"She wa'n't no great reader, as I say, and she wa'n't no great writer for that matter, and I can't hardly see why they should make a fuss over her in the cities. Her stories might 'a' happened anywhere, most; they never did happen, I s'pose, but they sounded so natural and likely that it couldn't 'a' ben much work to write 'em down. I declare if she'd 'a' ben here this afternoon and took down what we've said, 'twould 'a' ben 'bout as good as what she read that night. I wouldn't wonder if I could write a couple of books a year jest like hers, but I don't s'pose it pays so well as goin' out by the day sewin', an', as Si says, we're in this world for a livin', not for notoriety. "The next mornin' the committee went to the deepot to see the author off, and the four young men ushers was there, too, with the biggest and about the hombliest boquet I ever set eyes on! I don't hardly know how she could 'a' took it in her hand without changin' color. I got there first, and I was glad I did, for the deepot master hed forgot and laid out that old fly-paper all over the benches in the waitin'-room, and I hed a chance to yank it out o' sight and dust down the stove-pipe before she come in. Mis' Stevens looked real smilin' for once, and asked her to come back and make her a visit when it was cooler weather and her hired girl was over the whoopin'-cough. "Mr. Hobson was there, and he handed her an envelope with two railroad tickets to Portland inside of it. It was just like him to buy the tickets and put 'em in an envelope; the other minister would 'a' counted the dollar and seventeen cents into her hand--and just as she was gettin' on the train the president of the Readin' Club stepped up and presented her with an album that hed the photographs of all the members pasted in it. "Si says it ain't the handsomest club in the United States, even when it gets its best clothes on; but that's nothin' but a man's way of runnin' down women's clubs. We ain't all good lookin', to be sure, and most of the pictures was taken in country daguerreon saloons, where they don't flatter folks up much. I did kind o' wish Lowisy Burrage hed hed her new glasses and Aurelia Hanson her waved front piece before they was taken, but the author was too tickled for anything to git such a handsome present, and she said so; and says the president of the club to her, 'You ain't a mite tickleder'n we be to give it to you!' Then the train went off, the author lookin' back from the platform, the committee wavin' their handkerchiefs, and Mr. Hobson 'n' the four ushers swingin' their hats at her. "All in all it was 'bout the most successful entertainment we ever bed here to Bixby, and we made forty dollars clear, though the land knows we put work enough into it to make seventy-five! There's one thing certain, wherever that author goes readin' she won't find any place that'll do the thing up in the same style as the Winter Night Club did when it entertained her at Bixby!