listening with all my ears, and when we finally went
toward the house, the stars were big and sparkling. The frost had
already begun to glisten on the fences and well-curb, and high in the
air, dark against the sky, the turkeys were roosting uneasily, as if
disturbed by premonitions of approaching Thanksgiving. Rover pattered
along by my side on the crisp grass and my brother clung to my hand.

How bright and warm it was in the kitchen with mother putting things to
rights while father and my uncles leaned their chairs against the wall
and talked of the west and of moving. "I can't get away till after New
Year's," father said. "But I'm going. I'll never put in another crop on
these hills."

With speechless content I listened to Uncle William's stories of bears
and Indians, and other episodes of frontier life, until at last we were
ordered to bed and the glorious day was done.

Oh, those blessed days, those entrancing nights! How fine they were
then, and how mellow they are now, for the slow-paced years have dropped
nearly fifty other golden mists upon that far-off valley. From this
distance I cannot understand how my father brought himself to leave that
lovely farm and those good and noble friends.

CHAPTER VI

David and His Violin

Most of the events of our last autumn in Green's Coulee have slipped
into the fathomless gulf, but the experiences of Thanksgiving day, which
followed closely on our threshing day, are in my treasure house. Like a
canvas by Rembrandt only one side of the figures therein is defined, the
other side melts away into shadow--a luminous shadow, through which
faint light pulses, luring my wistful gaze on and on, back into the
vanished world where the springs of my life lie hidden.

It is a raw November evening. Frank and Harriet and I are riding into a
strange land in a clattering farm wagon. Father and mother are seated
before us on the spring seat. The ground is frozen and the floor of the
carriage pounds and jars. We cling to the iron-lined sides of the box to
soften the blows. It is growing dark. Before us (in a similar vehicle)
my Uncle David is leading the way. I catch momentary glimpses of him
outlined against the pale yellow sky. He stands erect, holding the reins
of his swiftly-moving horses in his powerful left hand. Occasionally he
shouts back to my father, whose chin is buried in a thick buffalo-skin
coat. Mother is only a vague mass, a figure wrapped in shawls. The wind