able peroration, spoken in a high monotonous key, after
the fashion of the political orator, Milton sat down mopping his face,
while his admirers cheered.

The chairman, who had been nervously twisting in his chair, hastened to
explain.

"Fellow-Citizens: I'm not to be held responsible for anything anybody
else speaks on this platform. I do not believe with our young brother.
I think that politics will destroy the grange. To make it a debating
school on political questions would bring discord and wrangling into
it. I hope I shall never see the day. I now ask Brother Jennings to say
a few words."

Mr. Jennings, a fat and jolly farmer, came to the front looking very
hot. His collar had long since melted.

"I aint very much of a speech-maker, Mr. President, brothers and
sisters. Fact is, I sent my boy down to the seminary to learn how to
talk, so't I wouldn't haf to. I guess he represents my idees purty
well, though, all except this political idee. I don't know about that.
I aint quite made up my mind on that point. I guess I'd better leave
the floor for somebody else."

"Glad you left the floor," whispered Milton to his father as he sat
down by his side. Milton was a merciless joker, especially upon his
father.

"We have with us to-day," said the chairman, in the tone of one who
announces the coming in of the dessert, "one of the most eloquent
speakers in the State, one whose name all grangers know, our State
lecturer, Miss Ida Wilbur."

The assembly rose to its feet with applause as a slender young woman
stepped forth, and waited, with easy dignity to begin her speech. There
was something significant in her manner, which was grave and dignified,
and a splendid stillness fell upon the audience as she began in a
clear, penetrating contralto:

"Brothers and sisters in the Order: While I have been sitting here
listening to your speakers, I have been looking at the mottoes on your
banners, and I have been trying to find out by those expressions what
your conception of this movement is. I wonder whether its majesty
appears to you as it does to me." She paused for an instant. "We are in
danger of losing sight of its larger meaning.

"Primarily, the object of the grange has been the education of the
farmers. It has been a great social educator, and I am glad, my friends
and neighbors, when I can look out upon such an assembly as this. I see
in it the rise of the idea of union, and intelligent union; but
principally