en with a sudden realization that the world as it stands to-day
is essentially a male world--a world in which the female is but a
subservient partner. "It is changing, but it will still be a man's world
when you are grown," I said to Mary Isabel.

My devotion, my slavery to this ten-pound daughter greatly amused my
friends and neighbors. To see "the grim Klondiker," in meek attendance
on a midget sovereign was highly diverting--so I was told by Mary
Easton, and I rather think she was right. However, I was undisturbed so
long as Mary Isabel did not complain.

She was happy with me. She rode unnumbered joyous miles upon my left
elbow and cantered away into dreamland by way of the ancient walnut
rocker in which her grandmother had been wont to sit and dream. Deep in
her baby brain-cells I planted vague memories of "Down the River," "Over
the Hills in Legions," and "Nellie Wildwood," for I sang to her almost
every evening of her infant life.

"Rock-a-bye, baby, thy cradle is green.
Papa's a nobleman--mother's a queen,"

was one of her most admired lullabys. It was a marvelous time for
me--the happiest I had known since boyhood. Not even my days of
courtship have greater charm to me now.

The old soldier was almost as completely subordinated as I. Several
times each day he came into the house to say, "Well, how is my
granddaughter getting on?" and upon seeing her, invariably remarked,
"She's the very image of Belle,"--and indeed she did resemble my mother.
He expressed the wish which was alive in my own heart, when he said, "If
only Belle could have lived to see her granddaughter."

My new daughter was all important, but the new book could not be
neglected. _Hesper_ was scheduled for publication in October and copy
must go to the printer in August, therefore I was forced to leave my
wife and babe and go East to attend to the proof-reading and other
matters incidental to the birth of another novel. Some lectures in
Chicago and Chautauqua took up nearly two weeks of my time and when I
arrived in New York, huge bundles of galley-proof were awaiting me.

My publishers were confident that the new book would equal _The Captain
of the Gray Horse Troop_ in popularity, but I was less sanguine. For
several weeks I toiled on this job, and at last on the eleventh of
September, a day of sweltering heat, I got away on the evening train for
the West. In spite of my poverty and notwithstanding the tender age of
my daughter,