besides books. Kilo may be strong and willin' on books, but she's strong
other ways, too, and just now she is lookin' at another kind of horse,
and that's why I say you've miscalculated your comin'. If I was you I'd
go elsewhere and come back later. Kilo has got more books now than she
can handle without straining something, and just now her mind's off on
another tack. We struck a big missionary revival here last week, and
you can bet a wager that every dollar that goes out of Kilo these days,
except what goes for dues on Sir Walter, is goin' for the brethren. The
women folks is havin' a sale this very evenin' to raise cash to help the
heathen."

Eliph' Hewlitt arose from his chair and tucked the oilcloth-covered
parcel that had been lying on his knees under his left arm. He was a
small man, and his movements were apt to be short and jerky.

"Missionary sale?" he said briskly. "I guess I'll go around and look
in on it. Strangers welcome, I suppose? I'm rather fond of missionary
sales, and I think the world and all of the heathen. Think the ladies
would like to see a stranger?"

Wilkins grinned.

"Pap," he said, "what you think? Think they'll fall on his neck if he
has any money? From what I have experienced of them sales I figger to
calculate that anybody that is anxious to buy gingham aprons an' sofa
pillows is sure to be took by the hand and given a front seat. I'd go
around with you, but I've got my taxes to pay, like Pap here, and
I don't actually need any pink tidies. It ain't far; just up to Doc
Weaver's; two blocks up, and you can't miss the house. It's the yeller
mansion, this side the road, an' the gate's off the hinges and laid up
alongside the fence. But I guess if them's your samples in that there
package, you might as well leave them here."

But Eliph' Hewlitt did not leave them there; he tucked them under his
arm, and hurried away with brisk little steps.

CHAPTER V. Sammy Mills

"There ought to be a license agin book agents," said Pap Briggs
spitefully, when Eliph' Hewlitt had hurried away.

"It wouldn't harm that feller," said Wilkins. "He's a red hot one at
book-agenting, he is, an' he'd find out some way to git round it. I
hear lot of book agents that come round this way tell of him. He's got a
record of sellin' more copies of that encyclopedia book of his than
any one man ever sold of any one book, an' he's a sort of hero of the
book-agenting business. It makes me proud to call to rem