chooling."

"We want more physics and especially electricity," said Gus.

"And other knowledge as well, along with that," Bill amended.

"I reckon you fellers is right," said Mr. Hooper, "but I don't know
anything about it. I quit school when I was eleven, but that ain't
sayin' I don't miss it. If I had an eddication now, like you lads is
goin' to git, er like the Perfesser has, I'd give more'n half what I
own. Boys that think they're smart to quit school an' go to work is
natchal fools. A feller may git along an' make money, but he'd make a
heap more an' be a heap happier, 'long of everything else, if he'd got a
schoolin'. An' any boy that's got real sand in his gizzard can buckle
down to books an' get a schoolin', even if he don't like it. What I'm a
learnin' nowadays makes me know that a feller can make any old study
int'restin' if he jes' sets down an' looks at it the right way."

"That's what Gus and I think. There are studies we don't like very much,
but we can make ourselves like them for we've got to know a lot about
them."

"Grammar, for instance," said Gus.

"Sure. It is tiresome stuff, learning a lot of rules that work only
half. But if a fellow is going to be anybody and wants to stand in with
people, he's got to know how to talk correctly and write, too." Bill's
logic was sound.

"Daddy should have had a drilling in grammar," commented Grace,
laughing.

"Oh, you!" blurted Skeets. "Mr. Hooper can talk so that people
understand him--and when you _do_ talk," she turned to the old
gentleman, "I notice folks are glad to listen, and so is Grace."

"But, my dear," protested the subject of criticism, "they'd listen
better an' grin less if I didn't sling words about like one o' these
here Eye-talians shovelin' dirt."

"You just keep a-shovelin', Mr. Hooper, your own way," said Bill, "and
if we catch anybody even daring to grin at you, why, I'll have Gus land
on them with his famous grapple!"

Mr. Hooper threw back his coat, thrust his thumbs into the armholes of
his big, white vest and swelled out his chest.

"Now, listen to that! An' this from a lad who ain't got a thing to
expect from me an' ain't had as much as he's a-givin' me, either--an'
knows it. But that's nothin' else but Simon pure frien'ship, I take it.
An' Gus, here, him an' Bill, they think about alike; eh, Gus?" Gus
nodded and the old gentleman continued, addressing his remarks to his
daughter and Skeets:

"Now, if I know anything at a