dressed in this simple fashion, but as I
write, recalling the glowing cheeks and shining eyes of Hattie and Agnes
and Bess, I feel again the thrill of admiration which ran through my
blood as they came down the aisle at church, or when at dancing parties
they balanced or "sashayed" in _Honest John_ or _Money Musk_.--To me
they were perfectly clothed and divinely fair.

The contrast between the McClintocks, my hunter uncles, and Addison
Garland, my father's brother who came to visit us at about this time was
strikingly significant even to me. Tall, thoughtful, humorous and of
frail and bloodless body, "A. Garland" as he signed himself, was of the
Yankee merchant type. A general store in Wisconsin was slowly making him
a citizen of substance and his quiet comment brought to me an entirely
new conception of the middle west and its future. He was a philosopher.
He peered into the years that were to come and paid little heed to the
passing glories of the plain. He predicted astounding inventions and
great cities, and advised my father to go into dairying and diversified
crops. "This is a natural butter country," said he.

He was an invalid, and it was through him that we first learned of
graham flour. During his stay (and for some time after) we suffered an
infliction of sticky "gems" and dark soggy bread. We all resented this
displacement of our usual salt-rising loaf and delicious saleratus
biscuits but we ate the hot gems, liberally splashed with butter, just
as we would have eaten dog-biscuit or hardtack had it been put before
us.

One of the sayings of my uncle will fix his character in the mind of the
reader. One day, apropos of some public event which displeased him, he
said, "Men can be infinitely more foolish in their collective capacity
than on their own individual account." His quiet utterance of these
words and especially the phrase "collective capacity" made a deep
impression on me. The underlying truth of the saying came to me only
later in my life.

He was full of "_citrus-belt_" enthusiasm and told us that he was about
to sell out and move to Santa Barbara. He did not urge my father to
accompany him, and if he had, it would have made no difference. A
winterless climate and the raising of fruit did not appeal to my
Commander. He loved the prairie and the raising of wheat and cattle, and
gave little heed to anything else, but to me Addison's talk of "the
citrus belt" had the value of a romance, and the occa