of the far
hills, purple with Indian summer haze. Busily sorting my burned books
or spreading out my treasured rugs, I toiled as long as light lasted.
There were a few pleasant surprises. From one charred frame the face of
Frank Norris, miraculously fresh and handsome and smiling, looked out
through smoked and broken glass. In one corner of the sideboard
(decorated by Thompson-Seton), a part of the silver bearing my mother's
initials lay quite unharmed, though all of the pieces on the top were
melted into a flat mass of bullion. Autographed books from Howells,
Riley, Gilbert Parker, Conan Doyle, Arnold Bennett, fell to pieces in my
hand, or showed so deep a stain of smoke as to make their rebinding
impossible. My best Navajo rug, a fine example of the ancient weaving,
was a frail cinder on the back of the charred settee, and a Hopi
ceremonial dress which hung upon the wall was a blackened shred.

All these things had small money value, and to many men, would have
represented no interest whatsoever, but to me they were precious. They
were a part of my life. To burn them was to char a section of my brain.
Pitiful possessions! Worthless rags! And yet they were the best I could
show after thirty years of labor with the pen!

My father's condition troubled me most. To have him rendered homeless at
eighty-two with winter coming on seemed to me an intolerable cruelty,
and so with a driving haste I set to work with my own hands to clear
away and restore. Wielding the wrecking bar and the spade each day, I
toiled like a hired man--even after the carpenters were gone at night I
scraped paint and shoveled rubbish.

Let no one pity me! A curious pleasure came with all this, for it seemed
to advance the reconstruction with double swiftness.

At the end of the week I sent my wife and the children back to their
city home, and thereafter I had but one interest, one diversion--to plan
and execute my rebuilding. To close the walls, to make the rooms secure
against wind and rain was imperative.

The insurance inspector came pleasantly to the rescue, and with a small
balance in the bank I hired roofers, plumbers, carpenters, masons, till
the street resounded with their clamor. In a week I had the rooms
cleared, the doors and windows closed, and my father living in one
corner of the house, whilst I camped down in my study. Water-soaked,
ill-smelling, but inhabitable, the old house again possessed a light and
a hearth.

"The children