tion of Herman Wagner's full name brought
nothing about himself. I found it most annoying. I would say: "Come on,
now; what about this Herman Wagner that paints wheedling messages across
the face of Nature?" And to this fair, plain query I would merely have
more of the woman's endless help troubles. All that come looking for work
these days was stormy petrels, not caring if they worked or not--just
asking for it out of habit.

Didn't she have a singing teacher, a painless dentist, a crayon-portrait
artist and a condemned murderer on her payroll this very minute, all
because the able-bodied punchers had gone over to see that nasty little
Belgium didn't ever again attack Germany in that ruthless way? She had
read that it cost between thirty and thirty-five thousand dollars to
wound a soldier in battle. Was that so? Well, she'd tell me that she
stood ready to wound any of these that was left behind for between
thirty and thirty-five cents, on easy payments. Wound 'em severely,
too! Not mere scratches.

Presently again I would utter Herman Wagner, only to be told that these
dry cows she was letting go for sixty dollars--you come to cut 'em up for
beef and you'd have to grease the saw first. Or I heard what a scandal
it was that lambs actually brought five-fifty, and the Government at
Washington, D.C., setting back idly under the outrage!

Then I heard, with perfect irrelevance to Herman Wagner, that she
wouldn't have a puncher on the place that owned his own horse. Because
why? Because he'd use him gentle all day and steal grain for him at
night. Also, that she had some kind of rheumatiz in her left shoulder;
but she'd rather be a Christian Scientist and fool herself than pay a
doctor to do the same. It may all have been true, but it was not
important; not germane to the issue, as we so often say in writing
editorials.

It looked so much like a blank for Herman Wagner that I quit asking for
a time and let the woman toil at her foolish ruinous tasks.

After half an hour of it she began to rumble a stanza of By Cool Siloam's
Shady Rill; so I chanced it again, remarking on the sign I had observed
that day. So she left her desk for a seat before the fire and said yes,
and they was other signs of Herman's hid off in the mountains where no
one but cows, that can't read a line, would see 'em. She also divulged
that Herman, himself, wasn't anything you'd want a bronze statue of to
put up in Courthouse Square.

Well then, com