What I found out was mostly my own work, putting two and two in their fit relationship.  Even the mention of Herman Wagner’s full name brought nothing about himself.  I found it most annoying.  I would say:  “Come on, now; what about this Herman Wagner that paints wheedling messages across the face of Nature?” And to this fair, plain query I would merely have more of the woman’s endless help troubles.  All that come looking for work these days was stormy petrels, not caring if they worked or not—­just asking for it out of habit.

Didn’t she have a singing teacher, a painless dentist, a crayon-portrait artist and a condemned murderer on her payroll this very minute, all because the able-bodied punchers had gone over to see that nasty little Belgium didn’t ever again attack Germany in that ruthless way?  She had read that it cost between thirty and thirty-five thousand dollars to wound a soldier in battle.  Was that so?  Well, she’d tell me that she stood ready to wound any of these that was left behind for between thirty and thirty-five cents, on easy payments.  Wound ’em severely, too!  Not mere scratches.

Presently again I would utter Herman Wagner, only to be told that these dry cows she was letting go for sixty dollars—­you come to cut ’em up for beef and you’d have to grease the saw first.  Or I heard what a scandal it was that lambs actually brought five-fifty, and the Government at Washington, D.C., setting back idly under the outrage!

Then I heard, with perfect irrelevance to Herman Wagner, that she wouldn’t have a puncher on the place that owned his own horse.  Because why?  Because he’d use him gentle all day and steal grain for him at night.  Also, that she had some kind of rheumatiz in her left shoulder; but she’d rather be a Christian Scientist and fool herself than pay a doctor to do the same.  It may all have been true, but it was not important; not germane to the issue, as we so often say in writing editorials.

It looked so much like a blank for Herman Wagner that I quit asking for a time and let the woman toil at her foolish ruinous tasks.

After half an hour of it she began to rumble a stanza of By Cool Siloam’s Shady Rill; so I chanced it again, remarking on the sign I had observed that day.  So she left her desk for a seat before the fire and said yes, and they was other signs of Herman’s hid off in the mountains where no one but cows, that can’t read a line, would see ’em.  She also divulged that Herman, himself, wasn’t anything you’d want a bronze statue of to put up in Courthouse Square.

Well then, come on, now!  What about him?  No, sir; not by a darned sight!  With that there desk full of work, she simply could not stop to talk now.  She did.

Is that the only sign of Herman’s you saw?  He’s got others along them trails.  You’ll see an arrow in white paint, pointing to his sylvan glen, and warnings not to go to other glens till you’ve tried his.  One says:  You’ve tried the rest; now try the best!  Another says:  Try Wagner’s Sylvan Glen for Boating, Bathing, and Fishing.  Meals at all hours!  And he’s got one that shows he studied American advertising as soon as he landed in this country.  It says:  Wagner’s Sylvan Glen—­Not How Good, But How Cheap!