My Mary not only runs the home, buying, paying, attending to her church trotting and downtown shopping, but she is interested in my ups and downs at the factory. Inquires all about Dorfman, my factory superintendent; Bilthouse, my mechanical engineer, and carries in mind my business associates, knows their names and who they represent. To me, a man who expects his wife to stay in her place, never deserving of praise, misses much he might enjoy if he knew enough to appreciate her worth. Many a man's success in life is owing to the genius of his wife, a fact which neither seems to understand. Our home, northwest corner East and Chicago avenue, Oak Park, we built in 1909 and 1910. The house is spacious and elegant, but the gem of Fair Oaks subdivision is our large yard. Of the six stately burr oaks, known to be hundreds of years old, one stands near our sleeping room window, on which is the house or home of a mother squirrel, who when she has babies allows no other squirrel to even climb the tree. Each day she comes down to the kitchen for dinner, often sitting on Mrs. Richardson's shoulder while eating and does not even care if her tail does brush the ladies' eyes. There are about forty other large trees in the yard besides, on either side of the bridge, a dense thicket of thorn and crab apple trees. Here the wrens and robins raise their broods in harmony with the saucy sparrows who live with us all the year, eat that which would be thrown away, and never disturb other birds' nests. They all bathe in the same pool and actually seem to appreciate our little dog Joe, who assumes great responsibility in keeping the cats from catching the young birds and the boys from climbing over our high iron fence. FIFTY-FOUR MILES' HIKE The latest excitement in our neighborhood has been the exploit of myself and my son Arthur, with several other aspirants, attempting without training, to walk to Channel Lake, fifty-four miles, in one day. Our plan was for the men to leave Oak Park at sundown and walk in the dark thirty miles, and the ladies leave home, in automobile, at 3:30 in the morning, then all take breakfast together at Libertyville, from where the ladies would accompany the men on the last twenty-four miles. The evening before the start we had a laughable wrangle as to who, of the men, could or could not pull through to Libertyville, as the heavy fall rains had so impaired the roads that there would be much high stepping and low dipping as we stumbled along in the dark. Also, we knew that the journey from Libertyville to Antioch, being over clay hills, would be either slip-slop or hard and sharp for the feet of the ladies, but everybody seemed anxious to make a record. Jessie, Arthur's wife, and Mrs. Buhler felt dubious about the outcome of the ladies' walk, but my wife declared she would like to see the man who had walked thirty miles in the night that she could not accompany through the following day.