me if I remembered how I cried, with
my face in her lap, over that first loss of an illusion--and I told her
quite truly that I remembered well!

CHAPTER THIRD

I Enter a New World--I Know a New Hunger and we Return to Cleveland.

The experiences of the first two of my third group of years have
influenced my entire life. Still flying from my seemingly ubiquitous
father, my mother after a desperate struggle gained enough money to pay
for our journey to what was then called the "far West"--namely, the
southwestern part of Illinois. Child-fashion, I was delighted at the
prospect of a change, and happy over the belief that I was going to some
place where I could be free to go and come like other children, without
dreading the appearance of a big, smiling man from any deep doorway or
from around the next corner. To tell the truth, that persistent,
indestructible smile always seemed an insult added to the injury of his
malicious and revengeful conduct.

Then, too, I experienced my first delicious thrill of imaginary terror.
In a torn and abandoned old geography I had seen a picture labelled
"Prairie." The grass was as high as a man's shoulders, and stealthily
emerging from it was a sort of compound animal, neither tiger nor
leopard, but with points of resemblance to both. And here every day I was
listening to the grown-ups talking of "prairie lands," and how far we
might have to drive across the prairie after leaving the train; and I
made up my mind that I would hold our umbrella all the time, and when the
uncertain beast came out I'd try to stick his eyes with it, and under
cover of the confusion we would undoubtedly escape.

That being settled, I could turn all my attention to preparations for
the long journey. Dear me, I remember just where each big red rose came
on the carpet-bag, and how sorry I was that the tiny brass lock came
right in the side of one. It was a large bag and held a great deal, but
was so arranged that whatever you wanted was always found at the
bottom--whether it was the tooth-brush or a night-gown or a pair of
rubbers. It had a sort of dividing wall of linen in its middle, and while
one side held clothing, the other side was the commissary department. No
buffet-cars then, travellers ran their own buffets, and though the things
did not come into actual contact, there was not an article, big or
little, in that bag that did not smell of pickles. And once when my
mother had hastily attende