But I wanted to be back on free soil, out of an atmosphere which killed all manhood, and furnished women-whippers as a substitute for men.

Pa had two manias: the movies, and a passion for purchasing new and complicated household utensilscream-whippers, egg-beaters, window-clamps, lemon-squeezers, silver-polishers.

In this list stand not the wife-whippers, not the drunkards, not the dissolute, but every minister in that town, every editor in that town, every professional man in that town, every banker, and every prominent business man in that town of three hundred electors.