t bring anything good in my direction. but then, it wasn’t a very good composition. i only got a c with it.”
“well,” said mary, “i feel as if i owe him something, and aunt nan something. and sooner or later i’m going to read everything he ever wrote.”
“goodness!” said katy. “then you’ll never have time to read anything else, i guess. look!”— she pointed around the walls. “why, there are hundreds of shakespeares. hundreds and hundreds!”
“they are mostly different editions of the same thing,” said mary wisely. “i shan’t have[40] to read every edition. there aren’t so very many books by him, really. not more than thirty, i think. i’ve been looking at this little red set that’s so easy to handle and has such nice notes. i like the queer spelling. i’m going to read ‘midsummer night’s dream’ first. i think that’s what aunt nan meant.”
“what do you mean by ‘what aunt nan meant’?” asked katy curiously. “has she written you another letter?” mary had told her about the will.
“no, not exactly,” confessed mary. “but see what i found just now when i finished reading ‘shakespeare the boy,’—the book that was lying on her desk with that first note she wrote me.” and she opened the volume which she held in her hand at the last page. below the word “finis” were penned in a delicate, old-fashioned writing these words:—
mem. read in this order, with notes.
1. midsummer night’s dream.
2. julius cæsar.
3. twelfth night.
4. tempest.
5. as you like it.
6. merchant of venice.
7. hamlet, etc.
[41]“pooh!” cried katy. “i don’t believe she meant that for you, at all! she was just talking to herself. let’s see if there was anything written at the end of ‘master skylark.’ didn’t you say that was lying on her desk, too?”
they ran to get this other child’s book, which, queerly enough, had also been left lying on the desk, as if aunt nan had just been reading both. and there, too, at the end was written exactly the same list, with the same instructions.
“that settles it!” exclaimed mary. “she did mean me to see that list, so she left it in both those children’s books, which she thought i would be sure to read first. i am going to read shakespeare’s plays in just the order she wished. i’m going to read my very own books in my very own library. i’m going to begin this very afternoon!” mary was quite excited.
“oh, no! please not this afternoon!” begged katy. “i want you to come with me while i do an errand at the express office in ashley. it is a three-mile walk. i don’t want to go alone. please, mary!”
“oh, bother!” mary was about to say; for she wanted to begin her reading. but she thought better of it. katy had been so kind to her. and, after all, it was a beautiful afternoon,[42] and the walk would be very pleasant down a new road which she had never traveled. she laid down the book reluctantly.
“well,” she said. “i can read my books any time, i suppose. isn’t it nice to think of that? yes—i’ll go with you, katy. it will be fun. just wait till i get my hat, and tell mother.”
“you’re a dear!” burst out katy, hugging her.
“if i go with you this time, katy, you’ll have to read shakespeare with me another time,” bargained mary with good-natured guile.
“all right,” said katy. “sometime, when it is not so nice and crisp and walky out of doors, as it is to-day.”
and off the two girls started, with comradely arms about one another’s shoulders.
