everlasting feminine kinks that all women since
Adam's wife have patted themselves on the back over, because they think
it's a dark veil of mystery that is beyond the acumen of brute man to
understand. That's what the novelists write pages about--wade right in
up to the armpits in it--feminine psychology--great! And the women smile
commiseratingly at the novelist--the idea of a man even pretending to
understand them--kind of a blooming merry-go-round and everybody happy!
Feminine psychology! I guess a little masculine kick-up is about the
right dope! What the deuce have I been standing for it for? I don't have
to--I don't have to go around making sheep's-eyes at her--what? She
wants grabbing up and being rushed right off her feet _a la_ Roost,
and--hello, Mr. Marvin, how are you to-day!"--he had halted beside a
middle-aged man who was sitting on the grass at the roadside.

"Better, Mr. Madison, better," returned the man, heartily. "Really very
much better."

"Fine!" said Madison.

"We all saw the Patriarch to-day--God bless him!" said Marvin. "We've
been waiting out there two days, you know--that woman with the bad back
got up off her stretcher."

"Splendid!" exclaimed Madison enthusiastically. "And the glorious thing
about it is that there's no reason why everybody can't be cured if
they'll only come here in the right spirit."

"That's so!" agreed Marvin. "None are so blind as those who won't
see--they're in utter blackness compared with the physical blindness of
that grand and marvelous man. I'm going home myself in another
week--better than ever I was in my life. It was stomach with me, you
know--doctors said there wasn't any chance except to operate, and that
an operation was too slim a chance to be worth risking it." He got up
and laughed, carefree, joyous. "God-given place down here, isn't it?
Clean--that's it. Clean air, clean-souled people, clean everything you
see or do or hear. Say, it kind of opens your eyes to real living,
doesn't it--it's the luxuries and the worries and the pace and the
damn-fooleries that kill. Well, I'm going along back now to get some of
Mrs. Perkins' cream--clean, rich cream--and homemade bread and
butter--imagine me with an appetite and able to eat!"

He laughed again--and Madison joined him in the laugh, slapping him a
cordial good-by on the shoulder.

Madison started on once more--but now his progress was slow, frequently
interrupted, for he stopped a score of times to chat