way she
drawled the name, and repeated it--"_E_-lizabeth says they couldn't do
without her. I guess between 'em those girls will make _E_-lizabeth
House School go right. That investment will be a dividend payer. And
there's Morton Bassett, that I never took much stock in, why, he's
settled down to being a decent and useful citizen. There ain't a better
newspaper in the country than the 'Courier,' and that first editorial,
up at the top of the page every morning, he writes himself, and it's got
a smack to it--a kind of pawpaw and persimmon flavor that shows it's
honest. I guess settling up that Canneries business cost him some
money, but things had always come too easy for Morton. And now that
they've moved down here, Hallie's cheered up a good deal, and she shows
signs of being cured of the sanatorium habit."
We were passing round the Monument, whose candelabra flooded the plaza
with light, and Mrs. Owen inveighed for a moment against automobiles in
general as we narrowly escaped being run down by a honking juggernaut at
Christ Church corner.
"It seems Morton has grown some," she resumed. "He's even got big enough
to forgive his enemies, and John Ware says only great men do that.
You've noticed that 'Hoosier Folks at Home' column in the 'Courier'?
Well, Ike Pettit runs that; Morton brought him to town on purpose after
Edward Thatcher closed out the Fraserville paper. I read every word of
that column every day. It gives you a kind of moving-picture show of
cloverfields, and children singing in the country schools, and rural
free delivery wagons throwing off magazines and newspapers, and the
interurban cars cutting slices out of the lonesomeness of the country
folks. It's certainly amazing how times change, and I want to live as
long as I can and keep on changing with 'em! Why, these farmers that
used to potter around all winter worrying over their debts to the
insurance companies are now going to Lafayette every January to learn
how to make corn pay, and they're putting bathrooms in their houses and
combing the hay out of their whiskers. They take their wives along with
'em to the University, so they can have a rest and learn to bake bread
that won't bring up the death-rate; and when those women go home they
dig the nails out of the windows to let the fresh air in, and move the
melodeon to the wood-pile, and quit frying meat except when the minister
stops for dinner. It's all pretty comfortable and cheerful and busy
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