"They've had these Author's Readin's in the cities lately, and the Winter Night Club's ben saving up money for one this two years, and they was determined to do it up in style, so they wrote to the author they'd decided on and told her they wa'n't goin' to spare expense, and she could have five dollars and railroad fare if she'd come and read, and she should stop with Mis' Stevens at the Upper Corner, the one who entertained Thomas B. Reed when he was here. She sent word right back that she was expectin' to be in Portland for a month and she could just as well come out as not, and wouldn't trouble us to pay the five dollars. She said it would be pleasure and profit enough to meet the committee that had been correspondin' with her. I didn't suspicion that writers was rich enough to refuse a five-dollar bill, but mebbe she had money left to her by somebody, and was kind of independent. "'What air these Author's Readin's, anyhow?' said Si. 'Can authors read any better'n other folks?' "'I dunno _as_ they can, an' I dunno _but_ they can,' says I. 'I suppose we've got to resk our twenty-five cents an' hear 'em, before we can say.' "When the author was writin' to the secretary of the club she put in a newspaper piece showin' how folks paid a dollar and a half a ticket to hear her read in Cleveland and Si said if anybody was willin' to pay that price to hear an author, and a lady one at that, read her own writin's it was a case of fool and his money bein' soon parted. The secretary hed to come out real blunt and plain and say we allers hed got the best in Bixby Centre for twenty-five cents and we cal'lated we allers should. "Of course it wa'n't what you would call 'skilled labor,' anyway. She didn't make no pretense hardly; she read straight along, good and clear, but she wa'n't no elocutionist, and she didn't act out anything a mite. In one way she can't hold a candle to that Miss--what's that black-haired girl's name that's cousin to Mis' Tucker of the Lower Corner? Well, anyway, she graduated at a school of oratory, and she's ben here twice an' recited 'Asleep on the Switch' and 'The Maniac.' It comes high, for she has to be drove to and from the deepot, have her supper and breakfast and a dollar in money; but you can't have the same old thing all the year round; folks get tired of it and the house won't be filled.