nd happiest, always, in his presence. Then, too, she makes him
forget, for the time at least, his disappointment in a soul-mate who
hasn't quite measured up to expectations! And I devoutly thank the
Master of Life and Love that my solemn old Dinky-Dunk can thus care
for his one and only daughter. It softens him, and keeps the sordid
worries of the moment from vitrifying his heart. It puts a rainbow in
his sky of every-day work, and gives him something to plan and plot
and live for. And he needs it. We all do. It's our human and natural
hunger for companionship. And as he observed not long ago, if that
hunger can't be satisfied at home, we wander off and snatch what we
can on the wing. Some day when they're rich, I overheard Dinky-Dunk
announcing the other night, Pauline Augusta and her Dad are going to
make the Grand Tour of Europe. And there, undoubtedly, do their best
to pick up a Prince of the Royal Blood and have a chateau in Lombardy
and a villa on the Riviera and a standing invitation to all the
Embassy Balls!

Well, not if I know it. None of that penny-a-liner moonshine for my
daughter. And as she grows older, I feel sure, I'll have more
influence over her. She'll begin to realize that the battle of life
hasn't scarred up for nothing this wary-eyed old mater who's beginning
to know a hawk from a henshaw. I've learned a thing or two in my day,
and one or two of them are going to be passed on to my offspring.

_Thursday the Fifteenth_

Struthers and I have been house-cleaning, for this is the middle of
May, and our reluctant old northern spring seems to be here for good.
It has been backward, this year, but the last of the mud has gone, and
I hope to have my first setting of chicks out in a couple of days.
Dinkie wants to start riding Buntie to school, but his pater says
otherwise. Gershom goes off every morning, with Calamity Kate hitched
to the old buckboard, with my two kiddies packed in next to him and
provender enough for himself and the kiddies and Calamity Kate under
the seat. The house seems very empty when they are away. But some time
about five, every afternoon, I see them loping back along the trail.
Then comes the welcoming bark of old Bobs, and a raid on the
cooky-jar, and traces of bread-and-jelly on two hungry little faces,
and the familiar old tumult about the reanimated rooms of Casa Grande.
Then Poppsy--I beg her ladyship's pardon, for I mean, of course,
Pauline Augusta--has to duly ins