in the marble
splendors of the New Public Library. The ravening years--how they
destroy!

CHAPTER XXX

My Mother is Stricken

In the summer of 1889, notwithstanding a widening opportunity for
lectures in the East, I decided to make another trip to the West. In all
my mother's letters I detected a tremulous undertone of sadness, of
longing, and this filled me with unrest even in the midst of the
personal security I had won. I could not forget the duty I owed to her
who had toiled so uncomplainingly that I might be clothed and fed and
educated, and so I wrote to her announcing the date of my arrival.

My friend, Dr. Cross, eager to see The Short-Grass Country which was a
far-off and romantic territory to him, arranged to go with me. It was in
July, and very hot the day we started, but we were both quite disposed
to make the most of every good thing and to ignore all discomforts. I'm
not entirely certain, but I think I occupied a sleeping car berth on
this trip; if I did so it was for the first time in my life. Anyhow, I
must have treated myself to regular meals, for I cannot recall being ill
on the train. This, in itself, was remarkable.

Strange to say, most of the incidents of the journey between Boston and
Wisconsin are blended like the faded figures on a strip of sun-smit
cloth, nothing remains definitely distinguishable except the memory of
our visit to my Uncle William's farm in Neshonoc, and the recollection
of the pleasure we took in the vivid bands of wild flowers which spun,
like twin ribbons of satin, from beneath the wheels of the rear coach as
we rushed across the state. All else has vanished as though it had
never been.

These primitive blossoms along the railroad's right-of-way deeply
delighted my friend, but to me they were more than flowers, they were
cups of sorcery, torches of magic incense. Each nodding pink brought
back to me the sights and sounds and smells of the glorious meadows of
my boyhood's vanished world. Every weed had its mystic tale. The slopes
of the hills, the cattle grouped under the trees, all wrought upon me
like old half-forgotten poems.

My uncle, big, shaggy, gentle and reticent, met us at the faded little
station and drove us away toward the sun-topped "sleeping camel" whose
lines and shadows were so lovely and so familiar. In an hour we were at
the farm-house where quaint Aunt Maria made us welcome in true pioneer
fashion, and cooked a mess of hot biscuit to go wi