“I have long suspected that it was a regrettable waste of energy to send missionaries into heathen parts of the globe when there remain so many unenlightened corners in our own land.  It almost seems now as if I had been guided here.  It is true that my husband has gone, but that shall not distress me.  Rodney is a drifter—­I may say a natural-born drifter, and I cannot undertake to follow him.  I shall remain here.  I have been guided—­” determination gleamed in her gray-green eyes,—­“I shall remain here and teach these poor people to make something of themselves.”

Solon drew a long breath.  My own echoed it.  Hereupon little Roscoe broke into a high-pitched recitative.

“We are now in the great boundless West, a land of rough but kind-hearted and worthy folk, and abounding with instructive sights and scenes which are well calculated—­”

“My son,” interrupted his mother, “kindly tell the gentlemen what should be your aim in life.”

“To strive to improve my natural gifts by reading and conversation,” answered Roscoe, in one swift breath.

“Very good—­ver-ry good—­but for the present you may listen.  Now, Mr. Denney—­” she turned to Solon with the latest Argus in her hand,—­“perusing your sheet, my eye lights upon this sentence:—­”

“’Lige Brackett Sundayed in our midst.  He reports a busy time of Fall ploughing over Bethel way.’

“Why ‘Sundayed,’ Mr. Denney?” She smiled brightly, almost archly, at Solon.  “I dare say you would not employ ‘Mondayed’ or ‘Tuesdayed’ or ‘Wednesdayed.’  You see?  The term is what we may call a vulgarism—­you perceive that, do you not?—­likewise ‘in our midst,’ which is not accurate, of course, and which would be indelicate if it were.  Now I let my eye descend the column to your account of a certain social function.  You say, ’The table fairly groaned with the weight of good things, and a good time was had by all present.’  Surely, Mr. Denney, you are a man not without culture and refinement.  Had you but taken thought, you could as well have said that ’An elegant collation was served, the menu including many choice delicacies, and the affair was widely pronounced to be most enjoyable.’”

Solon’s frightened eyes besought me, but I could not help him, and again he was forced to meet the kindly, almost whimsically accusing gaze of the censor, who was by no means done with him.

“Again I read here, ‘The graveyard fence needs repairing badly.’  Do you not see, Mr. Denney, how far more refined it were to say ‘God’s acre,’ or ‘the marbled city of the dead’?  I now turn from mere solecisms to the broader question of taste.  Under the heading ‘Hanged in Carroll County,’ I read an item beginning, ’At eight-thirty, A.M., last Friday the soul of Martin G. Buckley, dressed in a neat-fitting suit of black, with a low collar and black cravat, was ushered into the presence of his God.’  Pardon me, but do we not find here, if we read closely, an attempt to blend the material with the spiritual with a result that we can only designate as infelicitous?”