sed by this invitation and promised to come "one
of these days."

Our return to Wisconsin in April was a return to winter. On looking from
our car windows at dawn, we found the ground white with snow, and flakes
of frost driving through the budding branches of the trees. Every bird
was mute, as if with horror and the tender amber-and-green leaves of the
maples shone through the rime with a singular and pathetic beauty.

Happily this was only a cold wave. Toward noon the sun came out, the icy
cover sank into the earth and the robins began to sing again as if to
reassure themselves as well as us.

We came back to the Homestead now with a full sense of our
proprietorship. It was entirely ours and it was waiting for us. Father
was at the gate, it is true, but he was there this time merely as
care-taker, as supervisor of the garden--our garden.

His greeting of Zulime had a deeper note of tenderness than he had ever
used hitherto, for he was aware of our hope, and shared our joyous
expectancy. "I'm glad you've come," he said simply. "I hate to see the
house standing here cold and empty. It don't seem natural or right."

His first act was to lead us out to the garden where orderly beds of
springing vegetables testified to his care. "I didn't do anything about
the flowers," he confessed rather shamefacedly. "I'm no good at that
kind of work."

As the days went by I discovered that father's heart clung to the old
place. He loved to spend his days upon it. He was comfortable in his own
little cottage, but it seemed too small and too "slick" for him. He
liked our trees and lawn and barn, and I was glad to have him continue
his supervision of them. They gave him something to think about,
something to do. The curse of the "tired farmers" of the village was
their enforced idleness. There was almost nothing for them to exercise
upon.

He spent most of each day tinkering around the barn, overseeing the
garden or resting on the back porch where mother used to sit and look
out on the valley. On Sunday he came in to supper, and afterward called
for "The Sweet Story of Old" and "The Palace of the King." He listened
in silence, a blur in his dreaming eyes, for the past returned on the
wings of these songs.

Nobly considerate in his attitude toward Zulime he seemed to understand,
perfectly, her almost childish joy in the possession of a nest of her
own. He never came to a meal without invitation, though he was seldom
without the i