erybody, Pa, for they wouldn't understand;
but I know you will. This is what I wrote:

Farewell, sweet childhood's happy home,
For now we sadly haste away.
We'll leave your happy scene with tears--
We tried to leave you yesterday,
But fate denied, for Adam Watt
Had broke the axle of his dray.

Farewell, sweet childhood's happy home,
We're going out four weary mile,
We've gone to seek another home
And may not see you for a while.
But every inch of thee is dear,
And every stick in thy woodpile.

Each mark upon thy wall is linked
With deepest meaning and with love,
See where young Bugsey spilled the ink,
Caused by his youngest brother's shove.

See where wee Danny picked a hole--
He knew no better tho', I guess.
The patch that covers it from sight
Is made of Pearlie's winsey dress.

All through the dreary winter time
Thou sheltered us from cold so bleak
Thou sheltered us from wind and rain,
Save where thy kitchen roof did leak.

When strangers come to live in thee,
And fill thy halls with noise and shout,
Still think, dear house, of those who once
Did from thy gates go in and out."

"It's just grand," her father said admiringly, "and it's true, too. I
don't know where you get the things you think of."

The road lay along the bank of the Souris, which still ran high with
the spring floods. The spring came early in Manitoba that year, and
already the cattle were foraging through the pastures to be ready for
the first blade of grass that appeared. The April sun flooded the
bare landscape with its light and heat. From the farm-yards they
passed came the merry cackle of hens. Horses and colts galloped gaily
around the corrals, and the yellow meadow larks on the fence-posts
rang out their glad challenge. The poplar trees along the road were
blushing with the green of spring, and up from the river-flats,
gray-purple with scrub oak and willow, came the indescribably sweet
spring smell.

At the corner of Thomas Perkins's farm they turned straight north,
following the river.

"There's our farm, Pearlie," her father said.

What Pearl saw was one long field of old stubble, gray and faded, cut
out of the scrub, and at the end of the field, against a grove of
poplars, stood a little house, so sad, so battered, so broken, that
Pearl's stout heart almost sank. It was made of logs and plastered
with mud, and had settled down on one s