Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/158

 that we Mid-Westerners are of an unsubjugated alien race, ominously multiplying within the borders of the otherwise United States, and mainly occupied with the propagation of miscellaneous fanaticisms. He has not yet forgiven me "the pacifism of the Mississippi Valley when the seaboard was aflame." He ascribes to me the "bolshevism" of North Dakota, and is always inquiring solicitously: "By the way, how did you come out with your investments in the Dakota bonds?" Sometimes he pretends that, as I am from "Puritan Kansas," I may have scruples against breakfasting with them "on the Sabbath"; if I accept, he turns to Cornelia and gravely warns her not to forget "the Nebraskan's grape-juice." Or he will ask my permission to light a cigarette, remarking, "As you are from Utah, I feared it might be offensive to you." His mocking compassion is often excited by my provincial residence and by my profession. I don't mind his designating me as "Pascal," nor his reference to my correspondence with Cornelia as Les lettres provinciales. But, in one of his sharper moods, I remember his saluting me as "Calpurnia." I asked him to enlarge a little on the idea. "Oh, it's nothing," he replied, "only I hear that nowadays they are