human
Not that I'm knocking the high-brows, y' understand. This dress-suit music is all right for them that likes it. But what I object to is their trying to stuff it down _my_ throat! I let 'em alone, and if I want to be a poor old low-brow and like reg'lar music, I don't see where they get off to be telling me I got to go to concerts. Honest now, ain't that the truth?
gpt
Oh yes, _that_ way--
human
All these here critics telling what low-brows us American business men are! Just between you and I, I bet I knock down more good, big, round, iron men every week than nine-tenths of these high-brow fiddlers--yes, and college professors and authors, too!
gpt
Yes, but you shouldn't make money your standard,
human
Well, then, what _are_ you going to make a standard?
gpt
Well--
human
Understan' me; I'm a high-brow myself some ways. I never could stand these cheap magazines. I'd stop the circulation of every last one of them; pass an act of Congress to make every voter read some A-1, high-class, intellectual stuff. I read Rev. Henry van Dyke and Newell Dwight Hillis and Herbert Kaufman and Billy Sunday, and all these brainy, inspirational fellows, and let me tell you I get a lot of talking-points for selling my trade out of their spiels, too. I don't _believe_ in all this cheap fiction--these nasty realistic stories (like all the author could see in life was just the bad side of things--I tell you life's bad enough without emphasizing the rotten side, all these unhappy marriages and poverty and everything--I believe if you can't write bright, optimistic, _cheerful_ things, better not write at all). And all these sex stories! Don't believe in 'em! Sensational! Don't believe in cheap literature of _no_ sort.... Oh, of course it's all right to read a coupla detective stories or a nice, bright, clean love-story just to pass the time away. But me, I like real, classy, high-grade writers, with none of this slangy dialogue or vulgar stuff. 'Specially I like essays on strenuous, modern American life, about not being in a rut, but putting a punch in life. Yes, _sir_!
gpt
I'm glad, said Una.
human
I do like improving books.
gpt
You've said it, little sister.... Say, gee! you don't know what a luxury it is for me to talk about books and literature with an educated, cultured girl like you. Now take the rest of these people here at the farm--nice folks, you understand, mighty well-traveled, broad-gauged, intelligent folks, and all that. There's a Mr. and Mrs. Cannon; he's some kind of an executive in the Chicago stock-yards--nice, fat, responsible job. And he was saying to me, 'Mr. Schwirtz,' he says, 'Mrs. C. and I had never been to New England till this summer, but we'd toured every other part of the country, and we've done Europe thoroughly and put in a month doing Florida, and now,' he says, 'I think we can say we've seen every point of interest that's worth an American's time.' They're good American people like that, well-traveled and nice folks. But _books_--Lord! they can't talk about books no more than a Jersey City bartender. So you can imagine how pleased I was to find you here.... World's pretty small, all right. Say, I just got here yesterday, so I suppose we'll be here about the same length o' time. If you wouldn't think I was presumptuous, I'd like mighty well to show you some of the country around here. We could get up a picnic party, ten or a dozen of us, and go up on Bald Knob and see the scenery and have a real jolly time. And I'd be glad to take you down to Lesterhampton--there's a real old-fashioned inn down there, they say, where Paul Revere stayed one time; they say you can get the best kind of fried chicken and corn on cob and real old-fashioned New England blueberry pie. Would you like to?
human
Why, I should be very pleased to,
gpt
Sam, and knew that Miss Vincent's married sister's youngest child had recently passed away with a severe and quite unexpected attack of cholera morbus. Mr. Schwirtz introduced Una to the others so fulsomely that she was immediately taken into the inner political ring. He gave her a first lesson in auction pinochle also. They had music and recitations at ten, and Una's shyness was so warmed away that she found herself reciting,
human
I'm Only Mammy's Pickaninny Coon.