ightful small
person.

Francis Charles stole an appreciative glance at the trim and jaunty
figure beside him and answered evasively:

"It was like this, you know: Was reading Mark Twain's 'Life on the
Mississippi.' On the first page he observes of that river that it draws
its water supply from twenty-eight States, all the way from Delaware to
Idaho. I don't just see it. Delaware, you know--that's pretty steep!"

"If it were not for his reputation I should suspect Mr. Clemens of
levity," said Mary. "Could it have been a slip?"

"No slip. It's repeated. At the end of the second chapter he says this--I
think I have it nearly word for word: 'At the meeting of the waters from
Delaware and from Itasca, and from the mountain ranges close upon the
Pacific--' Now what did he mean by making this very extraordinary
statement twice? Is there a catch about it? Canals, or something?"

"I think, perhaps," said Mary, "he meant to poke fun at our habit of
reading without attention and of accepting statement as proof."

"That's it, likely. But maybe there's a joker about canals. Wasn't there
a Baltimore and Ohio Canal? But again, if so, how did water from Delaware
get to Baltimore? Anyhow, that's how it all began--studying about canals.
For, how about this dry canal along here? It runs forty miles that I know
of--I've seen that much of it, driving Thompson's car. It must have cost
a nice bunch of money. Who built it? When did who build it? What did it
cost? Where did it begin? Where did it start to? Was it ever finished?
Was it ever used? What was the name of it? Nobody seems to know."

"I can't answer one of those questions, Mr. Boland."

"And you a schoolmistress! Come now! I'll give you one more chance. What
are the principal exports of Abingdon?"

"That's easy. Let me see: potatoes, milk, eggs, butter, cheese. And hay,
lumber, lath and bark--chickens and--and apples, apple cider--rye,
buckwheat, buckwheat flour, maple sirup; pork and veal and beef; and--and
that's all, I guess."

"Wrong! I'll mark you fifty per cent. You've omitted the most important
item. Abingdon--and every country town, I suppose--ships off her young
people--to New York; to the factories; a few to the West. That is why
Abingdon is the saddest place I've ever seen. Every farmhouse holds a
tragedy. The young folk--

"They are all gone away;
The house is shut and still.
There is nothing more to say."

Mary Selden stopped; she looked up at her compa