"Understan' me; I'm a high-brow myself some ways. I never could stand these cheap magazines. I'd stop the circulation of every last one of them; pass an act of Congress to make every voter read some A-1, high-class, intellectual stuff. I read Rev. Henry van Dyke and Newell Dwight Hillis and Herbert Kaufman and Billy Sunday, and all these brainy, inspirational fellows, and let me tell you I get a lot of talking-points for selling my trade out of their spiels, too. I don't _believe_ in all this cheap fiction--these nasty realistic stories (like all the author could see in life was just the bad side of things--I tell you life's bad enough without emphasizing the rotten side, all these unhappy marriages and poverty and everything--I believe if you can't write bright, optimistic, _cheerful_ things, better not write at all). And all these sex stories! Don't believe in 'em! Sensational! Don't believe in cheap literature of _no_ sort.... Oh, of course it's all right to read a coupla detective stories or a nice, bright, clean love-story just to pass the time away. But me, I like real, classy, high-grade writers, with none of this slangy dialogue or vulgar stuff. 'Specially I like essays on strenuous, modern American life, about not being in a rut, but putting a punch in life. Yes, _sir_!" "I'm glad," said Una. "I do like improving books." "You've said it, little sister.... Say, gee! you don't know what a luxury it is for me to talk about books and literature with an educated, cultured girl like you. Now take the rest of these people here at the farm--nice folks, you understand, mighty well-traveled, broad-gauged, intelligent folks, and all that. There's a Mr. and Mrs. Cannon; he's some kind of an executive in the Chicago stock-yards--nice, fat, responsible job. And he was saying to me, 'Mr. Schwirtz,' he says, 'Mrs. C. and I had never been to New England till this summer, but we'd toured every other part of the country, and we've done Europe thoroughly and put in a month doing Florida, and now,' he says, 'I think we can say we've seen every point of interest that's worth an American's time.' They're good American people like that, well-traveled and nice folks. But _books_--Lord! they can't talk about books no more than a Jersey City bartender. So you can imagine how pleased I was to find you here.... World's pretty small, all right. Say, I just got here yesterday, so I suppose we'll be here about the same length o' time. If you wouldn't think I was presumptuous, I'd like mighty well to show you some of the country around here. We could get up a picnic party, ten or a dozen of us, and go up on Bald Knob and see the scenery and have a real jolly time. And I'd be glad to take you down to Lesterhampton--there's a real old-fashioned inn down there, they say, where Paul Revere stayed one time; they say you can get the best kind of fried chicken and corn on cob and real old-fashioned New England blueberry pie. Would you like to?"