the stars with that
old spy-glass Captain Barker gave her.

_Warner_

She was a good mother, all the same.

_Mrs. W._

Couldn't cook at all. Your father only kept alive by eating at the
neighbors occasionally--and as for sewing and mending, you children went
in rags till your Aunt Sary came to live with you.

_Warner_

Mother thought a heap of us, though. I remember how she cried because I
wouldn't go to school and went into the grocery business. And she cried
a lot more when I married you. I couldn't understand her--_then_....

_Mrs. W._

Humph! She'd been shut up fast enough if your father hadn't been the
softest-hearted man alive.

_Warner_

Maybe the boy does take after her, but he's worse'n she ever was.

_Mrs. W._

She didn't have any books--or college education--to turn her head.

_Warner_

Nothing to read but the _Weekly Mirror_. It was a good paper, though,
all about crops and stock, and what the country people were doing, and
a love story on the inside page. Father subscribed on her account. She
told him her mind had to have _something_ to work on. But she didn't
take to the paper, and he had to read it himself to get his money's
worth.

_Mrs. W._

A good thing she didn't have a library to get at like Philo. All those
books he brought home didn't do him any good. He began to get queer
about the time he was reading that set of Sir Humphry Davy's Complete
Works, with so much about electrics and the stars, and that sort of
stuff. If we could only get him to quit this studyin' and stay
out-o'-doors....

_Warner_

S'pose we clear out this hole--burn the books, and get rid of all these
confounded wires and jars and fixings. I don't believe he saves a penny
of the wages I give him for helpin' to ruin me. All he makes goes for
this truck. We'll clear it out.

_Mrs. W._

I've thought of that, but we oughtn't to go too far. They're his anyhow,
and I'm afraid----

_Warner_

Well, I'm not afraid! And I'll begin with this devil! (_Pauses over
machine. Starts suddenly._) What's that? He's coming!

_Mrs. W._ (_listening_)

It's only Alice going to her room.

_Warner_

Perhaps we'd better see what the specialist says first.

_Mrs. W._

I know Dr. Bellows wants us to send Philo away. But I'm against that,
first and last.

_Warner_

You wouldn't be if you'd listen to Bellows awhile. You know what he told
me when I met him this morning? "Why, Warner," he says, "I never go to
see th