Give this boy and girl of yours a few good books
and you're starting them on the double-track, block-signal
line to happiness. Now there's `Little Women'--that girl of
yours can learn more about real girlhood and fine womanhood
out of that book than from a year's paper dolls in the attic."
"That's right, Pa," assented Mrs. Mason. ("Go on with your
meal, Professor, the meat'll be cold.") She was completely won
by the travelling bookseller, and had given him the highest
title of honour in her ken. "Why, I read that story when I
was a girl, and I still remember it. That's better readin'
for Dorothy than those funeral speeches, I reckon. I believe
the Professor's right: we'd ought to have more books laying
around. Seems kind of a shame, with a famous author at the
next farm, not to read more, don't it, now?"
So by the time we got down to Mrs. Mason's squash pie (good
pie, too, I admit, but her hand is a little heavy for pastry),
the whole household was enthusiastic about books, and the
atmosphere was literary enough for even Dr. Eliot to live in
without panting. Mrs. Mason opened up her parlour and we sat
there while Mifflin recited "The Revenge" and "Maud Muller.
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