"'Why,' I says, 'it's just being professor of human beings, then?'
"'Trying to be, perhaps,' he says, grave.
"'Professor of Human Beings,' I said over to myself; 'professor of being human....'
"On this nice minute, the front door, without no bell or knock, opened to let in Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, with a shawl over her head and a tin can in her hand.
"'No, I won't set any, thanks,' she says. 'I just got to thinking—mercy, no. Don't give me any kind of anything to eat any such time of night as this. I should be up till midnight taking soda. That's what ails folks' stomachs, my notion—these late lunches on nobody knows what. No, I got to bed and I was just dropping off when I happened to sense how wringing wet that child was, and that I betted he'd take cold and have the croup in the night, and you wouldn't have no remedy—not having any children, so. It rousted me right up wide awake, and I dressed me and run over here with this. Here. Put some on a rag and clap it on his chest if he coughs croupy. I donno's it would hurt him to clap it on him, anyway, so's to be sure. No, I can't stop. It's 'way past my bed-time....'
"'There's lots of professors of being human, Miss Marsh,' Insley says to me, low.
"Mis' Holcomb stood thinking a minute, brushing her lips with the fringe of her shawl.
"'Mebbe somebody up to the Proudfits' would do something for him,' she says. 'I see they're lit up. Who's coming?'
"'Mr. Alex Proudfit will be here to-morrow,' Mis' Emmons told her. 'He has some people coming to him in a day or two, for a house party over the Fourth.'
"'Will he be here so soon?' says Insley. 'I've been looking forward to meeting him—I've a letter to him from Indian Mound.'