AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A recommendation from a child.
Difficult man. Sending her on a treasure hunt. Well, she wouldn’t be deterred, wouldn’t return home empty-handed and give him an excuse to push for an outing again. There was nothing to be done but present herself to Mr. Cliffton, the librarian, a man at least a decade older than Father, with white muttonchops and a gold-buttoned waistcoat over a round belly. “Oh yes, the daughter,” he said, smiling wanly and squinting at the list.
There was no judgment in the words, yet Louise couldn’t help but wonder what Father had shared about her. Did the man see her as a poor brokenhearted spinster, a determined career woman proving that she didn’t need a family for satisfaction, a prodigal daughter forced home?
Without giving her time to wonder further, several other patrons drifted over, bringing their suggestions with them as soon as they heard about the list.
“For Mr. Cavendish? Oh, he’d loveA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I’m sure of it.”
“What aboutA Christmas Carol? That’s got a gold title.”
“It’s June, you fool. Why not something by Zane Grey?”
“Or Thomas Hardy.”
“No, Keats!”
In moments, the first two items were easily filled. They almost had to settle for a volume of philosophy by Lady Margaret Cavendish before someone remembered Louisa May Alcott and decided she would count, despite the additionala.
It bothered Louise slightly, the fact that these strangers knewmore about her father’s likes and dislikes than she did. Maybe that’s why he’d made the list the way he had, out of spite, as if it were anyone’s fault but his own.
As she balanced the growing stack, Mr. Cliffton quietly slipped her a copy ofPride and Prejudice. “He’s checked it out a dozen times at least.”
Louise frowned at it suspiciously. “Isn’t this a romance?”
He nodded. “Probably why he’s embarrassed to simply buy a copy and display it on his shelves at home. As for me, I see no reason why a gentleman ought not to learn from the wit and wisdom of Miss Austen.”
That was out of her capacity to comment on, so Louise indicated the list. “And the last?”
The muttonchops lifted in a smile. “I have just the fellow for it.”
It was a school day, so the only child Louise could see appeared to be four years old. His scabbed knees were drawn up as he sat on the steps, small face pinched in concentration under straw-colored hair poking out from a sailor hat, giving him the overall impression of leaping directly out of a Sears-Roebuck catalogue ad.
He couldn’t actually be reading, could he, young as he was? Weren’t children of his age supposed to be climbing trees and playing in the mud, enjoying the health benefits of the outdoors?
Mr. Cliffton hailed him, though it was another few seconds before he placed his stubby finger on the page long enough to look up. “Anthony, Mr. Cavendish—you remember him, the man who gave us all of these books—he would like to ask you what book he should read next.”
Without the slightest pause, and with the authority of one of Father’s business associates, he declared, “One of the bunny books.”
“Ah, Beatrix Potter. An excellent choice, Anthony.”
“But you can’t have this one,” he blurted, clutching the small volume to his chest. “I haven’t finished it yet.” As if realizing he’d been quite rude to a grown-up, he added quickly, “There are others upstairs.”
“Thank you, Mr. Anthony,” Louise said gravely, nodding to him. “I certainly wouldn’t want to deprive you of finding out what happened to”—she eyed the spine—“the Flopsy Bunnies.”
He beamed, exposing a missing tooth, and Louise couldn’t help but smile too. Well, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all, encouraging children to read at a young age.
Mr. Cliffton pointed her to the children’s section. “Can’t go up there much myself these days. Bad knee.”
So she climbed the steps alone. She’d been here once before, when Father first purchased the building. The balcony, rickety and full of missing balusters like broken teeth, had given her a wave of vertigo, and she’d never returned.
The rest of the building had been nearly as rundown, so its renovation had occupied Father’s attentions for two full summers. When they had previously, on Mother’s insistence, spent long days on the shore and ventured weekly into town to purchase ice creams or watch saltwater taffy be pulled at the confectionery, during those years, Father met Louise’s pleas to come out with a curt “There’s simply too much work to do on the library.”
Soon enough, she stopped asking. Then shortened her summer visits to Maine altogether—until her twenties, when they became an escape from Aunt Eleanor’s endless matchmaking in New York.
Upstairs, the children’s books were organized by author, and Potter fell on the lowest shelf, forcing Louise to kneel in her long skirt. She selectedThe Tale of Peter Rabbitas the one that looked the least absurd—the other protagonists bearing such names as Benjamin Bunny, Jemima Puddle-Duck, and Timmy Tiptoes—and flipped through the pages.
Simple text, of course. But there was something arrestingabout the illustrations, both realistic and fantastical all at once. She paused on a scene of a cunning little rabbit in a blue jacket eating a carrot, his nose so vividly rendered it seemed as if it had only just stopped twitching.
