onor of that novel Wayfarer, that would first traverse space
and conquer it--bridge the gulf which made Earth a hermit amid the
heavenly bodies--of the great invention, whereof poets in future ages
would sing, that daringly took the first step towards linking planet
with planet.

And the tender sapling was rooted in the hope that long before it was a
mature tree that comet-like Wayfarer would start,--the Thunder Bird
would fly.

Well! star-dust never blinded the eyes. But it certainly dazzled
those of Pemrose, that young visionary, as she pressed earth around
her sapling's root: would there ever come a time when the Camp
Fires of Earth would hail the Camp Fires of some other planet
across that illimitable No Man's Land of Space, first--oh! thought
transcendent--first bridged by her father's genius?

But with the high seasoning of that thought came the salty smack of
another! All unseen in the planting excitement a tear dropped upon the
spading trowel as she thought of that whimsical "Get thee behind me,
Satan, but don't push!" plea of the inventor sorely tempted to
commercialize his genius, thwart its inspired range, because of the
difficulties about bringing his project to fruition--and of that money
hung up, idle, for the next twelve years.

"Daddy-man thinks he'll be--well! not an old man, but that his best
energies will be spent by that time, even if--"

But here the trowel dug vigorously, burying head over ears the thought
of the possible return within that time of the "zany" who had been such
a mad fellow in youth that, according to her father and others, it was
like sitting on a barrel of gunpowder to have anything to do with him,
so sure were you to come to grief through his explosive pranks. And yet,
and yet--perhaps it was the dash of spice in her name--Pem could not
help feeling an interest for his own sake in that "hot tamale", the
Thunder Bird's rival in the will!

So she spaded away, watering her sapling for the first time, herself,
with that little tributary tear; and then, propitiating it, after the
manner of the Indians, in the graceful Leaf Dance, capering around it,
around the Queen Birch, too, with her companions, upon the lightest
fantastic toe, their green arms outstretched and waving, to imitate the
leaves above them, blown by the wind.

Went the phonograph upon the bungalow piazza, as it threw off the music,
the quaint Indian accompaniment to those stamping, shuffling, skipping
feet, to