d and water too heavy for them to carry, anxiously
speculating on the winter prospect and the crops, yet withal the most
childlike and innocent of children.

[11] The story is ended now. A few months after my visit Mrs. H. died
a few days after her confinement, and was buried on the bleak hill
side, leaving her husband with five children under six years old, and
Dr. H. is a prosperous man on one of the sunniest islands of the
Pacific, with the devoted Swiss friend as his second wife.

One of the most painful things in the Western States and Territories is
the extinction of childhood. I have never seen any children, only
debased imitations of men and women, cankered by greed and selfishness,
and asserting and gaining complete independence of their parents at ten
years old. The atmosphere in which they are brought up is one of
greed, godlessness, and frequently of profanity. Consequently these
sweet things seem like flowers in a desert.

Except for love, which here as everywhere raises life into the ideal,
this is a wretched existence. The poor crops have been destroyed by
grasshoppers over and over again, and that talent deified here under
the name of "smartness" has taken advantage of Dr. H. in all bargains,
leaving him with little except food for his children. Experience has
been dearly bought in all ways, and this instance of failure might be a
useful warning to professional men without agricultural experience not
to come and try to make a living by farming in Colorado.

My time here has passed very delightfully in spite of my regret and
anxiety for this interesting family. I should like to stay longer,
were it not that they have given up to me their straw bed, and Mrs. H.
and her baby, a wizened, fretful child, sleep on the floor in my room,
and Dr. H. on the floor downstairs, and the nights are frosty and
chill. Work is the order of their day, and of mine, and at night, when
the children are in bed, we three ladies patch the clothes and make
shirts, and Dr. H. reads Tennyson's poems, or we speak tenderly of that
world of culture and noble deeds which seems here "the land very far
off," or Mrs. H. lays aside her work for a few minutes and reads some
favorite passage of prose or poetry, as I have seldom heard either read
before, with a voice of large compass and exquisite tone, quick to
interpret every shade of the author's meaning, and soft, speaking eyes,
moist with feeling and sympathy. These are our