the linn
Goes roarin' o'er the moorland craggy.

He appeared to forget us, even his young wife. His eyes looked away into
gray storms. Vague longing ached in his throat. Life was a struggle,
love a torment.

He stopped abruptly, and put the violin into its box, fumbling with the
catch to hide his emotion and my father broke the tense silence with a
prosaic word. "Well, well! Look here, it's time you youngsters were
asleep. Beckie, where are you going to put these children?"

Aunt Rebecca, a trim little woman with brown eyes, looked at us
reflectively, "Well, now, I don't know. I guess we'll have to make a bed
for them on the floor."

This was done, and for the first time in my life, I slept before an open
fire. As I snuggled into my blankets with my face turned to the blaze,
the darkness of the night and the denizens of the pineland wilderness to
the north had no terrors for me.

* * * * *

I was awakened in the early light by Uncle David building the fire, and
then came my father's call, and the hurly burly of jovial greeting from
old and young. The tumult lasted till breakfast was called, and
everybody who could find place sat around the table and attacked the
venison and potatoes which formed the meal. I do not remember our
leave-taking or the ride homeward. I bring to mind only the desolate
cold of our own kitchen into which we tramped late in the afternoon,
sitting in our wraps until the fire began to roar within its iron cage.

Oh, winds of the winter night! Oh, firelight and the shine of tender
eyes! How far away you seem tonight!

So faint and far,
Each dear face shineth as a star.

Oh, you by the western sea, and you of the south beyond the reach of
Christmas snow, do not your hearts hunger, like mine tonight for that
Thanksgiving Day among the trees? For the glance of eyes undimmed of
tears, for the hair untouched with gray?

It all lies in the unchanging realm of the past--this land of my
childhood. Its charm, its strange dominion cannot return save in the
poet's reminiscent dream. No money, no railway train can take us back to
it. It did not in truth exist--it was a magical world, born of the
vibrant union of youth and firelight, of music and the voice of moaning
winds--a union which can never come again to you or me, father, uncle,
brother, till the coulee meadows bloom again unscarred of spade or
plow.

CHAPTER VII

Winnesheik "Woods and Pr