ering had been a failure, that all his
early rising, and his ceaseless labor had availed so little, but the
respect in which he was now held as householder, and as President of the
village, compensated him in such degree that he was able to ignore his
ill success as a wheat raiser.

"This legacy proves once again the magic of money," I remarked to
Zulime. "Father can now grow old with dignity and confidence. His living
is assured."

It remains to say that this inheritance also lifted indirectly a part of
my own burden. It took from me something of the financial responsibility
concerning the household whose upkeep I had shared for ten years or
more. Mother was still my care, but not in the same sense as before, for
my father with vast pride volunteered to pay all the household expenses.
He even insisted upon paying for an extra maid and gardener. Now that he
no longer needed the cash returns from the garden, he began to express a
pleasure in it. He was content with making it an esthetic or at most a
household enterprise.

CHAPTER TWELVE

We Tour the Oklahoma Prairie

One of the disadvantages of being a fictionist lies in the fact that the
history of one's imaginary people halts just in proportion as one's mind
is burdened with the sorrowful realities of one's own life. A troubled
bank clerk can (I believe) cast up a column of figures, an actor can
declaim while his heart is breaking, but a novelist can't--or at any
rate I can't--write stories while some friend or relative is in pain and
calling for relief. Composition is dependent in my case upon a
delicately adjusted mood, and a very small pebble is sufficient to turn
the currents of my mind into a dry channel.

My aunt's death was a sad shock to my mother and until she regained
something of her cheerful temper, I was unable to take up and continue
the action of my novel. I kept up the habit of going to my study, but
for a week or more I could not write anything but letters.

By the tenth of March we were all longing with deepest hunger for the
coming of spring. According to the old almanac's saying we had a right
to expect on the twenty-first a relenting of the rigors of the north,
but it did not come. "March the twenty-first is spring and little birds
begin to sing" was not true of the Valley this year. For two weeks
longer, the icy winds continued to sweep with Arctic severity across the
crests of the hills, and clouds of snow almost daily sifted down