r and Gammons were
feebler certainly, and a little more querulous with age, and their faded
beards and rough hands gave pathetic evidence of the hard wear of wind
and toil. At the moment nothing glozed the essential tragic futility of
their existence.

Then down the street came "The Ragamuffins," the little Fourth of July
procession, which in the old days had seemed so funny, so exciting to
me. I laughed no more. It filled me with bitterness to think that such a
makeshift spectacle could amuse anyone. "How dull and eventless life
must be to enable such a pitiful travesty to attract and hold the
attention of girls like Ella and Flora," I thought as I saw them
standing with their little sister to watch "the parade."

From the window of a law office, Emma and Matilda Leete were leaning and
I decided to make myself known to them. Emma, who had been one of my
high admirations, had developed into a handsome and interesting woman
with very little of the village in her dress or expression, and when I
stepped up to her and asked, "Do you know me?" her calm gray eyes and
smiling lips denoted humor. "Of course I know you--in spite of the
beard. Come in and sit with us and tell all of us about yourself."

As we talked, I found that they, at least, had kept in touch with the
thought of the east, and Ella understood in some degree the dark mood
which I voiced. She, too, occasionally doubted whether the life they
were all living was worth while. "We make the best of it," she said,
"but none of us are living up to our dreams."

Her musical voice, thoughtful eyes and quick intelligence, re-asserted
their charm, and I spent an hour or more in her company talking of old
friends. It was not necessary to talk down to her. She was essentially
urban in tone while other of the girls who had once impressed me with
their beauty had taken on the airs of village matrons and did not
interest me. If they retained aspirations they concealed the fact. Their
husbands and children entirely occupied their minds.

Returning to the street, I introduced myself to Uncle Billy Fraser and
Osmund Button and other Sun Prairie neighbors and when it became known
that "Dick Garland's boy" was in town, many friends gathered about to
shake my hand and inquire concerning "Belle" and "Dick."

The hard, crooked fingers, which they laid in my palm completed the
sorrowful impression which their faces had made upon me. A twinge of
pain went through my heart as I look