“I guess that's all right then,” said Miss Sally. “There ain't anything more natural than that you should wish that, bein' intendin' to make your home here. I hope you like the place an' make lot of acquaintances, but if I was you I'd try not to talk book any more than you have to. I don't think it'll help to make you popular, as I may say. That Sir Walter man sort of gave everybody an overdose of book, an' folks feel kind of mad at book agents ever since. Like father Emmons, when he had one of his sick spells, an' nothin' would do but he was goin' to die, so he got up before sun-up an' drove to town to see Doc Weaver. He let Doc know he felt he was dyin' an' told him the symptoms, an' all Doc says was, 'All you want is salts. You stop at the drug store an' get a pound of salts, an' I'll warrant you'll be as well as ever.' So when his daughter--she's Mary Ann Klepper--went into the house after carryin' lunch to the men in the field, there was her poor old father settin' at the table with the big yeller bake-bowl in front of him, an' him eatin' away at what was in it with a big spoon. 'Eatin' bread an' milk, father?' she asks, an' her pa looks up with tears in his eyes, an' swallers down another spoonful. 'No,' he says, as cross as a bear, 'I'm eatin' a pound o' salts Doc Weaver told me to git, but hang if I can eat another spoonful, an' I ain't above half done.' So I guess Kilo folks kind of gag when they think of books.” “If I so much as mention books,” said Eliph' pleadingly, “I wish you'd stop me. Don't let me. Mebby I do sort of get in the habit of it, thinking it and talking it so much. But I never meant to sell you one. I only wanted to get acquainted.” Miss Sally laughed. “Well,” she said cheerfully, “there's different ways to do it, but I guess you an' me have got well acquainted different from what most folks does. Ain't you been over to the ice-cream table yet? Or was you waitin' to be primed; that's what us ladies is here for, to start folks spendin' money, like Mrs. Foster's little nephew that come up from the city to visit her last summer. He wanted to know what everything was for that was on the farm or in the house, that he wasn't used to, an' when they told him they always had to leave a dipper of water in the pail to prime the pump with so it would give water, he wanted to know if the reason they had the pans of milk in the spring-house was so they could prime the cows so they would give milk.” Eliph' laughed heartily, for his heart was light. He was making progress; Miss Sally admitted that they were well acquainted, and now he could proceed to the second step advised in “Courtship; How to Win the Affections; How to Hold Them When Won.” CHAPTER XIII. “Second: A Small Present”