ntly about drifts
and leads and dumps, and the like.

Then there were the games, the most absorbing of all, who had lost and
won, and as I don't know one card nor one game from another, I am not
interested in that subject. There was, it seemed to me, a fresh murder
or robbery or Indian fight to discuss every morning at breakfast; and
the ranch talk, in which my most intelligent questions always provoked
a shout of laughter. When I quoted Talmage one morning, a young man
looked at me pityingly, and said, "Oh, he's dead a year ago! He had
one of the finest saloons in Las Vegas; he was a smart man, poor
fellow!" My attempts to interest my table companions in a description
of the Chautauqua and its purpose, and the mission of the W. C. T. U.,
and their painful efforts to be politely interested, almost sent my
son into convulsions in consequence of laughing into his coffee-cup;
and the intense earnestness with which the man they called Bunco Brown
asked, "And didn't they sell no booze there?" and then, "Well, then,
how in thunder do they get it if they're too pious to steal?" might
have seemed amusing to one who was not struck by the horror of the
fact that the man could not conceive of life for any person without
drink.

So, owing to the missionary's usual difficulty in making himself
understood, I had to wait to learn a means of communication with my
subject. I even ventured to the door of the billiard room and tried to
manifest an interest in the science of the game, but here, also, I
was too hopelessly old-fashioned to be able to comprehend the beauty
of the angles, and beat an ignominious retreat. I heard Charlie remark
as I went up-stairs: "Game, for such a pious old lady, isn't she?" I
took it as a compliment.

But my opportunity finally came through the humble instrumentality of
an onion. It was about the size of a dinner-plate, and lay on the
newel-post as I came down stairs one morning. Charlie was standing in
the front door, with his back to me, peeling an orange. He turned
around at my exclamation of surprise and asked, "Why, don't they grow
like that where you live?"

"In New England? Oh dear, no!" I cried; and then he asked me a number
of questions, and seemed very much interested in my account of
vegetables and fruit and trees and flowers in the East. I was
delighted to tell him, although I had a lurking suspicion that such a
remarkable ignorance of that country was feigned. And yet his eyes, so
wonderfu