CHAPTER PAGE I. Early Footsteps. 9 II. Getting the Backbone. 21 III. The Two Paths. 32 IV. God’s Intention Man’s Prevention 46 V. The Sadness Behind the Vale 61 VI. Gratitude. 71 VII. Just Poems. 87 VIII. Sallie’s Loyalty. 112 IX. Sunshine. 117 X. Temperance. 133 XI. Every Day Philosophy. 145 XII. Glimpses from the Past. 158 XIII. Hopes That Exploded. 179 XIV. The Weary Traveler. 196 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TREADING THE NARROW WAY EARLY FOOTSTEPS. Robert Emmett Barrett was the soothing and patriotic cognomen my father fastened upon me when I first opened my eyes and I looked him squarely in the face. I say my father named me and I honestly think he did. The first two-thirds of the name proves my contention and opens the book wide enough that the reader has no trouble in discerning the nationality of my father. Mother was an English woman and I knew it the first time she called father “Arry.” If mother had had her equal rights in naming me, I might have been a Gladstone; but somehow or other father monopolized mother’s half interest and she finally became disgusted and told him to name me any blooming thing he wanted to. If mother could have foreseen this savage war across the orient, I believe, she would have handled the center name, but the way it stands I wouldn’t shoulder a gun for England and I can’t use my undeveloped oratory against Ireland, and I am about half persuaded to let them settle their own troubles. It being no fault of mine that I am half Irish and half English, I let it go at that and get along with everybody the best I can. It’s hard to separate the halves from the whole, and so, from a perpendicular standpoint, I give the Irish the top half and the English the bottom half; I’d rather let the English have the running half anyway. So far the name Emmett hasn’t done me much good, I’ve only used it nine or ten times since I had it, thrice at political speeches, a couple of Fourth of July addresses, once on Decoration Day, once at a church wrangle, and a few times when I was mad. I find it doesn’t help me much on bank cheques, they get turned down as quickly with the Emmett signed as without it. If the name is ever going to do me any good I wish it would hurry up and be a progressive or I will be compelled to think father was impartial and talked mother out of her rightful one-half interest.