"
"Ah, but you must recollect that they are _resting_! You have no idea how
hard they all work in town during the winter," Mrs. Makely urged, with an
air of argument.
"Perhaps the tramps are resting, too. At any rate, I don't think the sight
of idleness in rags, and begging at back doors, is very corrupting to the
country people; I never heard of a single tramp who had started from the
country; they all come from the cities. It's the other kind of idleness
that tempts our young people. The only tramps that my son says he ever
envies are the well-dressed, strong young fellows from town that go
tramping through the mountains for exercise every summer."
The ladies both paused. They seemed to have got to the end of their
tether; at least, Mrs. Makely had apparently nothing else to advance, and
I said, lightly: "But that is just the kind of tramps that Mr. Homos would
most disapprove of. He says that in Altruria they would consider exercise
for exercise' sake a wicked waste of force and little short of lunacy."
I thought my exaggeration might provoke him to denial, but he seemed not
to have found it unjust. "Why, you know," he said to Mrs.
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