In the morning when the youths awoke, they stepped out of their tents to find Jonathan sitting over the hole and going through a large stack of books, heaped up beside the open coffin.  Simon was the first to approach, and as he did Jonathan turned to him and proudly displayed the sight of innumerable black letters, the very letters he’d learned, finely printed upon many pages.  Jonathan told him that there were stories here which he’d give anything to hear.  Simon stepped back in horror.

          By now Mary and Paul were beside him.  Mary told them that she’d seen such letters at their sanctuary, in Jonathan's cabin.  She even tried to explain that they came from the long-ago era and that at one time they were not considered evil.

          "But they’re not allowed now," Simon answered in a loud voice.

          Paul remained silent and neutral during this exchange, knowing that he was about to hear a spirited debate.  Mary also turned quiet, knowing that she’d said all she could in Jonathan's defence.

          "That's why we’ll pick out the most valuable of these works and copy them into a form acceptable to our own people," Jonathan replied, turning over more books and more pages as he talked.

          "But I was told many times by the priests that all relics of the past are unholy and forbidden things," said Simon, "deserving only fire."

          "Many of these do," replied Jonathan, still twirling pages.  "If you build a little fire this morning, I’ll let you do a good deal of holy work, such as your elders have not seen in a long time."

          "But we must destroy them all," said Simon, almost pleading.

          "After we copy some of them," said Jonathan, growing a little angry and loud.  "Remember, it’s the form not the matter that’s objectionable to the Church.  If we had such schools as the one I intend to build at the beginning, many of these great works would not have been lost."

          "But the blackness."  Simon began.

          "Simon," Jonathan interrupted him, "I buried these books a long time ago to preserve them from such delicate eyes as your own.  Now I intend to bundle up a few of them and again preserve them from weak eye sights.  I’ll transcribe them onto wax when we get home.  Then you can see for yourself what wonders they contain.  Until you know this, how can you dare condemn something to destruction?"

          With such a question Simon was silenced and he walked off in a huff to sit down under a tree.  He didn’t want this argument with Jonathan.  He felt greater admiration for him each day and wanted nothing more than to learn all that Jonathan could teach.  But he hated these peculiarities of his, the open violations of Church law.  He knew that if Jonathan were caught in one of these acts he might be punished or killed right before their eyes.  He’d even had nightmares of such a scene.

          It was the colored picture that Jonathan had given him that started it all.  He never looked at it again, after it was forced upon his eyes, and had hidden it in a crack in the floorboard near his bed.  Before this trip he even persuaded the others do the same with theirs, without telling Jonathan.  He sat alone and brooded for a long time while Paul and Mary talked in hushed tones nearby and cooked breakfast, and Jonathan continued leafing through his stacks, unconscious of time and the world around him.

          When Mary called Jonathan to breakfast he looked up for a second and told them to eat without him.  He was too busy winnowing out the few good books from the mass of pulp and manuals.  He set aside eight; three schoolbooks, a handbook of classical mythology, a three-volume set of Tolkien, and his best find, a copy of ‘Robinson Crusoe’ with color plates.

          The rest of the books were worthless to him.  They were mostly Book Club ‘specials’; dated novels, and self-help books, and biographies of stars and politicians.  He was disgusted with this trash and shoved the heaps back into the coffin and pushed it into its hole, then threw a few shovels of dirt over it, unwilling to waste any more time.  This was, no doubt, a town of little culture, and these books were the sort one donated to a church sale or forgot in an attic.  He’d gathered them from the rubble in near darkness and realized now that if he could have read their titles then, he probably wouldn’t have taken the trouble to hide them.

          But still he had two more depots to check within a hundred miles of this place, and the ‘Robinson Crusoe’ made him happy.  He’d read it to them, he thought, and win their minds.  He’d begin tonight, and Simon would see what an innocent and good thing it was that he wanted to destroy.

          By noon they’d packed up and set out in a westerly direction.  They entered a forest and Jonathan shot a buck that ran right across their path.  He couldn’t help but notice how much more plentiful this land had become now that man had been absent several decades.  They camped in a fine clearing and cooked the meat on a large campfire.  Simon was in better spirits now, not being able to keep up his gloom, and so after dinner, without preambles, Jonathan began reading the book.  They were all laying on their bedrolls beside the crackling fire and he read in a loud, sonorous voice, filling a wilderness at least as desolate as Crusoe's island.

          It didn't take long for the imaginations of these youths to be fired by the captivating tale.  But both Paul and Mary fell asleep after many pages and so Jonathan left off, and also fell asleep.  Simon lay awake a long time, thinking about what he’d heard and then crept around the glowing embers and took the book from Jonathan's side.  The next morning Jonathan found his book open to one the color plates, only a few inches from Simon's head.

          That day they veered south towards the highway.  The next point on Jonathan’s list was adjacent to the road.  It’d been a larger town along the way which he knew would be demolished by now.  But he was hoping to see its remnants and two tall pines nearby.  It was here that Jonathan had buried two burlap bags full of books long ago.

          The pines were found, even from a distance, but the town had entirely disappeared.  Only as he was crossing its site did he notice rubble beneath the grass, the graveyard of buildings.  The road crews had done their work well.  It was the goal of the Church to leave the impression that there was absolutely nothing, not even ruins, besides itself.

          They climbed a low hill and dug actively between the two trees.  It took less than an hour before Jonathan had his two bundles.  But water had seeped into both sacks and the books he dumped out were in a decrepit, stinking condition.  Much to his dismay, he found here a far better class of literature than he’d recovered at the last site.  There were at least ten volumes of solid history, some great novels and drama, including a complete Shakespeare.

          He had his followers build a fire and he spent the rest of the day trying to dry the books, without much success.  Some ripped at his finger's touch, the pages stuck together.  But he didn’t despair.  He’d wrap them and carry them back to his sanctuary, taking all the time in the world to dry them out and copy their lore, page by page, and he knew he would succeed.  He made up three small bundles, which he distributed to his followers, showing them how to hide the packages in their camp gear after discarding winter items.

          It took them another five days to discover their third plot.  It was ten miles north of the highway, among steep hills.  When they did find the little town Jonathan realized that it stood unchanged from his last visit, except for the slow erosion of time.  There was a street of five or six houses, overgrown with vines and weeds but still standing.  There was a small church and beside it a brick store, which a tree had fallen against, but it too was standing.

          Jonathan found his precious treasure behind this building in good condition, buried in a solid packing trunk wrapped in canvas.  He picked out another twenty volumes of great literature, as much as he thought the four of them could discreetly carry.  He had to ask the boys to carry some of the larger books, winding them up in their tents in such a way as no one would notice.  They’d only be spreading their tents when alone, so it seemed like a good hiding place.

          By now Simon strongly favored this scheme, and Paul agreed to anything Jonathan asked of him.  The nightly readings were already a relished custom.  They’d gone through the ‘Crusoe’ and were now taking in the ‘Treasury of English Verse’.  Of course Jonathan had to fill in the backgrounds and contexts of many poems, but the youths had never heard such finery before and were very impressed.  The best poems needed no explanation at all.

          After looking through the books Jonathan began to look at the town itself.  He remembered from the last time he passed through here that it contained all sorts of supplies, along with the books he had gathered up.  He’d recovered one pen that was thrown in with the books, and now he was sure that a careful search would turn up others.  He could tell that the place had never been pillaged, which was strange.  Perhaps the inhabitants had passed away to the last soul, victims of the plague, and took with them even the memory of their hamlet from a distracted world.

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