Irving Bacheller, it appears, was on a tramping tour through New
England. He discovered a chin-bearded patriarch on a roadside rock.
"Fine corn," said Mr. Bacheller, tentatively, using a hillside filled
with straggling stalks as a means of breaking the conversational ice.
"Best in Massachusetts," said the sitter.
"How do you plow that field?" asked Mr. Bacheller. "It is so very
steep."
"Don't plow it," said the sitter. "When the spring thaws come, the rocks
rolling down hill tear it up so that we can plant corn."
"And how do you plant it?" asked Mr. Bacheller. The sitter said that he
didn't plant it, really. He stood in his back door and shot the seed in
with a shotgun.
"Is that the truth?" asked Bacheller.
"H--ll no," said the sitter, disgusted. "That's conversation."
Conversation is the laboratory and workshop of the student.--_Emerson_.
A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than
ten years' study of books.--_Longfellow_.