More Jonathan Papers Part 3

Look yourself, I managed to gasp.

This time, somehow, he could see it.

You planted it! You brought it up and planted it!

I never! Oh, dear me! It pays for going without it for weeks!

_Nothing_ will ever make me believe that that pen was standing there when I looked for it! said Jonathan, with vehement finality.

All right, I sighed happily. You dont have to believe it.

But in his heart perhaps he does believe it. At any rate, since that time he has adopted a new formula: My dear, it may be there, of course, but I dont see it. And this position I regard as una.s.sailable.

One triumph he has had. I wanted something that was stored away in the shut-up town house.

Do you suppose you could find it? I said, as gently as possible.

I can try, he said.

I think it is in a box about this shapesee?a gray box, in the attic closet, the farthest-in corner.

Are you sure its in the house? If its in the house, I think I can find it.

Yes, Im sure of that.

When he returned that night, his face wore a look of satisfaction very imperfectly concealed beneath a mask of nonchalance.

_Good_ for you! Was it where I said?

No.

Was it in a different corner?

No.

Where was it?

It wasnt in a corner at all. It wasnt in that closet.

It wasnt! Where, then?

Downstairs in the hall closet. He paused, then could not forbear adding, And it wasnt in a gray box; it was in a big hat-box with violets all over it.

Why, _Jonathan!_ Arent you grand! How did you ever find it? I couldnt have done better myself.

Under such praise he expanded. The fact is, he said confidentially, I had given it up. And then suddenly I changed my mind. I said to myself, Jonathan, dont be a man! Think what shed do if she were here now. And then I got busy and found it.

Jonathan! I could almost have wept if I had not been laughing.

Well, he said, proud, yet rather sheepish, what is there so funny about that? I gave up half a day to it.

Funny! It isnt funnyexactly. You dont mind my laughing a little? Why, youve lived down the fountain penwell forget the pen

Oh, no, you wont forget the pen either, he said, with a certain pleasant grimness.

Well, perhaps notof course it would be a pity to forget that. Suppose I say, then, that well always regard the pen in the light of the violet hat-box?

I think that might do. Then he had an alarming afterthought. But, see hereyou wont expect me to do things like that often?

Dear me, no! People cant live always on their highest levels. Perhaps youll _never_ do it again. Jonathan looked distinctly relieved. Ill accept it as a unique effortlike Dantes angel and Raphaels sonnet.

Jonathan, I said that evening, what do you know about St. Anthony of Padua?

Not much.

Well, you ought to. He helped you to-day. Hes the saint who helps people to find lost articles. Every man ought to take him as a patron saint.

And do you know which saint it is who helps people to find lost virtueslike humility, for instance?

No. I dont, really.

I didnt suppose you did, said Jonathan.

II

Sap-Time

It was a little tree-toad that began it. In a careless moment he had come down to the bench that connects the big maple tree with the old locust stump, and when I went out at dusk to wait for Jonathan, there he sat, in plain sight. A few experimental pokes sent him back to the tree, and I studied him there, marveling at the way he a.s.similated with its bark. As Jonathan came across the gra.s.s I called softly, and pointed to the tree.

Well? he said.

Dont you see?

No. What?

LookI thought you had eyes!

Oh, what a little beauty!

And isnt his back just like bark and lichens! And what are those things in the tree beside him?

Plugs, I suppose.