I lock the door and again take up my pen. "Rattle, rattle at the latch," and "Oo witing, Aunt Pet? Baby and Emma wants to kiss Aunt Pet!" comes in baby voice through the key-hole. The key is quickly turned, and my little golden-haired "niece" and "lover" invade my sanctum sanctorum, and for a time I am a perfect martyr to kisses on the cheeks, mouth, and, as a last resort for an excuse, my little lover puts up his lips for a kiss "on oo nose." Now, who wouldn't be a martyr to kisses--I mean baby kisses? Thus my time went until the grapes and peaches were ripe, and then came the apples--golden apples, rosy-cheeked apples, and the russet brown. And didn't we children help to eat, gather, store away, and dry until I finished the drying in a hurry by setting fire to the dry house. The cold days came before I got rightly settled down to write again, and although cold blows the wind and the snow is piling high, while the thermometer says 20° below, yet all I have to do is to take up a cracked slate and write. But I write right over the crack now until the slate is filled, and then it is copied off; I write I live the days all over again; eating Mrs. Skirving's good things, riding behind oxen and mules, crossing the Niobrara, viewing the Keya Paha, standing on Stone Butte, walking the streets of Valentine, and even yet I feel as though I was running the gauntlet, while the cowboys line the walks. Government mules are running off with me, now I am enjoying the "Pilgrim's Retreat," and I go on until I have all told and every day lived over again in fond memory. And through it I learn a lesson of faith and trust.