Jamie was in his study, enjoying his own solitude. I’d passed by, carrying my big basin of peanuts outside, and seen him leaning back in his chair, spectacles on his nose, deeply absorbed in Green Eggs and Ham.
I smiled at the thought, and pulled off the ribbon to loosen my hair so the cool breeze could blow through it.
We’d lost nearly all of our books in the fire that consumed the Big House, but were beginning to build up our tiny library again. Brianna’s contributions had nearly doubled it. Aside from the books she’d brought—and thought of my precious Merck Manual still gave me a small thrill of possession—we had Jamie’s small green Bible, a Latin grammar, The Complete Adventures of Robinson Crusoe （lacking a cover, but retaining most of its vivid illustrations）， and Jonathan Swift’s Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, plus the odd novel in French or English.
The shells cracked easily, but the dry skins of the peanuts inside were light and papery and clung to my fingers. I’d been brushing them off on my skirt, which now looked as though I’d been attacked by a horde of pale-brown moths. I wondered whether Bree might borrow something interesting to read while she was house-visiting with Roger. Hiram Crombie, the headman of the Thurso folk, was a reading man, though his taste ran to collections of sermons and historical accounts; he thought novels depraved. He did have a copy of The Aeneid, though—I’d seen it.
Jamie had sent a letter to his friend Andrew Bell, an Edinburgh printer and publisher, asking him to send a selection of books, including copies of his own A Grandfather’s Tales and my modest version of do-it-yourself household medicine, applying such monies as might have accrued to us in sales during the last two years toward the purchase of the other books in the order. I wondered when—and whether—those might arrive. So far as I knew, the British still held Savannah, but Charles Town remained in American hands; if Mr. Bell was prompt about it, there was hope of a late ship showing up book-laden before the winter storms.
Footsteps behind me interrupted my literary thoughts and I turned to see Jamie, barefoot and rumpled, tucking his spectacles back into his sporran.
“Enjoying your reading?” I asked, smiling.
“Aye.” He sat down beside me and picked a peanut out of the basin, cracked it, and tossed the nuts into his mouth. “Brianna says Dr. Seuss made a good many books. Have ye read them all, Sassenach?” He pronounced it “Soyce,” in correct German, and I laughed.
“Oh, yes. Many times. Bree had the whole set—or at least as many as were published then. I suppose she and Roger might have bought more for Jem and Mandy, if Dr. Seuss—the Americans say his name ‘Soos,’ by the way—if he went on writing. I don’t know how long he lived—will live,” I corrected. “He was still at it in 1968.”
He nodded, a little wistful.
“I wish I could see them,” he said. “But maybe Brianna will remember some o’ the rhymes, at least.”
“Ask Jem,” I suggested. “Bree says he’s read to Mandy since she was a baby, and he has an excellent memory.” I laughed, thinking of some of the Seuss illustrations. “Ask Bree if she can draw Horton the Elephant or Yertle the Turtle for you, from memory.”
“Yertle?” His face lighted with humor. “That’s no a real name, is it?”
“No, but it rhymes with ‘turtle.’” I cracked another nut and tossed the bits of shell into the grass.
“So does Myrtle,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but Yertle is a boy. No female turtle would have done what he did.”
Jamie was diverted; he paused with his hand in the basin.
“What did he do?”
“Made all of the turtles in Sala-ma-Sond build themselves into a tower so he could be King of all that he saw by sitting on top of them. It’s an allegory about arrogance and pride. Not that females aren’t capable of those emotions—just that they wouldn’t do anything so easily illustrated.”
Jamie picked up a handful of peanuts and crushed them absentmindedly, nodding.
“Aye? And what sort of allegory is yon Green Eggs and Ham?” he demanded.
“I think it’s intended to urge children not to be fussy about what they eat,” I said dubiously. “Or not to be afraid of trying new th— What are you doing?” For he’d dropped his handful of crushed peanuts into the basin, shells and all.