Back-Trailers from the Middle Border | Page 4

of the first act their cheeks were blazing with excitement. It was the embodiment of all their dreams of fairyland.
Connie was especially entranced and on the way back musingly said, "Shall I be a dancer when I grow up?" "No, n I replied, "I think you'd better be a musician."
"December 31. With another lecture date in the East, I am getting my affairs in order to leave. The year is going out shadowed by a gigantic war which has involved all Europe but my little family is untouched by it. Tonight just before the children's bedtime, we took our Christmas tree and burned it branch by branch in the grate, uttering a prayer to Santa Claus to come again next year. It was a pensive moment for the children. A sadness mingled with sweetness was in their faces as they turned away. The smell of the burning needles still filled the house with 'Christmas smell,' as Mary Isabel from the stairway called it. 'Come again, Santa Claus!' So our tree vanished but the good things it brought remain behind--"
"I hate to leave you and the children," I said to Zulime, "but I must go East if I am to earn a living. That is the worst of the situation here. I am doing everything at long distance at a disadvantage--"
On my arrival at The Players, I learned with sorrow that our librarian, Volney Streamer, had been taken to a sanitarium. For a year or more he had been trying to keep up his work although it had been evident that his usefulness was ended. He had been one of the historians of the club. He loved the library and everything connected with it, and the older members had a genuine affection for him In him many of the traditions of Edwin Booth the founder of the Club had been preserved.
There is something impersonally cruel about a club. A man, any man no matter how notable or how essential, can drop out it without leaving a ripple In a few days he is forgotten Occasionally some one will ask, "By the way, where's Streamer? Haven't seen him around here lately." Another will say in a casual tone, "I hear he's down and out. What a pityl"
Day by day my desire to have my family in New York intensified. "If my wife and daughters were within reach of me here I should be quite happy," I said to Irving Bacheller. "It will not be easy to cut loose from Chicago for Zulime is deeply entangled there, but I shall never be content till she and the children are here. I may be mistaken but I feel safer in New York, nearer my base of supplies."
I spoke of this again while lunching with Howells who warmly urged me to move. "I like to have you near me," he said, and his words added to my resolution.
After we retired to his study he took from his desk a manuscript intended for Harpers Magazine and read it to me. In the midst of it he paused and smilingly remarked, "This is like old times, isn't it, my reading manuscript to you?" and as he uttered this my mind filled with memories of the many-many delightful hours we had spent in reminiscence and discussion during the thirty years of our acquaintance.
As I rose to go he gave me the manuscript of his new novel, The Leatherwood God, and said, "Read it and tell me what you think of it " This I gladly undertook to do.
Roosevelt, who had his office in the Metropolitan Magazine at this time, asked me to look in upon him whenever I had the leisure. "I come in every morning from Oyster Bay and spend a good part of each day in my office," he said.
It was difficult for me to visualize this man (whose reputation was world-wide and whose power had been greater than that of almost any other American) coming and going on suburban trains and in the street cars like any other citizen Notwithstanding his great distinction, he remained entirely democratic in habit.
Several people were waiting to see him as I entered the outer office, and I was reminded of my visits to the White House. He was still the uncrowned king. When admitted to his room, I found him looking distinctly older than at our previous meeting. For the first time he used the tone of age. He alluded to his Amazon River trip and said, "I came near to making a permanent stay up there " I urged him to take things easy and he replied, "My financial condition will not permit me to take things easy. I must go on earning money for a few years more."
It was plain that the River of Doubt had left