Mifflin certainly surpassed himself at dinner. The fact that
Mrs. Mason's hot biscuits tasted of saleratus gave me far less
satisfaction than it otherwise would, because I was absorbed in
listening to the little vagabond's talk. Mr. Mason came to the table
grumbling something about his telephone being out of order--(I
wondered whether he had been trying to get Andrew on the wire; he
was a little afraid that I was being run away with, I think)--but
he was soon won over by the current of the little man's cheery wit.
Nothing daunted Mifflin. He talked to the old grandmother about
quilts; offered to cut off a strip of his necktie for her new
patchwork; and told all about the illustrated book on quilts that he
had in the van. He discussed cookery and the Bible with Mrs. Mason;
and she being a leading light in the Greenbriar Sunday School, was
pleasantly scandalized by his account of the best detective stories
in the Old Testament. With Mr. Mason he was all scientific farming,
chemical manures, macadam roads, and crop rotation; and to little
Billy (who sat next him) he told extraordinary yarns about Daniel
Boone, Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill, and what not.
Honestly I was amazed at the little man. He was as genial as a
cricket on the hearth, and yet every now and then his earnestness
would break through. I don't wonder he was a success at selling
books. That man could sell clothes pins or Paris garters, I guess,
and make them seem romantic.

"You know, Mr. Mason," he said, "you certainly owe it to these
youngsters of yours to put a few really good books into their hands.
City kids have the libraries to go to, but in the country there's
only old Doc Hostetter's Almanac and the letters written by ladies
with backache telling how Peruna did for them. Give this boy and