broker, you know, and of course I've always been keen enough about the
New England end of my job, but I've never thought anything so very
special about the South American end of it. But that girl--that
make-believe girl, I mean--insists that I ought to know all about
South America, so she sent me this book; and it's corking reading,
too--all about funny things like eating monkeys and parrots and
toasted guinea-pigs--and sleeping outdoors in black jungle-nights
under mosquito netting, mind you, as a protection against prowling
panthers.--And here's a queer little newspaper cutting that she sent
me one blizzardy Sunday telling all about some big violin maker who
always went out into the forests himself and chose his violin woods
from the _north_ side of the trees. Casual little item. You don't
think anything about it at the moment. It probably isn't true. And to
save your soul you couldn't tell what kind of trees violins are made
out of, anyway. But I'll wager that never again will you wake in the
night to listen to the wind without thinking of the great
storm-tossed, moaning, groaning, slow-toughening forest
trees--learning to be violins!... And here's a funny little old silver
porringer that she gave me, she says, to make my 'old gray gruel taste
shinier.' And down at the bottom of the bowl--the ruthless little
pirate--she's taken a knife or a pin or something and scratched the
words, 'Excellent Child!'--But you know I never noticed that part of
it at all till last week. You see I've only been eating down to the
bottom of the bowl just about a week.--And here's a catalogue of a
boy's school, four or five catalogues in fact that she sent me one
evening and asked me if I please wouldn't look them over right away
and help her decide where to send her little brother. Why, man, it
took me almost all night! If you get the athletics you want in one
school, then likelier than not you slip up on the manual training,
and if they're going to schedule eight hours a week for Latin, why