They've got all kinds of pictures in 'em--all of fancy gowns and hats
and things like that. She showed one to me, once, but all I could make
out was just the pictures, and she couldn't manage to make out much
more. She can read the names on all the letters comin' to the
post-office, for there's only three folks ever gets 'em, but she ain't
what you'd really call a scholar."

He laughed heartily. "So, even in the mountains, here, they take the
fashion papers, do they?"

"No; she don't pay for 'em," she gravely answered. "They're always
marked with red ink, 'Sample Copy,' so she says; but they send 'em ev'ry
once a while. If you're in th' post-office, you get a lot o' things,
like that--all sorts o' picture-papers, an' cards, all printed up in
pretty colors, to tell what medicines to take when you get sick."

"Ah, patent-medicine advertisements."

"Yes; that's what she calls 'em, an' she's read me some powerful amazin'
stories out of 'em--them as was in short words--of folks that rose up
almost from th' dead! They're wonderful!"

"They are, indeed!"

"But what I always liked th' best was them there papers tellin' about
clo'es."

"Eternal feminine!"

"I don't know what you mean by that, but they are mighty peart, some o'