with a belief
that we had gained, at last, a recognized place in the Nation's esthetic
history.

During the weeks of preparation for this event I had been happy and
content, but a few days later, after the clubs had fallen back to their
normal humdrum level I acknowledged with a sense of hopeless weariness
that our huge city had a long way to go before it could equal the small
Boston of Emerson, Lowell, Holmes, and Howells. My desire to rejoin my
fellows in New York was intensified. "As there is only one London for
England so there is only one New York for America."

All through the autumn of 1913 I ground away at my story of the Middle
Border, conscious of the fact that--in a commercial sense--I was wasting
my time, for several of my editorial friends had assured me of that
fact--but each morning as I climbed to my study I forgot my drab
surroundings. Closing the door of the bitter present and turning my back
on the stormy future I relived my audacious youth and dreamed of the
brave days of old.

Thanksgiving Day in West Salem was misty, dark and still, but the
children--bless their shining faces--regarded it as just the right kind
of weather for our festival. They were up early and running of errands
for their mother who was chief cook. Our only guests were three lonely
old women, and it gave me a pang of pity for the children who were
forced thus to tolerate a group of gray-heads to whom life was a
closing, mournful dirge. Happily, my daughters had the flame of
invincible youth in their blood and danced and sang as if the world were
new and wholly beautiful, which it was, to them.

Dear little daughters! They didn't know that Daddy was worried about his
future and theirs, and no sooner were we back in our Chicago home than
they began to look away toward Christmas. "Poppie!"--Mary Isabel would
repeat--"only three weeks till--you know what! Remember!"

I remembered. Once again their stockings were stuffed to the hem, and
their tree, a marvel of light, touched the ceiling with its pliant tip
on which sparkled a golden star. To them I was still a wonder-worker.
For a week I put aside my dark musings and rejoiced with them in their
fairy world.

Now it chanced that the University Club of Pittsburg had booked me for a
lecture early in January and in taking account of this, I planned to
invade Manhattan once again, in a desperate attempt to dispose of my
rewritten _Son of the Middle Border_, and to offer, also, one o