o much in the world unless he taught school a spell. Lute was set on
being a lawyer, and so presently he went down to Springfield and read
and studied in Judge Morris' office, and Judge Morris wrote a letter
home to the Bakers once testifying to Lute's "probity" and
"acumen"--things that are never heard tell of except high up in the
legal profession.

How Lute came to get the western fever I can't say, but get it he did,
and one winter he up and piked off to Chicago, and there he hung out
his shingle and joined a literary social and proceeded to get rich and
famous. The next spring Judge Baker fell off the woodshed while he was
shingling it, and it jarred him so he kind of drooped and pined round a
spell and then one day up and died. Lute had to come back home and
settle up the estate.

When he went west again he took a wife with him--Emma Cowles that was
(everybody called her Em for short), pretty as a picture and as likely
a girl as there was in the township. Lute had always had a hankering
for Em, and Em thought there never was another such a young fellow as
Lute; she understood him perfectly, having sung in the choir with him
two years. The young couple went west well provided.

Lute and Em went to housekeeping in Chicago. Em wanted to do her own
work, but Lute would n't hear to it; so they hired a German girl that
was just over from the vineyards of the Rhine country.

"Lute," says Em, "Hulda does n't know much about cooking."

"So I see," says Lute, feelingly. "She's green as grass; you'll have
to teach her."

Hulda could swing a hoe and wield a spade deftly, but of the cuisine
she knew somewhat less than nothing. Em had lots of patience and
pluck, but she found teaching Hulda how to cook a precious hard job.
Lute was amiable enough at first; used to laugh it off with a cordial
bet that by and by Em would make a famous cook of the obtuse but
willing immigrant. This moral backing buoyed Em up considerable, until
one evening in an unguarded moment Lute expressed a pining for some
doughnuts "like those mother makes," and that casual remark made Em
unhappy. But next evening when Lute came home there were doughnuts on
the table--beautiful, big, plethoric doughnuts that fairly reeked with
the homely, delicious sentiment of New England. Lute ate one. Em felt
hurt.

"I guess it's because I 've eaten so much else," explained Lute, "but
somehow or other they don't taste like mother's."

Next day Em fed