Gradually as they grew older, they fell into the habit of saying, "Now tell us about when you were a little boy," and so I was led to freshen up on _A Son of the Middle Border_, which I had begun to rewrite. They could never get enough of these reminiscences and when, at nine o'clock, I said, "Daughties, you must go to sleep," they pleaded for "Just one more," and from this interest I derived a foolish hope that the book, if it should ever get published, would be successful. It was sweet to hear those soft voices demanding an explanation of the universe whose wonders they were rediscovering in their turn. Every changing season, every expanding leaf was magical to them. A bat skittering about the chimney, the rustle of a breeze in the maples, were of sinister significance requiring explanation, and when at last I went away and they began to softly sing their wistful little evening prayer, one which Mary Isabel had composed, life seemed worthwhile even to me. I forgot the irrevocable past and confronted old age with composure. Meanwhile my father's mind was becoming more and more reminiscent. His stories once so vivid and so full of detail had narrowed down to a few familiar phrases. "Just then Sherman and his staff came riding along," or "When I was camped on the upper waters of the Wisconsin." His memory was failing and so was his sense of hearing. He seldom quoted from a book, but he still cited Blaine's speeches or referred to Lincoln's anecdotes, and certain of Grant's phrases were often on his lips. In all his interests he remained objective, concerned with the world of action not with the library, and while he made no effort to talk down to Mary Isabel, he contrived to win her adoration, perhaps because she detected in his voice his adoring love for her. In the mist of his glance was the tender worship of youth on the part of age. Always of a Sunday we sang for him and sometimes Uncle Frank, the last of the McClintocks, gray haired and lean and bent, came in with his fiddle and played while the children danced in the light of our fire, so lithe, so happy, so fairy-like in their loveliness that he and Lorette sat in silence, a silence which was at once tender and tragic. There was something alien as well as marvelous in the dramatic movements of those small forms. Witnessing such scenes, moved by something elemental in their decay, I continued to brood over the manuscript which was to be a kind of autobiography, the blended story of the vicissitudes of the Garlands and the McClintocks. At times I worked upon it to the exclusion of all else, and when I read a part of the tale to Mary Isabel and found that she understood it and liked it, I was heartened.