r own--her affection for them increasing with the
demand upon her imagination. This may seem somewhat inconsistent
with her habit of occasionally abandoning them in the woods or in the
ditches. But she had an unbounded confidence in the kindly maternity of
Nature, and trusted her children to the breast of the Great Mother as
freely as she did herself in her own motherlessness. And this confidence
was rarely betrayed. Rats, mice, snails, wildcats, panther, and bear
never touched her lost waifs. Even the elements were kindly; an Amplach
twin buried under a snowdrift in high altitudes reappeared smilingly
in the spring in all its wooden and painted integrity. We were all
Pantheists then--and believed this implicitly. It was only when exposed
to the milder forces of civilization that Mary had anything to fear.
Yet even then, when Patsy O'Connor's domestic goat had once tried to
"sample" the lost Misery, he had retreated with the loss of three
front teeth, and Thompson's mule came out of an encounter with that
iron-headed prodigy with a sprained hind leg and a cut and swollen
pastern.

But these were the simple Arcadian days of the road between Big Bend and
Reno, and progress and prosperity, alas! brought changes in their wake.
It was already whispered that Mary ought to be going to school, and
Mr. Amplach--still happily oblivious of the liberties taken with his
name--as trustee of the public school at Duckville, had intimated that
Mary's bohemian wanderings were a scandal to the county. She was growing
up in ignorance, a dreadful ignorance of everything but the chivalry,
the deep tenderness, the delicacy and unselfishness of the rude men
around her, and obliviousness of faith in anything but the immeasurable
bounty of Nature toward her and her children. Of course there was a
fierce discussion between "the boys" of the road and the few married
families of the settlement on this point, but, of course, progress and
"snivelization"--as the boys chose to call it--triumphed. The projection
of a railroad settled it; Robert Foulkes, promoted to a foremanship of
a division of the line, was made to understand that his daughter must be
educated. But the terrible question of Mary's family remained. No school
would open its doors to that heterogeneous collection, and Mary's little
heart would have broken over the rude dispersal or heroic burning of her
children. The ingenuity of Jack Roper suggested a compromise. She
was allowed to sele