s urging we made elaborate preparations for feeding our guests, and
Zulime arranged a definite program of entertainment. When conversation
slackened I was to sing while she played my accompaniment, and to fill
out the program I volunteered to read one of my short stories.

The outcome of the evening was amusingly destructive of all our kindly
plans. Before the women had fairly removed their wraps, Lottridge drew a
box of dominoes from his pocket, saying, "I didn't know but you'd be a
little short on 'bones,'" and Shane called out, "Well, now, Richard,
what about tables?" In five minutes they were all--every mother's son
and daughter of them--bent above a row of dominoes!

No entertainment on the part of host or hostess was necessary till the
time came to serve supper. All our literary and musical preparations
went for naught!--At ten o'clock they rose as one man, thanked us for a
pleasant evening and went home!

Zulime laughed merrily over the wreck of our self-sacrificing program
when we were alone. "Well, we'll know exactly what to do next time. All
we need to do is to furnish dominoes and tables, our guests will do the
rest."

My young wife's presence in the Homestead almost redeemed it from its
gloom, and yet I was not content. The complications in the situation
defied adjustment. My father needed us, but the city was essential to
me. As a writer, I should have been remorselessly selfish. I should have
taken my wife back to Chicago at once, but my New England conscience
would not let me forget how lonely that old man would be in this empty
house, silent, yet filled with voices of the moaning, swaying branches
of its bleak midwinter elms.

My problem was, in fact, only another characteristic cruel phase of
American family history. In a new land like ours, the rising generation
finds itself, necessarily, almost cruelly, negligent of its progenitors.
Youth moves on, away and up from the farm and the village. Age remains
below and behind. The tragedy of this situation lies in the fact that
there is no happy solution of the problem. Youth can not be shackled,
age can not be transplanted.

In my case, I foresaw that the situation would inevitably become more
and more difficult year by year. My father could not live in any city,
and for me to give up my life in Chicago and New York in order to
establish a permanent home in West Salem, involved a sacrifice which I
was not willing to make,--either on my own account or