The Hills of Hingham Part 5

No, I have not lost the vision. The daughter of that girl, the image of her mother, slipped into my cla.s.sroom the other day. Nor have I faltered in the quest. The search goes on, and must go on; for however often I get it, only to cast it aside, the indispensable, the ultimate, must continue to be indispensable and ultimate, until, some day--

What matters how many times I have had it, to discover every time that it is only a piece of cheesecloth, ordinary cheesecloth, dyed black and stamped with red letters? The search must go on, notwithstanding the clutter in the kitchen closet. The cellar is crowded with Dustless-Dusters, too; the garret is stuffed with them. There is little else besides them anywhere in the house. And this was an empty house when I moved into it, a few years ago.

As I moved in, an old man moved out, back to the city whence a few years before he had come; and he took back with him twelve two-horse wagon-loads of Dustless-Dusters. He had spent a long life collecting them, and now, having gathered all there were in the country, he was going back to the city, in a last pathetic, a last heroic, effort to find the one Dustless-Duster more.

It was the old man's twelve two-horse loads that were pathetic. There were many sorts of things in those twelve loads, of many lands, of many dates, but all of one stamp. The mark was sometimes hard to find, corroded sometimes nearly past deciphering, yet never quite gone. The red letters were indelible on every piece, from the gross of antique candle-moulds (against the kerosene's giving out) to an ancient coffin-plate, far oxidized, and engraved "Jones," which, the old man said, as he pried it off the side of the barn, "might come in handy any day."

The old man has since died and been laid to rest. Upon his coffin was set a new silver plate, engraved simply and truthfully, "Brown."

We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain, says Holy Writ, that we can carry nothing out. But it is also certain that we shall attempt to carry out, or try to find as soon as we are out, a Dustless-Duster. For we did bring something with us into this world, losing it temporarily, to be forever losing and finding it; and when we go into another world, will it not be to carry the thing with us there, or to continue there our eternal search for it? We are not so certain of carrying nothing out of this world, but we are certain of leaving many things behind.

Among those that I shall leave behind me is The Perfect Automatic Carpet-Layer. But I did not buy that. She did. It was one of the first of our perfections.

We have more now. I knew as I entered the house that night that something had happened; that the hope of the early dawn had died, for some cause, with the dusk. The trouble showed in her eyes: mingled doubt, chagrin, self-accusation, self-defense, defeat--familiar symptoms. She had seen something, something perfect, and had bought it.

I knew the look well, and the feelings all too well, and said nothing.

For suppose I had been at home that day and she had been in town?

Still, on my trip into town that morning I ran the risk of meeting the man who sold me "The Magic Stropless Razor Salve." No, not that man!

I shall never meet him again, for vengeance is mine, saith the _Lord_.

But suppose I had met him? And suppose he had had some other salve, _Safety_ Razor Salve this time to sell?

It is for young men to see visions and for old men to dream dreams; but it is for no man or woman to buy one.

She had seen a vision, and had bought it--"The Perfect Automatic Carpet-Layer."

I kept silence, as I say, which is often a thoughtful thing to do.

"Are you ill?" she ventured, handing me my tea.

"No."

"Tired?"

"No."

"I hope you are not very tired, for the Parsonage Committee brought the new carpet this afternoon, and I have started to put it down. I thought we would finish it this evening. It won't be any work at all for you, for I--I--bought you one of these to-day to put it down with,"--pus.h.i.+ng an ill.u.s.trated circular across the table toward me.

ANY CHILD CAN USE IT

THE PERFECT AUTOMATIC CARPET-LAYER

No more carpet-laying bills. Do your own laying. No wrinkles. No crowded corners. No sore knees. No pounded fingers. No broken backs.

Stand up and lay your carpet with the Perfect Automatic. Easy as sweeping. Smooth as putting paper on the wall. You hold the handle, and the Perfect Automatic does the rest. Patent Applied For. Price--

--but it was not the price! It was the tool--a weird hybrid tool, part gun, part rake, part catapult, part curry-comb, fit apparently for almost any purpose, from the business of blunderbuss to the office of an apple-picker. Its handle, which any child could hold, was somewhat shorter and thicker than a hoe-handle, and had a slotted tin barrel, a sort of intestine, on its ventral side along its entire length. Down this intestine, their points sticking through the slot, moved the tacks in single file to a spring-hammer close to the floor. This hammer was operated by a lever or tongue at the head of the handle, the connection between the hammer at the distal end and the lever at the proximal end being effected by means of a steel-wire spinal cord down the dorsal side of the handle. Over the fist of a hammer spread a jaw of sharp teeth to take hold of the carpet. The thing could not talk; but it could do almost anything else, so fearfully and wonderfully was it made.

As for laying carpets with it, any child could do that. But we did n't have any children then, and I had quite outgrown my childhood. I tried to be a boy again just for that night. I grasped the handle of the Perfect Automatic, stretched with our united strength, and pushed down on the lever. The spring-hammer drew back, a little trap or mouth at the end of the slotted tin barrel opened for the tack, the tack jumped out, turned over, landed point downward upon the right spot in the carpet, the crouching hammer sprang, and--

And then I lifted up the Perfect Automatic to see if the tack went in,--a simple act that any child could do, but which took automatically and perfectly all the stretch out of the carpet; for the hammer did not hit the tack; the tack really did not get through the trap; the trap did not open the slot; the slot--but no matter. We have no carpets now. The Perfect Automatic stands in the garret with all its original varnish on. At its feet sits a half-used can of "Beesene, The Prince of Floor Pastes."

We have only hard-wood floors now, which we treated, upon the strength of the label, with this Prince of Pastes, "Beesene"--"guaranteed not to show wear or dirt or to grow gritty; water-proof, gravel-proof. No rug will ruck on it, no slipper stick to it. Needs no weighted brush.

Self-s.h.i.+ning. The only perfect Floor Wax known. One box will do all the floors you have."

Indeed, half a box did all the floors we have. No slipper would stick to the paste, but the paste would stick to the slipper; and the greasy Prince did in spots all the floors we have: the laundry floor, the attic floor, and the very boards of the vegetable cellar.

I am young yet. I have not had time to collect my twelve two-horse loads. But I am getting them fast.

Only the other day a tall lean man came to the side door, asking after my four boys by name, and inquiring when my new book would be off the stocks, and, incidentally, showing me a patent-applied-for device called "The Fat Man's Friend."

"The Friend" was a steel-wire hoop, shaped and jointed like a pair of calipers, but k.n.o.bbed at its points with little metal b.a.l.l.s. The instrument was made to open and spring closed about the Fat Man's neck, and to hold, by means of a clasp on each side, a napkin, or bib, spread securely over the Fat Man's bosom.

"Ideal thing, now, is n't it?" said the agent, demonstrating with his handkerchief.

"Why--yes"--I hesitated--"for a fat man, perhaps."

"Just so," he replied, running me over rapidly with a professional eye; "but you know, Professor, that when a man's forty, or thereabouts, it's the nature of him to stouten. Once past forty he's liable to pick up any day. And when he starts, you know as well as I, Professor, when he starts there's nothing fattens faster than a man of forty. You ought to have one of these 'Friends' on hand."

"But fat does n't run in my family," I protested, my helpless, single-handed condition being plainly manifest in my tone.

"No matter," he rejoined, "look at me! Six feet three, and thin as a lath. I 'm what you might call a walking skeleton, ready to disjoint, as the poet says, and eat all my meals in fear, which I would do if 't wa'n't for this little 'Friend.' I can't eat without it. I miss it more when I am eatin' than I miss the victuals. I carry one with me all the time. Awful handy little thing. Now--"

"But--" I put in.

"Certainly," he continued, with the smoothest-running motor I ever heard, "but here's the point of the whole matter, as you might say.

_This_ thing is up to date, Professor. Now, the old-fas.h.i.+oned way of tying a knot in the corner of your napkin and anchoring it under your Adam's apple--_that's_ gone by. Also the stringed bib and safety-pin.

Both those devices were crude--but necessary, of course, Professor--and inconvenient, and that old-fas.h.i.+oned knot really dangerous; for the knot, pressing against the Adam's apple, or the apple, as you might say, trying to swallow the knot--well, if there isn't less apoplexy and strangulation when this little Friend finds universal application, then I 'm no Prophet, as the Good Book says."

"But you see--" I broke in.

"I do, Professor. It's right here. I understand your objection. But it is purely verbal and academic, Professor. You are troubled concerning the name of this indispensable article. But you know, as well as I--even better with your education, Professor--that there 's nothing, absolutely nothing in a name. 'What's in a name?' the poet says. And I 'll agree with you--though, of course, it's confidential--that 'The Fat Man's Friend' is, as you literary folks would say, more or less of a _nom de plume_. Isn't it? Besides,--if you 'll allow me the language, Professor,--it's too delimiting, restricting, prejudicing. Sets a lean man against it. But between us, Professor, they 're going to change the name of the next batch.

They're--"

"Indeed!" I exclaimed; "what's the next batch going to be?"

"Oh, just the same--fifteen cents each--two for a quarter. You could n't tell them apart. You might just as well have one of these, and run no chances getting one of the next lot. They'll be precisely the same; only, you see, they're going to name the next ones 'Every Bosom's Friend,' to fit lean and fat, and without distinction of s.e.x. Ideal thing now, is n't it? Yes, that's right--fifteen cents--two for twenty-five, Professor?--don't you want another for your wife?"

No, I did not want another for her. But if _she_ had been at home, and I had been away, who knows but that all six of us had come off with a "Friend" apiece? They were a bargain by the half-dozen.

A bargain? Did anybody ever get a bargain--something worth more than he paid? Well--you shall, when you bring home a Dustless-Duster.

And who has not brought it home! Or who is not about to bring it home!

Not all the years that I have searched, not all the loads that I have collected, count against the conviction that at last I have it--the perfect thing--until I _reach_ home. But with several of my perfections I have never yet reached home, or I am waiting an opportune season to give them to my wife. I have been disappointed; but let no one try to tell me that there is no such thing as Perfection. Is not the desire for it the breath of my being? Is not the search for it the end of my existence? Is not the belief that at last I possess it--in myself, my children, my breed of hens, my religious creed, my political party--is not this conviction, I say, all there is of existence?

It is very easy to see that perfection is not in any of the other political parties. During a political campaign, not long since, I wrote to a friend in New Jersey,--

"Now, whatever your particular, personal brand of political faith, it is clearly your moral duty to vote this time the Democratic ticket."