old folks of that country tell what a splendid figure of
a man he was those days--six feet one in his stockings and broad at the
shoulder. His eyes were grey and set under heavy brows. I have never
forgotten the big man that laid hold of me and the broad clean-shaven
serious face, that looked into mine the day I came to Paradise Valley.
As I write I can see plainly his dimpled chin, his large nose, his firm
mouth that was the key to his character. 'Open or shet,' I have heard
the old folks say, 'it showed he was no fool.'

After two years David took a wife and settled in Paradise Valley. He
prospered in a small way considered handsome thereabouts. In a few years
he had cleared the rich acres of his farm to the sugar bush that was the
north vestibule of the big forest; he had seen the clearing widen until
he could discern the bare summits of the distant hills, and, far as
he could see, were the neat white houses of the settlers. Children had
come, three of them--the eldest a son who had left home and died in a
far country long before we came to Paradise Valley--the youngest a baby.

I could not have enjoyed my new home more if I had been born in it. I
had much need of a mother's tenderness, no doubt, for I remember with
what a sense of peace and comfort I lay on the lap of Elizabeth Brower,
that first evening, and heard her singing as she rocked. The little
daughter stood at her knees, looking down at me and patting my bare toes
or reaching over to feel my face.

'God sent him to us--didn't he, mother?' said she.

'Maybe,' Mrs Brower answered, 'we'll be good to him, anyway.'

Then that old query came into my mind. I asked them if it was heaven
where we were.

'No,' they answered.

''Tain't anywhere near here, is it?' I went on.

Then she told me about the gate of death, and began sowing in me the
seed of God's truth--as I know now the seed of many harvests. I slept
with Uncle Eb in the garret, that night, and for long after we came to
the Brower's. He continued to get better, and was shortly able to give
his hand to the work of the farm.

There was room for all of us in that ample wilderness of his
imagination, and the cry of the swift woke its echoes every evening for
a time. Bears and panthers prowled in the deep thickets, but the swifts
took a firmer grip on us, being bolder and more terrible. Uncle Eb
became a great favourite in the family, and David Brower came to know
soon that he was 'a good man to work