ase. Temple Scott got
fourteen years in prison--and that ended that. He went there and staid.

And then Christmas came and in the evening I went up to the Millers'.
The girls were playing about the same as before. Mr. Miller was reading
Shakespeare to Mrs. Miller and he looked up finally and said, "Ma, I've
just thought of an epitaph for Mitchie's stone--here it is in 'Hamlet':
'The rest is silence.'" And Mrs. Miller said "yes" and put her knitting
down to count stitches. The girls rushed into the room laughing and
chasing each other. And then I went home.

I had presents, but what was presents? My chum was gone. I thought of
the last Christmas when we was all together--Mitch was here then and
Little Billie. I couldn't enjoy anything. I crept up to bed and fell
asleep and dreamed of Mitch.

* * * * *

You will be surprised to know how I came to write this story. But before
I tell you that I want to say that if Mitch had written it, it would
have been much better. I sit here, dipping my nose in the Gascon wine,
so to speak, as Thackeray wrote of himself; and I know now that Mitch
was a poet. He would have made poems out of his life and mine, beautiful
songs of this country, of Illinois, of the people we knew, of the
honest, kindly men and women we knew; the sweet-faced old women who were
born in Kentucky or Tennessee, or came here to Illinois early in their
youth; the strong, courtly, old-fashioned men, carrying with them the
early traditions of the republic, in their way Lincolns--honest, truth
telling, industrious, courageous Americans--plain and unlettered, many
of them, but full of the sterling virtues. Yes, he would have written
poems out of these people; and he would have done something more--he
would have given us symbols, songs of eternal truth, of unutterable
magic and profound meaning like "La Belle Dame sans Merci." I am sure he
would have done something of this kind--though it is idle to say he
would have written anything as immortal as that. You must only indulge
me in my partiality for Mitch, and my belief in his genius, and hope
with me that he might have done these great things.

And yet! And now why did I write this story? As I was sitting with my
nose in the Gascon wine, which is a strange figure, since there is no
Gascon wine here, and no wine of any sort, since a strange sort of
despot has got control of the country, for the time being only, I
hope--as I said, as I