And eleven babies were born to them. With bitter words old Katie painted pictures of the heartbreaking toil; the lack of ordinary conveniences; the goading tongue of her lord and master driving her on through the years while acre was added to acre, and the herds increased, and no barn was large enough to hold the abundant crops. Modern farm implements were purchased in plenty, but there was no money for the simplest household conveniences; outbuildings were snug and well built; but the home itself was ramshackle and poor. It has been said that in earlier days the size of a man’s farm could often be estimated by the number of wives’ tombstones in his lot in the cemetery. But it was not true in this case. Katie had lived, but her babies died. Her love for her husband turned to a cold hate, but still the babies came. Ten had been born and ten had died before Jim realised that Katie needed as good care as his animals—that she was more than any animal—that she was, in truth, the mother of those children—his children—whom he worshipped—and lost. So the youngest boy was born and grew—a slender, delicate, brilliant lad—and all the facilities for education, and all the riches of cattle and horses and broad acres were his to command. He was educated for the Bar. And while he was in college and while he studied law, his father and he built up a wonderful library and still more wonderful plans for the future, when James Grogan, Junior, should be a great jurist and statesman with a reputation nation wide. Abruptly his health failed. Lack of vitality, his inheritance from his mother, made itself felt. He went to California and there died. James Grogan, Senior, brought home that library and installed it in the old ramshackle house with its addition here and lean-to there. And here, alone, he read each volume. SIX _Monday, May 11th_, IN THE MUD. SIX _Monday, May 11th. In the Mud._ To you, and you alone, little diary, will I confess a sense of deep discouragement. Mud! Mud! Seas of mud and oceans of rain! We have been out eight full days and have covered but sixty-five miles. The appetite that I have developed is truly amazing. As I sit by a fence, waiting for Dan to investigate those streaks of ooze and slush called roads, I’m hungry enough to eat Limburger cheese, which is saying a good deal for me. Yet I finished a hearty breakfast but an hour or so ago. I am ravenous, morning, noon and night, and Dan is nearly as bad. When I compare the size of our appetites with the cost of bread and eggs at farmhouses, the dollar and a half that Dan sweat like a stevedore to earn, looks woefully inadequate.