For a long time after this affair, so I learned from Mrs. Coolidge when I asked her about the story her friend had told me, the Governor thought it was that interview and the stern spirit he displayed in it that had made the change in the opposition's attitude toward him and had seemed to affect the feeling of the whole Territory. For his official path became unexpectedly easy. There were few attempts to balk him in his administration of affairs and there was a general manifestation of tolerance, and even of willingness to see how his ideas would work out. But the time came when, understanding better the people with whom he had to deal, he knew that that interview ought to have had just the opposite result. One day he said to his wife how surprising it was that it had not landed him in the hottest of hot water, and how puzzled he was to account for what seemed to have been its effect. Then she confessed to him what had happened on that crucial night, how she had taken the body away and hung it in front of the other house, and what she partly knew and partly guessed about the results of the affair. At once he realized that her instant and audacious retaliation was what had made possible his success and his growing popularity. Nevertheless, he was shocked at first, for New England was still but a little way behind him. But amusement soon overcame every other feeling, and he laughed heartily in admiration of her daring, just as his opponent had done. After that, he seemed to take particular pride in her sobriquet, and himself often called her "Colonel Kate." HOLLYHOCKS Green and peaceful, the long, low undulations of the prairie sea of southern Kansas spread away to the horizon in lines as graceful and pleasing as those of a reclining Venus. Here and there against a hillside the emerald waves broke in a bright foam of many-colored flowers. In all that vast extent over which I could look, there was visible no living creature save the tiny furred and feathered things whose home it was. The soft prairie wind blew caressingly against my cheek and seemed to whisper in my ear: "Why do men cling to the boisterous, cruel, lying sea as the emblem of freedom? Is not here beauty that allures with freedom's own charms? Is not here freedom herself, serene, smiling, constant, and blessed with a blessedness the sea knows not?" The prairie wind blew the freedom it sang of into my heart, and it dwelt there with joy and exultation as I drove on and on over the waves of that smiling emerald sea. I salved my eyes, wearied and scorched by brick walls and city pavements, with those long, swinging reaches of green, and their silent benediction filled and soothed my very soul.