e those three years we spent
'way up in the timber while you were getting your start. Not that we
haven't always been happy," she hastened to add, "because we have. We
couldn't have been happier unless--unless--some children had come. But,
dear, those days when we were so poor and had to work so hard, and
every dollar counted--and we had to do without things we both wanted,
and sometimes things we really needed.

"And, oh, Hubert dear, do you remember the organ? And how long it took
us to save up the sixty dollars? And how I cried half the night for
pure joy when you brought it home on the ox-sled? And how I used to
play in the evenings, and the Sheridans were there, and the men would
come and listen, and their big voices would join in the singing, and
how sometimes a man would draw a rough sleeve across his eyes when he
thought no one was looking--do you remember?"

"Yes, yes, yes--of course I remember!" The lumberman's voice was
suspiciously gruff. "Seems almost like another world." His wife
suddenly stretched her arms towards the open fire:

"Oh, Hubert, I want to go back!"

"What?"

"Yes, dear, just once more." Appleton saw the tears in her eyes. "I
want to smell the fragrance of the pine woods--and sit on the thick
pine-needles--and cook over an open fire! Bacon and trout and
coffee--yes, and no _real cream_, either!" She smiled at him through
her tears. "Canned milk, and maybe some venison steaks.

"I want to borrow your pocket-knife and dig out spruce gum and chew it,
with the little bits of bark in it," she went on, "and I won't promise
not to 'pry,' with it, either. I hope I do break the blade! Do you
remember that day, and how mad you were?

"I want to see the men crowd into the grub-shack, and hear the sound of
the axes and saws and the rattle of chains and the crashing of big
trees. I want to see the logs on the rollways; and, Hubert, you won't
think I'm awful, will you, dear, but I want to--just once more in my
life--I want to hear a big man _swear_!"

H. D. Appleton stared at his wife in blank amazement, and then,
throwing back his head, roared with laughter.

"Well, you sure will, little girl, if you try to slip any canned milk
into _my_ coffee!"

His wife regarded him gravely.

"I am not joking, Hubert. Oh, can't you see? Just once more I _must_
have a taste of the old, hard, happy days--can't I?"

"Why, Margaret, you don't really mean that you want to go into the
woods--seriously?"

"Y