I'd like to make that trip. I'd like to see Addison once more."

I replied, "The more I think about it, the more wonderful it all seems.
It will enable you to see the mountains, and the great plains. You can
visit Los Angeles and San Francisco. You can see the ocean. Frank is to
play for a month in Frisco, and we can all meet at Uncle David's for
Christmas."

The remainder of the summer was taken up with the preparations for this
gorgeous excursion. Mother went back to help father through the harvest,
whilst I returned to Boston and completed arrangements for my lecture
tour which was to carry me as far north as Puget Sound.

At last in November, when the grain was all safely marketed, the old
people met me in Kansas City, and from there as if in a dream, started
westward with me in such holiday spirits as mother's health permitted.
Father was like a boy. Having cut loose from the farm--at least for the
winter, he declared his intention to have a good time, "as good as the
law allows," he added with a smile.

Of course they both expected to suffer on the journey, that's what
travel had always meant to them, but I surprised them. I not only took
separate lower berths in the sleeping car, I insisted on regular meals
at the eating houses along the way, and they were amazed to find travel
almost comfortable. The cost of all this disturbed my mother a good deal
till I explained to her that my own expenses were paid by the lecture
committees and that she need not worry about the price of her fare.
Perhaps I even boasted about a recent sale of a story! If I did I hope
it will be forgiven me for I was determined that this should be the
greatest event in her life.

My father's interest in all that came to view was as keen as my own.
During all his years of manhood he had longed to cross the plains and to
see Pike's Peak, and now while his approach was not as he had dreamed
it, he was actually on his way into Colorado. "By the great Horn
Spoons," he exclaimed as we neared the foot hills, "I'd like to have
been here before the railroad."

Here spoke the born explorer. His eyes sparkled, his face flushed. The
farther we got into the houseless cattle range, the better he liked it.
"The best times I've ever had in my life," he remarked as we were
looking away across the plain at the faint shapes of the Spanish Peaks,
"was when I was cruising the prairie in a covered wagon."

Then he told me once again of his long trip into Mi