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story of his adventures in the pantry on his way to the kitchen, and
leaving behind him a cook to whom there had been issued a new lease of
life, and a gardener who blushed and smiled in the darkness under the
Actinidia vines.

It was in our little house at Aiken, in South Carolina, that he was
with us most and we learned to know him best, and that he and I became
dependent upon each other in many ways.

Events, into which I shall not go, had made his life very difficult and
complicated. And he who had given so much friendship to so many people
needed a little friendship in return, and perhaps, too, he needed for a
time to live in a house whose master and mistress loved each other, and
where there were children. Before he came that first year our house
had no name. Now it is called "Let's Pretend."

Now the chimney in the living-room draws, but in those first days of
the built-over house it didn't. At least, it didn't draw all the time,
but we pretended that it did, and with much pretense came faith. From
the fireplace that smoked to the serious things of life we extended our
pretendings, until real troubles went down before them--down and out.

It was one of Aiken's very best winters, and the earliest spring I ever
lived anywhere. R. H. D. came shortly after Christmas. The spiraeas
were in bloom, and the monthly roses; you could always find a sweet
violet or two somewhere in the yard; here and there splotches of deep
pink against gray cabin walls proved that precocious peach-trees were
in bloom. It never rained. At night it was cold enough for fires. In
the middle of the day it was hot. The wind never blew, and every
morning we had a four for tennis and every afternoon we rode in the
woods. And every night we sat in front of the fire (that didn't smoke
because of pretending) and talked until the next morning. He was one
of those rarely gifted men who find their chiefest pleasure not in
looking backward or forward, but in what is going on at the moment.
Weeks did not have to pass before it was forced upon his knowledge that
Tuesday, the fourteenth (let us say), had been a good Tuesday. He knew
it the moment he waked at 7 A. M. and perceived the Tuesday sunshine
making patterns of bright light upon the floor. The sunshine rejoiced
him and the knowledge that even before breakfast there was vouchsafed
to him a whole hour of life. That day began with attentions to his
physical well-being. There were e