a dugout in the red hillside, one of those cave dwellings whose
inmates so often reverted to primitive conditions. Their water they got
from the lagoons where the buffalo drank, and their slender stock of
provisions was always at the mercy of bands of roving Indians. For
thirty years my aunt had not been further than fifty miles from the
homestead.

But Mrs. Springer knew nothing of all this, and must have been
considerably shocked at what was left of my kinswoman. Beneath the
soiled linen duster which, on her arrival, was the most conspicuous
feature of her costume, she wore a black stuff dress, whose
ornamentation showed that she had surrendered herself unquestioningly
into the hands of a country dressmaker. My poor aunt's figure, however,
would have presented astonishing difficulties to any dressmaker.
Originally stooped, her shoulders were now almost bent together over her
sunken chest. She wore no stays, and her gown, which trailed unevenly
behind, rose in a sort of peak over her abdomen. She wore ill-fitting
false teeth, and her skin was as yellow as a Mongolian's from constant
exposure to a pitiless wind and to the alkaline water which hardens the
most transparent cuticle into a sort of flexible leather.

I owed to this woman most of the good that ever came my way in my
boyhood, and had a reverential affection for her. During the years
when I was riding herd for my uncle, my aunt, after cooking the three
meals--the first of which was ready at six o'clock in the morning-and
putting the six children to bed, would often stand until midnight at
her ironing board, with me at the kitchen table beside her, hearing me
recite Latin declensions and conjugations, gently shaking me when my
drowsy head sank down over a page of irregular verbs. It was to her, at
her ironing or mending, that I read my first Shakespeare', and her old
textbook on mythology was the first that ever came into my empty hands.
She taught me my scales and exercises, too--on the little parlor organ,
which her husband had bought her after fifteen years, during which she
had not so much as seen any instrument, but an accordion that belonged
to one of the Norwegian farmhands. She would sit beside me by the hour,
darning and counting while I struggled with the "Joyous Farmer," but she
seldom talked to me about music, and I understood why. She was a pious
woman; she had the consolations of religion and, to her at least, her
martyrdom was not wholly sordid.