d in the darkness under the Actinidia
vines.

It was in our little house at Aiken, in South Carolina, that he was
with us most and we learned to know him best, and that he and I became
dependent upon each other in many ways.

Events, into which I shall not go, had made his life very difficult and
complicated. And he who had given so much friendship to so many people
needed a little friendship in return, and perhaps, too, he needed for a
time to live in a house whose master and mistress loved each other, and
where there were children. Before he came that first year our house had
no name. Now it is called "Let's Pretend."

Now the chimney in the living-room draws, but in those first days of the
built-over house it didn't. At least, it didn't draw all the time, but
we pretended that it did, and with much pretense came faith. From the
fireplace that smoked to the serious things of life we extended our
pretendings, until real troubles went down before them--down and out.

It was one of Aiken's very best winters, and the earliest spring I ever
lived anywhere. R. H. D. came shortly after Christmas. The spireas were
in bloom, and the monthly roses; you could always find a sweet violet or
two somewhere in the yard; here and there splotches of deep pink against
gray cabin walls proved that precocious peach-trees were in bloom. It
never rained. At night it was cold enough for fires. In the middle of
the day it was hot. The wind never blew, and every morning we had a four
for tennis and every afternoon we rode in the woods. And every night we
sat in front of the fire (that didn't smoke because of pretending) and
talked until the next morning.

He was one of those rarely gifted men who find their chiefest pleasure
not in looking backward or forward, but in what is going on at the
moment. Weeks did not have to pass before it was forced upon his
knowledge that Tuesday, the fourteenth (let us say), had been a good
Tuesday. He knew it the moment he waked at 7 A. M. and perceived the
Tuesday sunshine making patterns of bright light upon the floor. The
sunshine rejoiced him and the knowledge that even before breakfast
there was vouchsafed to him a whole hour of life. That day began with
attentions to his physical well-being. There were exercises conducted
with great vigor and rejoicing, followed by a tub, artesian cold, and a
loud and joyous singing of ballads.

At fifty R. H. D. might have posed to some Praxiteles and, copied in
m