"Mercy, Bess!" whispered Nan. "That's worthy of extravagant Laura
Polk herself."
"Thank you," responded Bess, as the farmer recovered from a fit of "the chuckles" over Bess Harley's joke. Bess added this question:
"What particular form of insanity do your daughter and Sallie Morton display, Mr. Snubbins?"
"Movin' picters," ejaculated the farmer. "Drat 'em! They've jest about bewitched my gal and Sallie Morton."
"Goodness!" gasped Nan. "There aren't moving picture shows away out here in the country, are there?"
"Oncet a week at the Corner," said Mr. Snubbins. "An' we all go. But that ain't so much what's made Celia and Sallie so crazy. Ye see, las' fall was a comp'ny makin' picters right up here in Peleg's west parster. Goodness me! there was a crowd of 'em. They camped in tents like Gypsies, and they did the most amazin' things—they sure did!
"Dif'rent from Gypsies," pursued the farmer, "they paid for all they got around here. Good folks to sell chicken an' aigs to. City prices, we got," and Mr. Snubbins licked his lips like a dog in remembrance of a good meal.
"An' I vow ter Maria!" the man went on to say, with some eagerness. "We 'most all around here air in them picters; ya-as'm! Ye wouldn't think I was an actor, would ye?" And he went off into another spasm of chuckles.
"Oh, what fun!" cried Bess.
"Paid us two dollars a day for jest havin' our photographts took, they did," said Mr. Snubbins.