Traylor tells of the beauty of the day--of
blue bells and scarlet lilies in the meadow grass, of the whistling
quail, of pigeons and wild geese flying across the sky and of his great
joy in seeing again the vast sunlit reaches of the level, virgin lands.

* * * * *

"It was my great day of fulfillment, all the dearer because I had come
back to health and youth and beloved scenes out of those years shadowed
with loneliness and despair," he writes. "The best part of it, I assure
you, was the face I loved and that musical voice ringing like a bell in
merry laughter and in the songs which had stirred my heart in the days
of its tender youth. You--the dear and gentle mother of my later
boyhood--are entitled to know of my happiness when I heard that voice
tell me in its sweeter tone of the love which has endured through all
these years of stern trial. We talked of our plans as we sat among the
ferns and mosses in the cool shade sweetened by the incense of burning
fagots, over that repast to which we shall be returning often for
refreshment in poorer days. We had thought of you and of the man so well
beloved of you and us in all these plans. We shall live in Springfield so
that we may be near you and him and our friend, Honest Abe."

* * * * *

It is a long letter presenting minute details in the history of that
sentimental journey and allusion to matters which have no part in this
record. Its substance being fully in the consciousness of the writer, he
tenderly folds it up and returns it to the package--yellow and brittle
and faded and having that curious fragrance of papers that have lain for
scores of years in the gloom and silence of a locked mahogany drawer. So
alive are these letters with the passion of youth in long forgotten years
that the writer ties the old ribbon and returns them to their tomb with a
feeling of sadness, finding a singular pathos in the contrast of their
look and their contents. They are turning to dust but the soul of them
has gone into this little history.

The young man and woman mounted their horses and resumed their journey.
It was after two o'clock. The Grand Prairie lay ahead of them. The
settlement of Plain's End was twenty-one miles away on its farther
side. They could just see its tall oak trees in the dim distance.

"We must hurry if we get there before dark," said the girl. "Above all we
must be careful to keep our directi