one else! I guess that's natural, though. Most school teachers
don't know much about children."

"The best of it is," he went on, "I have such a darn good time.
Peg and Bock (that's the dog) and I go loafing along the road on
a warm summer day, and by and by we'll fetch up alongside some
boarding-house and there are the boarders all rocking off their
lunch on the veranda. Most of 'em bored to death--nothing good to
read, nothing to do but sit and watch the flies buzzing in the sun
and the chickens rubbing up and down in the dust. First thing you
know I'll sell half a dozen books that put the love of life into
them, and they don't forget Parnassus in a hurry. Take O. Henry, for
instance--there isn't anybody so dog-gone sleepy that he won't enjoy
that man's stories. He understood life, you bet, and he could write
it down with all its little twists. I've spent an evening reading O.
Henry and Wilkie Collins to people and had them buy out all their
books I had and clamour for more."

"What do you do in winter?" I asked--a practical question, as most
of mine are.

"That depends on where I am when bad weather sets in," said Mr.
Mifflin. "Two winters I was down south and managed to keep Parnassus
going all through the season. Otherwise, I just lay up wherever I
am. I've never found it hard to get lodging for Peg and a job for
myself, if I had to have them. Last winter I worked in a bookstore
in Boston. Winter before, I was in a country drugstore down in
Pennsylvania. Winter before that, I tutored a couple of small boys
in English literature. Winter before that, I was a steward on a
steamer; you see how it goes. I've had a fairly miscellaneous