“Wal, now,” replied he sadly, “we came here full o’ the notion o’ teachin’ folks things, but it ’pears like as if it wasn’t so much other folks out here as needed teachin’ as jes’ our own selves. We hev hed a hard lesson to learn, Ollie, my little gal, but I reckon we’ve pretty well learned it by now. It mos’ likely comes to the same thing, on’y it’s a sight more comfortin’ to human pride to set up as a teacher than to sit down as a learner. We was as certain as anything we had a bran’ new truth to teach to the world, an’ we was goin’ to show ’em how they’d been doin’ wrong in everything ’fore we come to set ’em right. We was jes’ bustin’ with pride and vanity, that’s what we was. We had foun’ a new road to Kingdom Come, we had. ’Twasn’t no road at all, on’y a coon track leadin’ into a swamp. Guess we’ll foller the road other folks has trod before, an’ if we can fill up a slough or help anyone over the rough bits as is scattered plentiful all the way, that’ll do for us. Ain’t that your ’pinion, Ezry?” “Yes, Uncle, we made a mistake. We thought the great thing to do was to reform the ways of the world. We forgot that the human heart needed reforming first of all,” said Ezra, looking sadly at his poor wan-cheeked little wife. “And if the heart is right it doesn’t matter about the rest, does it, dear?” said Olive, looking timidly at him. He was sad and down-hearted and the eager enthusiasm was gone out of his manner. Ezra was much older-looking than he should have been, if life be reckoned by solar time alone. He had been aged by a lapse of mental time and suffering of which the almanac can take no heed. His wife saw and understood how he was, at this moment, realizing the downfall of his young hopes and beliefs, that was why he gazed so sadly across the desolate fields. “We take nothing away with us except sad experience,” he said as he lifted her into the waggon and drove off. “And our love, dear, which nothing can ever destroy,” she whispered, pressing his hand. He stooped and kissed her. There were tears in his eyes. But they made a mistake. They took something else with them. Something that came tearing over the prairie with tongue out and tail stiff-stretched and nose to the ground—Diana, who had been turned over to Napoleon Pompey to have and to hold, but he could not hold her when she saw the waggon going off, therefore he could not have her. She caught them up when they were two miles off, and Olive let the dog clamber all over her, regardless of wet paws, and lick her face, so delighted were they to meet again. THE END. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 4. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.