as a child, I remarked "How short
the distance seems." He smiled like a conqueror, "This is next thing to
flying," he said.

This lonely little burial ground, hardly more impressive than the one at
Neshonoc, contained the graves of all the Garlands who had lived in that
region. "There is a place here for me," he said, "but I want you to put
me in Neshonoc beside your mother."

On the way home he recovered his cheerfulness with an almost boyish
resiliency. The flight of the car up the long hill which used to be such
a terror to his sweating team, gave a satisfaction which broke out in
speech. "It beats all how a motor can spin right along up a grade like
this--and the flies can't sting it either," he added in remembering the
tortured cattle of the past. When I told him of an invitation to attend
a "Home Coming of Iowa Authors" which I was considering, he expressed
his pleasure and urged me to accept. Des Moines was a real city to him.
It possessed the glamour of a capital and to have me claimed by the
State of Iowa pleased him more than any recognition in New York.

The following day he watched while the carpenter and I worked at putting
my study into shape. Ever since the fire two years before its ceiling
had needed repair, and even now I was but half-hearted in its
restoration. As I looked around the square, bare, ugly room and thought
of the spacious libraries of Longfellow, Lowell and Holmes, I realized
my almost hopeless situation. I was only a literary camper after all. My
life was not here--it couldn't be here so far from all that makes a
writer's life worth while. "Soon for the sake of the children I must
take them from this pleasant rut," I said to Zulime. "It is true an
author can make himself felt from any place, but why do it at a
disadvantage? If it were not for Father, I would establish our winter
home in New York, which has the effect of increasing my power as well as
my happiness."

On the twentieth of October Father called me to his room. "I'm getting
near the end of my trail," he said, "and I want to talk to you about my
will. I want you two boys to share equally in all I've got and I'd like
to have you keep this property just as it is, then you'll be safe,
you'll always have a home. I'm ready to go--any time, only I don't like
to leave the children--" His voice failed him for a moment, then he
added, "I know I can't last long."

Though refusing to take a serious view of his premonition I realized