Doctor Elisha Dix of Orange Court, Boston, was never happier than when his pet grandchild, little Dorothea Dix, came to visit his wife and himself. Every morning he had to drive about the city, in his old-fashioned chaise, to see how the sick people were getting along, and he did love to have Dorothea sitting beside him, her tongue going, as he used to declare "like a trip-hammer." She was a wide-awake, quick-motioned creature and said such droll things that the doctor used to shout with laughter, until the dappled gray horse which he drove sometimes stopped short and looked round at the two in the chaise as if to say: "Whatever in the world does all this mean?" But when the time drew near for Dorothea to go back home, she always looked sober enough. One day she burst out: "Oh, Grandpa, I almost _hate_ tracts!" Doctor Dix glanced down at her in his kind way and answered: "I don't know as I blame you, Child!" You see, Joseph Dix, Dorothea's father, was a strange man. He had fine chances to make money because the doctor had bought one big lot of land after another and had to hire agents to look after these farms and forests. Naturally he sent his own son to the pleasantest places, but the only thing Joseph Dix, who was very religious in the gloomiest sort of a way, really wanted to do, was to repeat hymns and write tracts. To publish these dismal booklets, he used nearly all the money he earned, so that the family had small rations of food, cheap clothing, and no holidays. Besides having to live in such sorry fashion, the whole household were forced to stitch and paste these tracts together. Year after year Mrs. Dix, Dorothea, and her two brothers sat in the house, doing this tiresome work. No matter whether, as agent, Mr. Dix was sent to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, or Massachusetts; no matter whether their playmates in the neighborhood were berrying, skating, or picnicking; no matter how the birds sang, the brooks sparkled, the nuts and fruit ripened; the wife and children of Joseph Dix had no outdoor pleasures, no, they just bent over those old tracts, pasting and sewing till they fairly ached. When Dorothea was twelve, she decided to stand such a life no longer. Fortunately the family was then living in Worcester, near Boston, and it did not cost much to get there. Doctor Dix was dead, but Dorothea ran away to her grandmother, who still lived at Orange Court (now it is called Dix Place), and although Madam Dix was very strict, life was better there than with the tract-maker.