The handcart is still there, parked in its usual spot between the Old Cooperage and the former Chandler’s Brewery loading dock, though it looks somewhat different from the modest book-wagon that Millicent Graves wheeled into position on 18 March. It now has two shelves.

The second shelf — a hinged wooden extension that folds down from the cart’s side panel — was built and installed on Saturday by Herbert Finch, a retired carpenter of 72 who lives on the next street and who, according to Mrs Graves, “appeared with a bag of tools and said he could not watch a good handcart being under-utilised.”

The additional shelf was necessary because the lending library’s stock has grown. The original four hundred volumes from the late Professor Lionel Graves’s collection have been supplemented by sixty-three donated books from neighbours, customers, and passers-by. A retired schoolmistress on Chandler’s Row contributed her complete set of Everett’s Provincial Histories (nine volumes). A dock foreman whose name Mrs Graves has chosen not to share left a box of sea novels with a note reading: “Read these twice. Someone else’s turn.”

“I did not expect donations,” Mrs Graves said on Wednesday morning, arranging the new arrivals on the lower shelf with the organisational certainty of a woman who taught primary school for thirty-one years. “But people bring books the way they bring casseroles to a neighbour who is unwell. It is a reflex.”

One Hundred and Sixty-Two Borrowings

In sixteen days of operation — Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, nine in the morning until one in the afternoon — the lending library has recorded one hundred and sixty-two borrowings. Mrs Graves keeps a ledger: borrower’s first name (no surname required), title, date. Returns are on the honour system. Of the one hundred and sixty-two, one hundred and thirty-four have been returned. The remainder are, Mrs Graves reports, “still being enjoyed.”

There are no fines.

The busiest day was Saturday 29 March, when twenty-four books were borrowed in four hours. The most popular title is a well-thumbed copy of The Riverman’s Almanac, which has been borrowed five times and returned each time with a different page corner folded down.

Arthur Penrose, publican of the Old Cooperage, continues to provide storage for the overnight stock and a pot of tea for Mrs Graves each morning. Foot traffic at the pub, he reports, has increased noticeably since the handcart’s arrival.

“People come for the books and stay for the beer,” he said. “Or the other way round. I do not inquire.”

An Unexpected Visit

On Tuesday afternoon, Mrs Prudence Alleyn — teacher at Marchmont Street Primary School, whose pupils previously contributed a biscuit tin containing fourteen florins and sixty centimes to the Bellvue Theatre fund — brought a class of eleven children to the lending library for what she described as “a field lesson in community resources.”

The children borrowed nine books between them. One child, upon learning that the library operated on the honour system with no fines, asked Mrs Graves how she knew people would bring the books back.

“I don’t,” Mrs Graves replied. “But I have found that if you trust people with a book, they generally prove trustworthy.”

The handcart will be open again on Friday. Mrs Graves is considering adding Saturday afternoon hours if the weather holds. Herbert Finch has offered to build a rain canopy. Penrose has offered tea.

Cooperage Lane, which three months ago was a quiet street in a forgotten district, is becoming rather difficult to ignore.