oman, and a Methodist
sister, you never will be sculped with nothin' but a towel hung over
one arm, not even a paper collar on, and," sez I, "what should we
think to go into a photograph gallery to home and see Sister Bobbett
and Sister Gowdey portrayed with a little mosquiter nettin' slung over
one shoulder?" Sez I, "It would be the town's talk and ort to be--you
can call it high art, Miss Meechim, if you want to, but I shall always
call it low art."

Miss Meechim murmured sunthin' about its bein' genteel, and Josiah
looked round and didn't pay the attention to my earnest words that he
ort to. I believe they did for a spell shet up them statters of Venus,
but they had let 'em out agin when we wuz there. There wuz one statter
of a woman with the top of her head and her arms off. Josiah said to
me:

"The idee of puttin' that poor cripple in here amongst decent lookin'
wimmen; if they pictured her at all they ought to pictured her as
bein' carried to a hosspital."

Miss Meechim wuz nigh by and I see she had gone almost into spazzums
of admiration over it, and on our family's account, didn't want to
fall too low down in her estimation, so I wunk at him and whispered,
"Josiah, that is the celebrated Sikey; it is the proper thing to fall
into extacies of admiration and wonder when you see it." And I as I
say not wantin' to demean myself any further before Miss Meechim, put
up my two hands in an attitude of wonder, but which she could take for
admiration if she wanted to, but I didn't say it wuz.

But Josiah sez, "Catch me a praisin' up a no armed female, one who has
been scalped, too, in the bargain."

I hope Miss Meechim didn't hear him. She always praised just what wuz
proper to praise, she always read in her guide book just what she
ought to admire and then proceeded to admire it to once. As she
boasted her mind wuz a eminently conservative and genteel mind.

As for me my mind and sperit loved to grope around more and find out
things to praise and blame by rote and not by note, and Dorothy and
Robert Strong was some so.

Arvilly wuz more bent on disseminatin' her books to help and instruct,
and would have canvassed Michael Angelo himself for the "Twin Crimes,"
turning her back onto his most wonderful creations. As for Josiah, a
wild goat leapin' through museums and picture galleries couldn't have
been more scornful of contemporaneous judgment exceptin' when he
tried to be fashionable.

Dear little Tommy would w