d knowing a thing.
We could read a thousand descriptions of the sun and not know the sun
as in one glimpse of it with our own eyes.

I used to stand in the row of blessed little rascals in the "deestrick"
school and read from McGuffey's celebrated literature,
"If--I-p-p-play--with--the--f-f-f-i-i-i-i-r-r-e--I--will--g-e-e-et
--my-y-y-y-y--f-f-f-f--ingers--bur-r-r-rned--period!"

I did not learn it. I wish I had learned by reading it that if I play
with the fire I will get my fingers burned. I had to slap my hands upon
hot stoves and coffee-pots, and had to get many kinds of blisters in
order to learn it.

Then I had to go around showing the blisters, boring my friends and
taking up a collection of sympathy. "Look at my bad luck!" Fool!

This is not a lecture. It is a confession! It seems to me if you in the
audience knew how little I know, you wouldn't stay.

"You Can't Get Something for Nothing"

Yes, I was thirty-four years learning that one sentence. "You can't get
something for nothing." That is, getting it in partial tune. It took me
so long because I was naturally bright. It takes that kind longer than
a human being. They are so smart you cannot teach them with a few
bumps. They have to be pulverized.

That sentence takes me back to the days when I was a "hired man" on the
farm. You might not think I had ever been a "hired man" on the farm at
ten dollars a month and "washed, mended and found." You see me here on
this platform in my graceful and cultured manner, and you might not
believe that I had ever trained an orphan calf to drink from a copper
kettle. But I have fed him the fingers of this hand many a time. You
might not think that I had ever driven a yoke of oxen and had said the
words. But I have!

I remember the first county fair I ever attended. Fellow sufferers, you
may remember that at the county fair all the people sort out to their
own departments. Some people go to the canned fruit department. Some go
to the fancywork department. Some go to the swine department. Everybody
goes to his own department. Even the "suckers"! Did you ever notice
where they go? That is where I went--to the "trimming department."

I was in the "trimming department" in five minutes. Nobody told me
where it was. I didn't need to be told. I gravitated there. The barrel
always shakes all of one size to one place. You notice that--in a city
all of one size get together.

Right at the entrance to the "local Midwa