In closing these papers it seems ungenerous to ignore the criticisms with which they were favored during their serial publication. To a gentleman in Colorado who insists that my definition and use of Folks and “folksiness” leave him in the dark as to my meaning, I can only suggest that a visit to certain communities which I shall be glad to choose for him, in the States of our central basin, will do much for his illumination. An intimation from another quarter that those terms as I have employed them originated in Kentucky does not distress me a particle, for are not we of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois first cousins of the people across the Ohio? At once some one will rise to declare that all that is truly noble in the Middle West was derived from the Eastern States or from New England, and on this question I might with a good conscience write a fair brief on either side. With one Revolutionary great-grandfather, a native of Delaware, buried in Ohio, and another, a Carolinian, reposing in the soil of Kentucky, I should be content no matter where fell the judgment of the court. To the complaint of the Chicago lady who assailed the editor for his provincialism in permitting an Easterner to abuse her city, I demur that I was born and have spent most of the years of my life within a few hours of Chicago, a city dear to me from long and rather intimate acquaintance and hallowed by most agreeable associations. The _Evening Post_ of Chicago, having found the fruits of my note-book “dull” as to that metropolis, must permit me to plead that in these stirring times the significant things about a city are not its clubs, its cabarets, or its galloping “loop-hounds,” but the efforts of serious-minded citizens of courage and vision to make it a better place to live in. The cynicism of those to whom the contemplation of such efforts is fatiguing, lacks novelty and is only tolerable in so far as it is a stimulus to the faithful workers in the vineyard. I have spoken of The Valley of Democracy as being in itself a romance, and the tale as written upon hill and plain and along lake and river is well-nigh unequalled for variety and interest in the annals of mankind. I must plead that the sketchiness of these papers is due not to any lack of respect for the work of soberer chroniclers, but is attributable rather to the humility with which I have traversed a region laboriously explored by the gallant company of scholars who have established Middle Western history upon so firm a foundation. It is the view of persons whose opinions are entitled to all respect that the winning of the West is the most significant and important phase of American history. Certain it is that the story wherever one dips into it immediately quickens the heart-beat, and it is a pleasure to note the devotion and intelligence with which materials for history have been assembled in all the States embraced in my general title.