"I think I never felt so well as when I was in Kansas," I said. "Really, Saul, I've felt a strong inclination to cough for some time, every morning. The climate of Kansas is wonderfully curative for pulmonary difficulties. I wish you would go out there now, and build a log cabin, plant a few miles of maize, gather it in, and then, when the season is over, come back and go to ----. You know they value you too highly not to wait your time." I saw a slow kindling up in Saul's eyes, but an instant later it had gone down, and he said, looking into mine,-- "Do you really and truly wish this, Lucy?" And Lucy answered,-- "I really and truly wish it, Saul." We came hither with the violets and bluebirds. My wigwam points to the sky. We have roamed on the prairies, and wandered in the timber-lands. Under the heavens of the Big Blue we have drunk "the wine of life all day," and "been lighted off" to hemlock-boughs "by the jewels in the cup." Oh, this life that is passing, passing in unseen marches on to the Great Plains where we shall corral forever! I've just opened my cabin-door to look for Saul; he's been gone ten days. The drought came; our maize withered and died. Ten miles away, there is a town; two houses are there. We left our vast-wilderness lodge to Nature in October, and turned our faces eastward. Reaching the town, we found Azrael hovering there. It was impossible to go on and leave such suffering, and we stayed. While we waited, winter came along, tossing her white mail over the prairie, and we were prisoned. Azrael folded his pinions, and carried in them two souls out of the town of two houses. Afterward, Saul and I came back to our home. I kindled the fire, and Saul went forth to earn our daily food. Life began to grow painfully earnest. The supply of wheaten flour waxed less and less, and I sometimes wished--no, I _did not wish_ that I was a widow, I only wished for flour. I began to look for manna, and it came,--not "small and white, about the size of coriander-seed," but in the form of the flying life of yesterday. I have cried many tears over eyes that were shut for me, but I've never been sorry that I came hither. At last, no more wings came flying over the prairie. Saul came home without food. That was ten days ago. He carried me the next morning to the village, to leave me there, till he should return,--then retraced the ten miles through the snow, and went for food. I stayed until there was no more for the children to eat. I could not abide that, and this morning I stole away. I've come the ten miles through the snow to light the fire, that Saul may not pass by, and go on to the town this cold night. Where is he now? Not perishing, dying on the prairie, as I was once, when he found me? I'll walk and see. It is so lone outside, there is such an _awful sound_ in the _voice of stillness,_ and Saul is not in sight!