14/17 When a man has lived here a while he can't live in any other town--any other town is too slow for him--and yet I heard an old man say that he could have got all the land he wanted here for a yoke of oxen." "But he hadn't the oxen, eh ?" "Of coarse he had," Witherspoon replied, "but who wanted to exchange useful oxen for a useless mud-hole? His tongue, which at first had seemed to be so tight with silence, was now so loose with talk. He had dropped no hint of his own importance; he had made not the slightest allusion to the energy and ability that had been required to build his mammoth institution. His impressive dignity was set aside; he was blowing his town's horn. "Look at all this," Witherspoon continued, waving his hand. |