For a long time I lay awake, thinking of all that Uncle Esmond and Jondo
had said to me. It is no wonder that I remember that April day as if it
were but yesterday. Such days come only to childhood, and oftentimes
when no one of older years can see clearly enough to understand the
bigness of their meaning to the child who lives through them.

All of my life I had heard stories of the East, of New York and St.
Louis, where there were big houses and wonderful stores. And of
Washington, where there was a President, and a Congress, and a strange
power that could fill and empty Fort Leavenworth at will. I had heard of
the Great Lakes, and of cotton-fields, and tobacco-plantations, and
sugar-camps, and ships, and steam-cars. I had pictured these things a
thousand times in my busy imagination and had longed to see them. But
from that day they went out of my life-dreams. Henceforth I belonged to
the prairies of the West. No one but myself took account of this, nor
guessed that a life-trend had had its commencement in the small events
of one unimportant day.




II

A DAUGHTER OF CANAAN


One stone the more swings to her place
In that dread Temple of Thy worth;
It is enough that through Thy grace
I saw naught common on Thy earth.