suit of my clothing.

When at last I was fully clothed and could go out into the street I was
amazed to find a part of the house standing. Most of the east wing
seemed quite untouched, except of smoke and water. The west wing and
front porch were in black disarray, but the roof held its place and the
trees seemed scarcely scorched. A few firemen, among them the village
plumber, the young banker, and a dentist, were on guard, watchfully
intent that the flames should not break out again. The sun was rising
gloriously over the hills. The fire, my fire, was over.

No doubt this event appeared most trivial to the travelers in a passing
train. From the car windows it was only a column of smoke in the edge of
a small village. Our disaster offered, indeed, only a mild sensation to
the occupants of an early automobile party, but to my father, to Zulime
and to the children, it was a desolate and appalling ruin. They had
grown to love this old house foolishly, illogically, for it was neither
beautiful nor historic, nor spacious. It was only a commonplace frame
cottage, inwrought with memories and associations, but it was home--all
we had.

The yard was piled with furniture, half-burned, soaked and malodorous,
but none of my manuscripts were in sight. I had expected to find them
scattered like feathers across the garden or trampled into the muddy
sward. In reply to my question my friend Dudley replied, "They're all
safe. I had the boys carry them down in blankets. You'll find them in
the barn."

As I moved about silently, studying the ruins, the kindliest of my
neighbors said, "You'll have to entirely rebuild." And to this a
carpenter, a skilled and honest workman, agreed. "The cheapest thing to
do is to tear it all down and start from the foundation."

Slowly, minutely, I studied the ruin. Surely here was gruesome change!
Black, ill-smelling, smoking debris lay where our pretty dining-room had
been. The library with all my best books (many of them autographed) was
equally desolate, heaped with steaming, charred masses of tables,
chairs, rugs and fallen plaster. I thought of it as it had been the
night before, with the soft lights of the candles falling upon my
children dancing with swinging lanterns. I recalled Ennecking's radiant
spring painting, and Steele's "Bloom of the Grape," which glowed above
the mantle, and my heart almost failed me--"Is this the end of my life
in Wisconsin?"

For twenty years this little village