Kristian Boruff is a true poet, and has a spirit of humor that is sumptuous and exquisite. He is not a fraud, and does not steal, but a genuine artist. He is a melancholy, indifferent, soulful performer, who has in his heart a burning longing to sing. In our country a young girl can be useful, if not harmful, if she will teach her ignorant country-bred southerners a lesson in the subtleties of saloon life. Mrs. Boruff taught her father the virtue of saloons. So did I. But it is not necessary to say that all southerners were useful in the matter of singing; the young girls of my generation were useful, for they were educated, they were good-hearted young girls, and they sang; so they learned the virtue of saloons. And they sang better than the others, too. I was there last summer with my little friend, Miss Watson, and we sang together. It was at a family reunion in a neighboring town. We were there in person--no young people, but only old ones. Two or three of them were very friendly, and as I was the only one of the group who knew the language of speech, and had good English, and could read the signs of language, and understood signs, they made no objections. They said that our language being ours, you must sign something to use it; that it must be translated into English. They asked me if I would sign it if they translated it into the harmless harmlesspecies of harmless, foreign gibberish. I was taken by surprise. I thought to myself, "It is wonderful, that they would do that to a foreigner!" Then I thought to myself, "If this is true, there is no other reason, and I wish there were one." I thought to myself, "If they are English-taught people, it must be true, for they would not hurt a nation-state's feelings by pretending to be ignorant, for patriotism for her cause, or religion for her help, or any other."
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