picked berries, hoed potatoes,
and trimmed trees. Everything we did, everything we saw, recovered for
us some part of our distant boyhood. The noble lines of the hills to the
west, the weeds of the road-side, the dusty weather-beaten,
covered-bridges, the workmen in the fields, the voices of our neighbors,
the gossip of the village--all these sights and sounds awakened
deep-laid, associated tender memories. The cadence of every song, the
quality of every resounding jest made us at home, once and for all. Our
twenty-five-year stay on the level lands of Iowa and Dakota seemed only
an unsuccessful family exploration--our life in the city merely a
business, winter adventure.

To visit among the farmers--to help at haying or harvesting, brought
back minute touches of the olden, wondrous prairie world. We went
swimming in the river just as we used to do when lads, rejoicing in the
caress of the wind, the sting of the cool water, and on such expeditions
we often thought of Burton and others of our play-mates faraway, and of
Uncle David, in his California exile. "I wish he, too, could enjoy this
sweet and tranquil world," I said, and in this desire my brother joined.

We wore the rudest and simplest clothing, and hoed (when we hoed) with
furious strokes; but as the sun grew hot we usually fled to the shade of
the great maples which filled the back yard, and there, at ease,
recounted the fierce toil of the Iowa harvest fields, recalling the
names of the men who shared it with us,--and so, while all around us
green things valorously expanded, and ripening apples turned to scarlet
and gold in their coverts of green, we burrowed deep in the soil like
the badger which is the symbol of our native state.

After so many years of bleak and treeless farm-lands, it seemed that our
mother could not get enough of the luxuriant foliage, the bloom and the
odorous sweetness of this lovely valley. Hour by hour, day by day, she
sat on the porch, or out under the trees, watching the cloud shadows
slide across the hills, hearing the whistle of the orioles and the love
songs of the cat-bird, happy in the realization that both her sons
were, at last, within the sound of her voice. She had but one
unsatisfied desire (a desire which she shyly reiterated), and that was
her longing for a daughter, but neither Frank nor I, at the moment, had
any well-defined hope of being able to fulfill that demand.

My life had not been one to bring about intimate