r both my brother and
myself.

Chicago was in the early stages of building a World's Fair, and as
spring came on I spent a couple of weeks in the city putting _Prairie
Folks_ into shape for the printer. Kirkland introduced me to the Chicago
Literary Club, and my publisher, Frances Schulte, took me to the Press
Club and I began to understand and like the city.

As May deepened I went on up to Wisconsin, full of my plan for a
homestead, and the green and luscious slopes of the old valley gave me a
new delight, a kind of proprietary delight. I began to think of it as
home. It seemed not only a natural deed but a dutiful deed, this return
to the land of my birth, it was the beginning of a more settled order of
life.

My aunt, Susan Bailey, who was living alone in the old house in Onalaska
made me welcome, and showed grateful interest when I spoke to her of my
ambition. "I'll be glad to help you pay for such a place," she said,
"provided you will set aside a room in it for me. I am lonely now. Your
father is all I have and I'd like to spend my old age with him. But
don't buy a farm. Buy a house and lot here or in LaCrosse."

"Mother wants to be in West Salem," I replied. "All our talk has been of
West Salem, and if you can content yourself to live with us there, I
shall be very glad of your co-operation. Father is still skittish. He
will not come back till he can sell to advantage. However, the season
has started well and I am hoping that he will at least come down with
mother and talk the matter over with us."

To my delight, almost to my surprise, mother came, alone. "Father will
follow in a few days," she said--"if he can find someone to look after
his stock and tools while he is gone."

She was able to walk a little now and together we went about the
village, and visited relatives and neighbors in the country. We ate
"company dinners" of fried chicken and shortcake, and sat out on the
grass beneath the shelter of noble trees during the heat of the day.
There was something profoundly restful and satisfying in this
atmosphere. No one seemed in a hurry and no one seemed to fear either
the wind or the sun.

The talk was largely of the past, of the fine free life of the "early
days" and my mother's eyes often filled with happy tears as she met
friends who remembered her as a girl. There was no doubt in her mind.
"I'd like to live here," she said. "It's more like home than any other
place. But I don't see how your fat