More Jonathan Papers Part 2

No, I admit; it was in a saucer just behind the cus.h.i.+on.

You said cus.h.i.+on.

I know. Its all right.

Now, if you had said simply bureau, Id have looked in other places on it.

Yes, youd have _looked_ in other places! I could not forbear responding. There is, I grant, another side to this question. One evening when I went upstairs I found a partial presentation of it, in the form of a little newspaper clipping, pinned on my cus.h.i.+on. It read as follows:

My dear, said she, please run and bring me the needle from the haystack.

Oh, I dont know which haystack.

Look in all the haystacksyou cant miss it; theres only one needle.

Jonathan was in the cellar at the moment. When he came up, he said, Did I hear any one laughing?

I dont know. Did you?

I thought maybe it was you.

It might have been. Something amused meI forget what.

I accused Jonathan of having written it himself, but he denied it. Some other Jonathan, then; for, as I said, this is not a personal matter, it is a world matter. Let us grant, then, a certain allowance for those who hunt in woman-made haystacks. But what about pockets? Is not a man lord over his own pockets? And are they not nevertheless as so many haystacks piled high for his confusion? Certain it is that Jonathan has nearly as much trouble with his pockets as he does with the corners and cupboards and shelves and drawers of his house. It usually happens over our late supper, after his day in town. He sets down his teacup, struck with a sudden memory. He feels in his vest pocketsfirst the right, then the left. He proceeds to search himself, murmuring, I thought something came to-day that I wanted to show youoh, here! no, that isnt it. I thought I put itno, those are to bewhats this? No, thats a memorandum. Now, where in He runs through the papers in his pockets twice over, and in the second round I watch him narrowly, and perhaps see a corner of an envelope that does not look like office work. There, Jonathan! Whats that? No, not thatthat!

He pulls it out with an air of immense relief. There! I knew I had something. Thats it.

When we travel, the same thing happens with the tickets, especially if they chance to be costly and complicated ones, with all the s.h.i.+fts and changes of our journey printed thick upon their faces. The conductor appears at the other end of the car. Jonathan begins vaguely to fumble without lowering his paper. Pocket after pocket is browsed through in this way. Then the paper slides to his knee and he begins a more thorough investigation, with all the characteristic clapping and diving motions that seem to be necessary. Some pockets must always be clapped and others dived into to discover their contents.

No tickets. The conductor is halfway up the car. Jonathans face begins to grow serious. He rises and looks on the seat and under it. He sits down and takes out packet after packet of papers and goes over them with scrupulous care. At this point I used to become really anxiousto make hasty calculations as to our financial resources, immediate and ultimateto wonder if conductors ever really put nice people like us off trains. But that was long ago. I know now that Jonathan has never lost a ticket in his life. So I glance through the paper that he has dropped or watch the landscape until he reaches a certain stage of calm and definite pessimism, when he says, I must have pulled them out when I took out those postcards in the other car. Yes, thats just what has happened.

Then, the conductor being only a few seats away, I beg Jonathan to look once more in his vest pocket, where he always puts them. To oblige me he looks, though without faith, and lo! this time the tickets fairly fling themselves upon him, with smiles almost curling up their corners. Does the brownie travel with us, then?

I begin to suspect that some of the good men who have been blamed for forgetting to mail letters in their pockets have been, not indeed blameless, but at least misunderstood. Probably they do not forget.

Probably they hunt for the letters and cannot find them, and conclude that they have already mailed them.

In the matter of the home haystacks Jonathans confidence in himself has at last been shaken. For a long time, when he returned to me after some futile search, he used to say, Of course you can look for it if you like, but it is _not_ there. But man is a reasoning, if not altogether a reasonable, being, and with a sufficient acc.u.mulation of evidence, especially when there is some one constantly at hand to interpret its teachings, almost any set of opinions, however fixed, may be shaken. So here.

Once when we shut up the farm for the winter I left my fountain pen behind. This was little short of a tragedy, but I comforted myself with the knowledge that Jonathan was going back that week-end for a days hunt.

Be sure to get the pen first of all, I said, and put it in your pocket.

Where is it? he asked.

In the little medicine cupboard over the fireplace in the orchard room, standing up at the side of the first shelf.

Why not on your desk? he asked.

Because I was writing tags in there, and set it up so it would be out of the way.

And it _was_ out of the way. All right. Ill collect it.

He went, and on his return I met him with eager handMy pen!

Im sorry, he began.

You didnt forget! I exclaimed.

No. But it wasnt there.

Butdid you look?

Yes, I looked.

Thoroughly?

Yes. I lit three matches.

Matches! Then you didnt get it when you first got there!

WhynoI had the dog to attend toandbut I had plenty of time when I got back, and it _wasnt_ there.

WellDear me! Did you look anywhere else? I suppose I may be mistaken.

Perhaps I did take it back to the desk.

Thats just what I thought myself, said Jonathan. So I went there, and looked, and then I looked on all the mantelpieces and your bureau. You must have put it in your bag the last minutebet its there now!

Bet it isnt.

It wasnt. For two weeks more I was driven to using other pensstrange and distracting to the fingers and the eyes and the mind. Then Jonathan was to go up again.

Please look once more, I begged, and dont expect not to see it. I can fairly see it myself, this minute, standing up there on the right-hand side, just behind the machine oil can.

Oh, Ill look, he promised. If its there, Ill find it.

He returned penless. I considered buying another. But we were planning to go up together the last week of the hunting season, and I thought I would wait on the chance.

We got off at the little station and hunted our way up, making great sweeps and jogs, as hunters must, to take in certain spots we thought promisingcertain ravines and swamp edges where we are always sure of hearing the thunderous whir of partridge wings, or the soft, shrill whistle of woodc.o.c.k. At noon we broiled chops and rested in the lee of the wood edge, where, even in the late fall, one can usually find spots that are warm and still. It was dusk by the time we came over the crest of the farm ledges and saw the huddle of the home buildings below us, and quite dark when we reached the house. Fires had been made and coals smouldered on the hearth in the sitting-room.

You light the lamp, I said, and Ill just take a match and go through to see if that pen _should_ happen to be there.

No use doing anything to-night, said Jonathan. To-morrow morning you can have a thorough hunt.

But I took my match, felt my way into the next room, past the fireplace, up to the cupboard, then struck my match. In its first flare-up I glanced in. Then I chuckled.

Jonathan had gone out to the dining-room, but he has perfectly good ears.

NO! he roared, and his tone of dismay, incredulity, rage, sent me off into gales of unscrupulous laughter. He was striding in, candle in hand, shouting, It was _not there!_