light of it, at her
mother's feet, sat Mary Isabel. In a moment New York and Chicago were
remote, almost mythic places. With my child in my arms, listening to
Zulime's gossip of the town wherein the simple old-fashioned joys of
life still persisted with wholesome effect, I asked myself, "Why
struggle? Why travel, when your wife, your babe, and your hearthstone
are here?"

"Once I threatened the world with fire,
And thrust my fist in the face of wrong,
Making my heart a sounding lyre--
Accusing the rulers of earth in song.
Now, counting the world of creeds well lost
And recking the greatest book no prize--
Withdrawn from the press and free from the cost
Of fame and war--in my baby's eyes--
In the touch of her tiny, slender palm,
I find the ease of a warrior's calm."

Calm! Did I say calm? It was the calm of abject slavery. At command of
that minute despot I began to toil frenziedly. At her word I read over
and over, and over once again, the Rhymes of _Mother Goose_ and the
Tales of _Peter Wabbitt_. The _Tin Tan Book_ was her litany, and _Red
Riding Hood_ her sweet terror. Her interest in books was insatiate. She
loved all verses, all melodies, even those whose words were wholly
beyond her understanding, and her rapt eyes, deep and dark, as my
mother's had been, gave me such happiness that to write of it fills me
with a pang of regret--for that baby is now a woman.

It will not avail my reader to say, "You were but re-enacting the
experiences of innumerable other daddies," for this was _my_ child,
these were _my_ home and _my_ fire. Without a shred of shame I rejoiced
in my subjection then, as I long to recover its contentment now. Life
for me was fulfilled. I was doing that which nature and the world
required.

Here enters an incongruous fact,--something which I must record with the
particularity it deserves. My wife who was accounted a genius, was in
truth amazingly "clever" with brush and pencil. Not only had she spent
five years in Paris, she had enjoyed several other years of study with
her sculptor brother. She could model, she could paint and she could
draw,--but--to whom did Mary Isabel turn when she wanted a picture? To
her artist mother? Not at all! To me,--to her corn-husker daddy--of
course. I was her artist as well as her reader.

To her my hand was a wonder-worker. She was always pleased with what I
did. Hour after hour I drew (in amazing outlines) dogs and c