' River for ten or
twelve dollars. That would leave me thirty dollars over, from what I had
earned while working on the _Overland_.

Then, back to the university for my last year of leisurely study and
reading, in the face of the desolate poverty that would have defeated
many another man, but to which I was used as a customary condition.
After that--Paris or London, or both! Kansas was growing too small for
me.

* * * * *

I have mentioned that Baxter had a head too large for his body. Daniel,
his son, slight and frail and barely eight years of age, possessed the
same characteristic....

I footed it out to Baxter's tents, faithfully as to a shrine, each
afternoon. The mornings he and I both occupied in writing. He, on a
novel which was the story of the love-life of his wife and himself, and
of his literary struggles, called _Love's Forthfaring_; I, on my
abortive songs of the Great Lakes that all came forth still-born ...
because I was yet under the vicious literary influence of the _National
Magazine_, and was writing my verse, trying to be inspired by the
concepts of middle-class morality ... or what was even worse, I was
attempting to glorify the under-dog; who, if he were the demigod
Socialists portray him, would by no means remain the under-dog.

* * * * *

I found Baxter more a-flame than ever for the utter reformation of
mankind ... in the way they dressed ... stiff collars hurt the nervous
system, pressing as they did, on the spine ... in the books they read
... he wished to start a library that would sell cheaply and bring all
the world's great thought and poetry into factory, and every worker's
home ... all conventional ideas of marriage and religion must go by the
board and freedom in every respect be granted to men and women.

It was good to listen to this sincere, naive man, still young ... who
would re-make life nearer to the beauty and harmony that Shelley also
dreamed for mankind. I lived in a state of perpetual reverence toward
Baxter. This man tried to live his ideals, as well as write about them.

In matters of diet I accepted Baxter's theories but, humanly, did not
live up to them. He was a vegetarian.

Later I was to learn that he was to himself an experiment station. On
his own person he directly and practically tried out each idea ... his
wife was also a convertee, slightly reluctant, to his tests ... and his
son, perforce. B