Hamlet' or Jefferson in 'Rip,' you saw acting. I
haven't been in any theatre since I saw Jefferson in the 'Rivals' the
last time he came round. There used to be a stock company at the
Metropolitan about war-time that beat any of these new actor folks. I'd
rather see a good circus any time than one of these singing pieces.
Sassafras tea and a circus every spring; I always take both."

Sylvia found these views on the drama wholly edifying. Circuses and
sassafras tea were within the range of her experience, and finding that
she had struck a point of contact, Mrs. Owen expressed her pity for any
child that did not enjoy a round of sassafras tea every spring.
Sassafras in the spring, and a few doses of quinine in the fall, to
eliminate the summer's possible accumulation of malaria, were all the
medicine that any good Hoosier needed, Mrs. Owen averred.

"I'm for all this new science, you understand that," Mrs. Owen
continued. "A good deal of it does seem to me mighty funny, but when
they tell me to boil drinking-water to kill the bugs in it, and show me
pictures of the bugs they take with the microscope, I don't snort just
because my grandfather didn't know about those things and lived to be
eighty-two and then died from being kicked by a colt. I go into the
kitchen and I say to Eliza, 'Bile the water, Liza; bile it twice.'
That's the kind of a new woman I am. But let's see; we were speaking of
Marian."

"I liked her very much; she's very nice and ever so interesting," said
Sylvia.

"Bless you, she's nice enough and pretty enough; but about this college
business. I always say that if it ain't in a colt the trainer can't put
it there. My niece--that's Mrs. Bassett, Marian's mother--wants Marian
to be an intellectual woman,--the kind that reads papers on the poets
before literary clubs. Mrs. Bassett runs a woman's club in Fraserville
and she's one of the lights in the Federation. They got me up to
Fraserville to speak to their club a few years ago. It's one of these
solemn clubs women have; awful literary and never get nearer home than
Doctor Johnson, who was nothing but a fat loafer anyhow. I told 'em
they'd better let me off; but they would have it and so I went up and
talked on ensilage. It was fall and I thought ensilage was seasonable
and they ought to know about it if they didn't. And they didn't, all
right."

Sylvia had been staring straight ahead across the backs of the team; she
was conscious suddenly that Mrs. O