"Why didn't you do it, then?" asked Dick Grayson.
"I did think o' writin' to Washin'ton once," said Tobe calmly, "an' tellin' them how it ought to be done, but I reckoned them old fellows would be mighty set in their ways an' wouldn't take it right. Old men don't like to be told by us youngsters that they don't know much."
"I've got a plan, too," said an Indiana youth named Forsythe.
"What is it?" asked Wentworth scornfully.
"It's a secret. I ain't ever goin' to tell it to anybody," said Forsythe. "I've drawed up my will, an' I've provided that when I die it's to be buried with me, still unread, folded right over my heart."
All laughed, but "Tobe" rejoined:
"Sech modesty is becomin' in Hoosiers, all the more so because it's the first time I ever knowed one of them to display it."
"Did you ever hear about that gentleman from Injiany that went out in the Kentucky Mountains once, drivin' a fine buggy?" asked Forsythe. "He noticed some big boys runnin' along behind him. He didn't think much of it at first, but they kept right behind him mile after mile, but sayin' nothin' an' offerin' no harm. At last his curiosity got the better of him, an' he leaned back and asked: 'Boys, why are you followin' me this way?' Then the biggest of them boys, a long, lean fellow, bare-footed and with only one suspender, up and answers: 'Why, stranger, we reckoned we'd run behind an' see how long it would take for your hind wheels to ketch up with your front wheels.'"
"Tobe" Wentworth sat calm and unsmiling until the laughter died. Then he said:
"Any of you fellers know how the people of Injiany got the name of Hoosiers? No? Well, I'll tell you. It's so wild and rough over there, an' them people are so teetotally ignorant an' so full of curiosity that, whenever a gentleman from Kentucky crosses the Ohio and goes along one of their rough roads, up they pop everywhere, and call out to him: 'Who's yer?' meaning 'Who are you?' and that started the word Hoosier, which all over the world to-day means the people from Injiany."