his appreciation of his employer's interest as he half-flushed under
his tan and nodded.

"Think it over," Forrest advised. "Make a statistic of all the college
girls--yes, and State Normal girls--you know. How many of them follow
career, and how many of them marry within two years after their
degrees and take to baby farming."

"Helen is very seriously bent on the matter," Crellin urged.

"Do you remember when I had my appendix out?" Forrest queried. "Well,
I had as fine a nurse as I ever saw and as nice a girl as ever walked
on two nice legs. She was just six months a full-fledged nurse, then.
And four months after that I had to send her a wedding present. She
married an automobile agent. She's lived in hotels ever since. She's
never had a chance to nurse--never a child of her own to bring through
a bout with colic. But... she has hopes... and, whether or not her
hopes materialize, she's confoundedly happy. But... what good was her
nursing apprenticeship?"

Just then an empty manure-spreader passed, forcing Crellin, on foot,
and Forrest, on his mare, to edge over to the side of the road.
Forrest glanced with kindling eye at the off mare of the machine, a
huge, symmetrical Shire whose own blue ribbons, and the blue ribbons
of her progeny, would have required an expert accountant to enumerate
and classify.

"Look at the Fotherington Princess," Forrest said, nodding at the mare
that warmed his eye. "She is a normal female. Only incidentally,
through thousands of years of domestic selection, has man evolved her