aprons--a very jolly, kindly, receptive company.

Mr. Barnabee was at his best--I never saw him so funny. He sang, danced,
recited, and told stories for forty minutes. The Roycrofters were, of
course, delighted.

One girl whispered to me as she went out, "I wonder what great sorrow is
gnawing at Barnabee's heart, that he is so wondrous gay!" Need I say that
the girl who made the remark just quoted had drunk of life's cup to the
very lees? We have a few such with us--and several of them are among our
most loyal helpers.

* * * * *

One fortuitous event that has worked to our decided
advantage was "A Message to Garcia."

This article, not much more than a paragraph, covering only fifteen
hundred words, was written one evening after supper in a single hour. It
was the Twenty-second of February, Eighteen Hundred Ninety-Nine,
Washington's Birthday, and we were just going to press with the March
"Philistine." The thing leaped hot from my heart, written after a rather
trying day, when I had been endeavoring to train some rather delinquent
helpers in the way they should go.

The immediate suggestion, though, came from a little argument over the
teacups when my son Bert suggested that Rowan was the real hero of the
Cuban war. Rowan had gone alone and done the thing--carried the message
to Garcia.