ve many recollections of neighbors riding up in the night and
calling for her with agitated voices.

Of course I did not realize, and I am sure my father did not realize,
the heavy burden, the endless grind of her toil. Harriet helped, of
course, and Frank and I churned and carried wood and brought water; but
even with such aid, the round of mother's duties must have been as
relentless as a tread-mill. Even on Sunday, when we were free for a part
of the day, she was required to furnish forth three meals, and to help
Frank and Jessie dress for church.--She sang less and less, and the
songs we loved were seldom referred to.--If I could only go back for one
little hour and take her in my arms, and tell her how much I owe her for
those grinding days!

Meanwhile we were all growing away from our life in the old Wisconsin
Coulee. We heard from William but seldom, and David, who had bought a
farm of his own some ten miles to the south of us, came over to see us
only at long intervals. He still owned his long-barrelled rifle but it
hung unused on a peg in the kitchen. Swiftly the world of the hunter was
receding, never to return. Prairie chickens, rabbits, ducks, and other
small game still abounded but they did not call for the bullet, and
turkey shoots were events of the receding past. Almost in a year the
ideals of the country-side changed. David was in truth a survival of a
more heroic age, a time which he loved to lament with my father who was
almost as great a lover of the wilderness as he. None of us sang "O'er
the hills in legions, boys." Our share in the conquest of the west
seemed complete.

Threshing time, which was becoming each year less of a "bee" and more of
a job (many of the men were mere hired hands), was made distinctive by
David who came over from Orchard with his machine--the last time as it
turned out--and stayed to the end. As I cut bands beside him in the dust
and thunder of the cylinder I regained something of my boyish worship of
his strength and skill. The tireless easy swing of his great frame was
wonderful to me and when, in my weariness, I failed to slash a band he
smiled and tore the sheaf apart--thus deepening my love for him. I
looked up at him at such times as a sailor regards his captain on the
bridge. His handsome immobile bearded face, his air of command, his
large gestures as he rolled the broad sheaves into the howling maw of
the machine made of him a chieftain.--The touch of melancholy w