e hearts of the pioneers of that earlier
time.

But this is looking forward. So let us go back to scene one, act one, in
those days before the sunshine was shaded, the prairie grass worn off,
and the blue sky itself was so stained and changed that the meadow-lark
was mute!

And now we are ready for the curtain: and--music please.

CHAPTER II

IN WHICH WE INTRODUCE THE FOOL AND HIS LADY FAIR AND WHAT HE SAID IN HIS
HEART--THE SAME BEING THE THEME AND THESIS OF THIS STORY

A story is a curious thing, that grows with a kind of consciousness of
its own. Time was, in its invertebrate period of gestation when this
story was to be Amos Adams's story. It was to be the story of one who
saw great visions that were realized, who had from the high gods
whispers of their plans. What a book it would have been if Amos and Mary
could have written it--the story of dreams come true. But alas, the high
gods mocked Amos Adams. Mary's clippings from the Tribune--a great
litter of them, furnished certain dates and incidents for the story.
Often when the Tribune was fresh from the press Mary and Amos would sit
together in the printing office and Mary eaten with pride would clip
from the damp paper the grandiloquent effusions of Amos that seemed to
fit into other items that were to remind them of things which they could
not print in their newspaper but which would be material for their book.
What a bundle of these clippings there is! And there was the diary, or
old-fashioned Memory Book of Mary Adams. What a pile of neatly folded
sheets covered with Mary Adams' handwriting are there on the table by
the window! What memories they revive, what old dead joys are brought to
life, what faded visions are repainted. This is to be the Book--the book
that they dreamed of in their youth--even before little Kenyon was born,
before Jasper was born, indeed before Grant was born.

But now the years have written in many things and it will not be even
their story. Indeed as life wrote upon their hearts its mysterious
legend--the legend that erased many of their noble dreams and put iron
into their souls, there is evidence in what they wrote that they thought
it would be Grant's story. Most parents think their sons will be heroes.
But their boy had to do his part in the world's rough work and before
the end the clippings and the notes in the Memory Book show that they
felt that a hero in blue overalls would hardly answer for their Book.
Then the