"What would we do at it?"

"Oh, read papers. With Betelguese's power behind us we might do all
sorts of things--have picnics and read tracts to the poor. When you see
only college people, after a while you crave being illiterate, and I've
thought recently that I'd like to enlist in the Navy or move to Alaska,
or go over and work in the Mills. I'd buy a black shirt to work in and
use a bandana--when I used anything--and take the nice extra room my
laundress has in Whitmanville. She says her clothesline goes out fifty
feet, and they have a phonograph. Don't you think that would be more
attractive than trying to teach a lot of Freshmen Carlyle and
Hawthorne?"

"Lots, and there would be ever so much more money in it."

"It would be a kind of social service work, wouldn't it? 'Woodbridge
Professor Slaves in Mill to Earn Bread.' That would go big, all over
the country."

"Do you know, I've thought a little of doing some social work,
seriously. I don't know anything about it, of course, but it has
occurred to me that if I could get a group of people together we might
have one of the Physiologist instructors give us some lectures. You see,
the first thing in social work must be the health of the people, and I
should think a good grounding in the fundamentals would be essential. As
soon as we have their interest in their personal welfare we can get them
to playing basketball, brushing their teeth, putting screens in their
windows, and--so on. Naturally I don't know much about it, but it would
seem as though there were a great opportunity for somebody."

"Conditions in the town, on the west side, aren't too good."

"Of course they're not. I have let my mind run on at a great rate about
it, but I don't see why, if the right person got hold of it, the whole
town couldn't be improved, made into a model mill town, you know--with
playgrounds, and creches, and--" Again other model features failed her.

"Well, why aren't you the proper person? I should think you could do it
if anyone could. Your uncle would have to listen to you, and he probably
would be all for it."

"Oh, Uncle Rob is just as nice as he can be--but I couldn't do it all
alone."

"Well, now of course we have got into this thing pretty quickly, but I
assure you I should like nothing better than to do something about it
with you. After all, what is education in the finest sense, but the
uplifting of the masses? You probably will want to think it over a
little m