and Track'
around to see me occasionally and I'll be glad to help him get some
horse news that is news. I wouldn't want to have you bounce a young man
who's doing the best he can, but it doesn't do a newspaper any good to
speak of Dan Patch as a trotting-horse or give the record of my
two-year-old filly Penelope O as 2:09-1/4 when she made a clean 2:09.
You've got to print facts in a newspaper if you want people to respect
it. How about that, Morton?"

"You're right, Aunt Sally. I'll speak to Atwill about his horse news."

He began to wonder whether she were not amusing herself at his expense;
but she gave him no reason for doubting her seriousness. They might
have been partners from the beginning of time from her businesslike
manner of criticizing the paper. She had not only flatly refused to sell
her shares, but she was taking advantage of the opportunity (for which
she seemed to be prepared) to tell him how the "Courier" should be
conducted!

"About farming, Morton," she continued deliberately, "the 'Courier' has
fun every now and then over the poor but honest farmer, and prints
pictures of him when he comes to town for the State Fair that make him
look like a scarecrow. Farming, Morton, is a profession, nowadays, and
those poor yaps Eggleston wrote about in 'The Hoosier Schoolmaster' were
all dead and buried before you were born. Farmers are up and coming I
can tell you, and I wouldn't lose their business by poking fun at 'em.
That Saturday column of farm news, by the way, is a fraud--all stolen
out of the 'Western Farmers' Weekly' and no credit. They must keep that
column in cold storage to run it the way they do. They're usually about
a season behind time--telling how to plant corn along in August and
planting winter wheat about Christmas. Our farm editor must have been
raised on a New York roof-garden. Another thing I want to speak of is
the space they give to farmers' and stockmen's societies when they meet
here. The last time the Hoosier State Mulefoot Hog Association met right
here in town at the Horticultural Society's room at the State House--all
the notice they got in the 'Courier' was five lines in 'Minor Mention.'
The same day the State Bankers' Association filled three columns, and
most of that was a speech by Tom Adams on currency reform. You might
tell that funny editorial man to give Adams a poke now and then, and
stop throwing chestnuts about gold bricks and green goods at farmers.
And he needn't