"You see, it wasn't just the rhymin' o' them verses,--and they kinder sing themselves to ye, don't they ?--it wasn't the chyce o' words,--and I reckon they allus hit the idee in the centre shot every time,--it wasn't the idees and moral she sort o' drew out o' what she was tellin',--but it was the straight thing itself,--the truth!" "The truth ?" repeated the editor.
"Yes, sir.

I've bin there.

I've seen all that she's seen in the brush--the little flicks and checkers o' light and shadder down in the brown dust that you wonder how it ever got through the dark of the woods, and that allus seems to slip away like a snake or a lizard if you grope.

I've heard all that she's heard there--the creepin', the sighin', and the whisperin' through the bracken and the ground-vines of all that lives there." "You seem to be a poet yourself," said the editor, with a patronizing smile.
"I'm a lumberman, up in Mendocino," returned the stranger, with sublime naivete.

"Got a mill there.