re
both a little mad, I believe, for we had no more idea where we were
going than the man in the moon.

But there was something glorious in the thought of gipsying across the
autumn prairie like that, without a thought or worry as to where we must
stop or what trail we must take. It made every day's movement a great
adventure. And the weather was divine.

We slept at night under the wagon-box, with a tarpaulin along one side
to keep out the wind, and a fire flickering in our faces on the other
side, and the horses tethered out, and the stars wheeling overhead, and
the peace of God in our hearts. How good every meal tasted! And how that
keen sharp air made snuggling down under a couple of Hudson Bay
five-point blankets a luxury to be spoken of only in the most reverent
of whispers! And there was a time, as you already know, when I used to
take bromide and sometimes even sulphonal to make me sleep! But here it
is so different! To get leg-weary in the open air, tramping about the
sedgy slough-sides after mallard and canvas-back, to smell coffee and
bacon and frying grouse in the cool of the evening, across a thin veil
of camp-fire smoke, to see the tired world turn over on its shoulder and
go to sleep--it's all a sort of monumental lullaby.

The prairie wind seems to seek you out, and make a bet with the Great
Dipper that he'll have you off in forty winks, and the orchestra of the
spheres whispers through its million strings and sings your soul to
rest. For I tell you here and now, Matilda Anne, I, poor, puny,
good-for-nothing, insignificant I, have heard that music of the spheres
as clearly as you ever heard _Funiculi-Funicula_ on that little Naples
steamer that used to take you to Capri. And when I'd crawl out from
under that old wagon-box, like a gopher out of his hole, in the first
delicate rosiness of dawn, I'd feel unutterably grateful to be alive, to
hear the cantatas of health singing deep in my soul, to know that
whatever life may do to me, I'd snatched my share of happiness from the
pantry of the gods! And the endless change of color, from the tawny
fox-glove on the lighter land, the pale yellow of a lion's skin in the
slanting autumn sun, to the quavering, shimmering glories of the
Northern Lights that dance in the north, that fling out their banners of
ruby and gold and green, and tremble and merge and pulse until I feel
that I can hear the clash of invisible cymbals. I wonder if you can
understand my feelin