; hit'll be about ten years from now, I figger; en yore plans
will fit in about like a last-year's birdnest. Ye have jist about as
much to do a-bossin' that party as ye'll have in selectin' yer harp en
halo when ye git inside the pearly gates. Ten years from now, thar
won't be a cow hand ner a gun outside a dude ranch er a rodeo. Singin'
'The Lament' would be about as well understood as recitin' a Latin
epic."

"Pshaw, Jim, yer wastin' valuable time," said Landy, wanting to get a
last word, before the old man had time for a reply. "Come over next
week--Alice is to have a turkey dinner with all the fixin's--en we'll
plan a funeral that's modern. Aryplanes, automobiles, jazz, en dancin'
en sich. That's the kind I'm plannin' en I ort to kick-in long before
you do."

Landy backed out and crossed the hallway before the ancient could
reply.

6

Adine Lough ushered her guests across the hall into what seemed to be
her workshop. Seated around a library table, Davy perched on a big
dictionary, Landy at the end, drumming his fingers as usual, the girl
plunged at once into the business at hand.

"At the very start," she said in a serious manner, "I must tell some
personal things. I've been going to school at Boulder. I am staying
out this semester to work on my graduate thesis, 'Social Work in Rural
Communities.' When you consider my restricted field, it's a big job.
But I like that kind of work--studying people, their individualities,
their shortcomings, their accomplishments. From what I hear of you,
David, you have an aversion for those things--in fact have run away
from the mob. I like it. I would want nothing better than to stand
along side of you on a platform at the circus opening and watch the
general populace pass in review. Then and there, I could study all
phases of humanity; classify them as they passed; and then investigate
each case personally to see if I had made the right appraisals at
first sight."

"--And right there is where you would miss the trapeze bar by a foot,
and no net under you," interrupted Davy disgustedly. "They are all
alike, from Bangor to Los Angeles. You can throw 'em all into one of
two groups: yokels and shilabers. They are either out with a skin game
or else they are goats, about to lose their hide."

Adine laughed. "Oh, you surely could subdivide the Yokels. Why in my
observations they alone, could be classified under many heads. But to
go on with my story. Adot, the town, a