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Updated: June 19, 2025
The lady smiled as she noticed that he had not feared his soliciting habits sufficiently to leave the book in the buggy, and she made a mental note of this to be used in the story she meant to write about this book-agent type. "My name is Smith," she told him, as she tripped lightly toward the group about the lunch baskets. Eliph' Hewlitt was a small man and his movements were short and jerky.
He put his cigarettes in his pocket, caught up his gloves and stick, clapped on his hat, and started for the Bessemers' flat with a feeling of joyous expectancy he had not known for days. Evidently Blix had seen him coming, for she opened the door herself; and it suited her humor for the moment to treat him as a peddler or book-agent.
As a sheep-herder he had worried an old grammar to tatters, and read instructive books with the help of a pocket dictionary. By the light of many camp-fires he had pondered upon Prescott's histories, and the works of Washington Irving, which he bought at a high price from a book-agent. Mathematics and physics were easy for him, but general culture came hard, and he was determined to get it.
The percentage offered by the subscription houses was only about half as much as that paid by the trade, but the sales were so much greater that the author could very well afford to take it. Where the book-dealer sold ten, the book-agent sold a hundred; or at least he did so in the case of Mark Twain's books; and we all thought it reasonable he could do so with ours.
I was on the roof of the caboose when it toppled over, so all I had to do was step ashore and sit down." "Then why didn't you stay there?" she demanded furiously. "You wouldn't let me," he answered demurely. "And when I saw you weeping because I was supposed to be with the angels, I couldn't help coughing to let you know I was still hanging around, ornery as a book-agent."
Most of them lit their pipes; the captain, and one or two whom he honored, smoked fragrant cigars, and the room was soon filled with a dense cloud. Eli sat alone by the window. "Sometimes sell two at one house," said a lank book-agent, arousing himself from a reverie; "once sold three." "I think the Early Rose is about as profitable as any," said a little farmer, with a large circular beard.
The mother-in-law is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, compared to the mannish woman; the female book-agent takes on new lustre and even the poetess is a desirable companion beside her. The mannish woman wears a coat and vest and no, she doesn't wear trousers, because she doesn't dare, but a vertical strip of braid down the middle of her skirt suggests the effect.
Putnam Jones would have to be handled with gloves, and gently at that. "He he represented himself as a book-agent," he mumbled, striving to collect himself. "Jones knew him. Said he had been around here for weeks. "That's the man," said O'Dowd, scowling. "He trotted all over the county, selling books. For the love of it, do ye think? Not much. He had other fish to fry, you may be sure.
"Waal, I'll be gosh durned!" sez Leander. That wuz all he said, and he couldn't do nothin' at all, f'r that book-agent, Lemuel Higgins, had the dead wood on him, the mean, sneakin' critter! So the years passed on, one of them cyclopeedies showin' up now 'nd then, sometimes every two years 'nd sometimes every four, but allus at a time when Leander found it pesky hard to give up a fiver.
His lips were too dry to whistle; his heart was going too fast to carry a tune. He paused a little way beyond the window, which stood open with the sun falling through it, listening for the sound of their voices. It was strangely silent for a time when the book-agent was around. Joe went on, his shadow breaking the sunbeam which whitened the kitchen floor.
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