“I think it’s all right, sir. But between singing what would I do?”
“Do you love nature?”
“I don’t know’s I know what you intend to mean, sir.”
“Does it make you happy to be out doors?”
“Oh, sure. I’m an out-door boy, all right.”
“Well, Mrs. Vernon, in her desire to benefit humanity—You understand me, James?”
“Oh, I get the words all right. I don’t rightly see your drift.”
“What I want to say is, that Mrs. Vernon wishes to make Minerva love out doors as well as you do, and she is going to teach her some of the things that a country-bred man like you knows by heart. How to tell an oak from a maple at twilight.”
“Oh, that kind has been here before. The Wheelocks, that had this house last year, went out in the woods with these here glasses and they brought things up close with them. They never cared for nature unless they had their glasses.”
“James, I’m afraid it is apt to degenerate into something like that, but—James, if I tell you something, will you respect my confidence?”