I wonder if there isn't a lot of bunkum in higher education? I never
found that people who were learned in logarithms and other kinds of
poetry were any quicker in washing dishes or darning socks. I've
done a good deal of reading when I could, and I don't want to "admit
impediments" to the love of books, but I've also seen lots of good,
practical folk spoiled by too much fine print. Reading sonnets
always gives me hiccups, too.

I never expected to be an author! But I do think there are some
amusing things about the story of Andrew and myself and how books
broke up our placid life. When John Gutenberg, whose real name (so
the Professor says) was John Gooseflesh, borrowed that money to set
up his printing press he launched a lot of troubles on the world.

Andrew and I were wonderfully happy on the farm until he became an
author. If I could have foreseen all the bother his writings were
to cause us, I would certainly have burnt the first manuscript in
the kitchen stove.

Andrew McGill, the author of those books every one reads, is my
brother. In other words, I am his sister, ten years younger. Years
ago Andrew was a business man, but his health failed and, like so
many people in the story books, he fled to the country, or, as he
called it, to the bosom of Nature. He and I were the only ones left
in an unsuccessful family. I was slowly perishing as a conscientious
governess in the brownstone region of New York. He rescued me from
that and we bought a farm with our combined savings. We became real
farmers, up with the sun and to bed with the same. Andrew wore
overalls and a soft shirt and grew brown and tough. My hands got
red and blue with soapsuds and frost; I never saw a Redfern