embrance that
him an' me was kids together down at Franklin, years ago. Him an' me
took to the book-agentin' biz the same day, we did. I needed cash, like
I always do, and he had literatoor in the family. So we went an' did
it. We did it to Gallops Junction first, and after that Eliph' sowed
literatoor pretty general all over Iowa, an' next I heard of him all
over the United States. Iowa is now a grand State, an as full of culture
as a Swiss cheese is full of holes, an' I don't take all the credit
for it; I give Eliph' his share. Hotels help to scatter the seed, but
literatoor scatters more.

"One day, down there at Franklin, Eliph' says to me, 'Jim, you know that
book pa wrote?' That's what Eliph' remarked to me on the aforesaid day,
but I wish to state his name wasn't Eliph' on that date, an' it wasn't
Hewlitt, neither. It was plain Sammy; Sammy Mills. Eliph' Hewlitt was a
sort of fancy name my pa had give to a horse he had that he thought was
a racer, but wasn't. It was a good enough horse to enter in a race, but
not good enough to win. It was the kind of race horse that kept pa poor,
but hopeful.

"'Why, yes, Sammy,' I says, 'I've heard tell of that grand literary
effort of your dad.'

"'Well,' he says--we was sittin' on the porch of his pa's house--'Pa he
had a thousand of them printed.'

"'Dickens he did!' I remarked, supposin' it was us to me to do some
remarkin'.

"'And,' says Sammy, 'he's got eight hundred an' sixty-four of them
highly improvin' an' intellectooal volumes stored in the barn right
now.'

"'Quite a lib'ry,' I says, off-hand like.

"'Numerous, but monotonous,' says Sam. 'As a lib'ry them books don't
give the variety of topics they oughter. They all cling to the same
subject too faithful. Eight hundred an' sixty-four volumes of the
"Wage of Sin," all bound alike, don't make what I call a rightly
differentiated lib'ry. When you've read one you've read all.'

"'Alas!' I says, or somthin' like that, sympathetic an' attentive.

"'Likewise,' says Sam, 'they clutter up the barn. They ought to be got
out to make room for more hay.'

"'This was indeed true. I saw it was all good sense. Horses don't take
to literatoor like they does to hay.

"'Well,' says Sammy, 'what's the matter with chuckin' them eight hundred
an' sixty-four "Wages of Sin" into the rustic communities of this
commonwealth of Iowa, U.S.A.? Here we've got a barnful of high-class,
intellectooal poem, an' yon we have a State ful