218 Clear Skies and Cloudy. 



be plain-spoken, but not offensively so. He 

 may look you straight in the eye, but he does 

 not impudently stare, and there is herein a won- 

 derful difference not always recognized within 

 city limits. Honest himself, he expects honesty 

 in you, and, speaking the truth, neither blushes 

 in so doing nor expects that his words will cause 

 you to be confused. If this is rudeness, let us 

 have more of it. 



Untaught ! True, he may never have heard 

 of Homer, and is in doubt if Shakespeare is the 

 author of dramas, or is a play of that name. 

 Never mind. The rustic makes a remark at 

 odd times that Shakespeare would have been 

 delighted to have thought of. Shockingly un- 

 taught ! Yes ; but what is ancient literature to 

 him who has been reared in the still older litera- 

 ture of a bird's song and the murmur of the 

 breeze in the pine-tree tops that shade his cot- 

 tage? If untaught as to the past, in an his- 

 torical sense, he is not ignorant of the present, 

 and his arguments in times of political turmoil 

 are worthy of attention. It seems not to occur 

 to some people that the rustic has no special 

 edition of the metropolitan dailies printed to 



