ortitude and serenity.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Acknowledgments are made to Florence Huber Schott, Edward Foley and
Arthur Dudley for the use of the photographs which illustrate this
volume.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

FOREWORD

I

_To My New Readers_

In the summer of 1893, after nine years of hard but happy literary life
in Boston and New York, I decided to surrender my residence in the East
and reestablish my home in the West, a decision which seemed to be--as
it was--a most important event in my career.

This change of headquarters was due not to a diminishing love for New
England, but to a deepening desire to be near my aging parents, whom I
had persuaded, after much argument, to join in the purchase of a family
homestead, in West Salem, Wisconsin, the little village from which we
had all adventured some thirty years before.

My father, a typical pioneer, who had grown gray in opening new farms,
one after another on the wind-swept prairies of Iowa and Dakota, was not
entirely content with my plan but my mother, enfeebled by the hardships
of a farmer's life, and grateful for my care, was glad of the
arrangement I had brought about. In truth, she realized that her days of
pioneering were over and the thought of ending her days among her
friends and relatives was a comfort to her. That I had rescued her from
a premature grave on the barren Dakota plain was certain, and the hope
of being able to provide for her comfort was the strongest element in my
plan.

After ten years of separation we were agreed upon a project which would
enable us as a family to spend our summers together; for my brother,
Franklin, an actor in New York City, had promised to take his vacation
in the home which we had purchased.

As this homestead (which was only eight hours by rail from Chicago) is
to be one of the chief characters in this story, I shall begin by
describing it minutely. It was not the building in which my life
began--I should like to say it was, but it was not. My birthplace was a
cabin--part logs and part lumber--on the opposite side of the town.
Originally a squatter's cabin, it was now empty and forlorn, a dreary
monument of the pioneer days, which I did not take the trouble to enter.
The house which I had selected for the final Garland homestead, was
entirely without any direct associations with my family. It was o