living who can corroborate them, until John Muir published the
story of his boyhood days, and in it I found the history of such
rearing as was my father's, told of as the customary thing among
the children of Muir's time; and I have referred many inquirers
as to whether this feat were possible, to the Muir book."

All his life, with no thought of fatigue or of inconvenience to
himself, Mark Stratton travelled miles uncounted to share what he
had learned with those less fortunately situated, by delivering
sermons, lectures, talks on civic improvement and politics. To
him the love of God could be shown so genuinely in no other way
as in the love of his fellowmen. He worshipped beauty: beautiful
faces, souls, hearts, beautiful landscapes, trees, animals,
flowers. He loved colour: rich, bright colour, and every
variation down to the faintest shadings. He was especially fond
of red, and the author carefully keeps a cardinal silk
handkerchief that he was carrying when stricken with apoplexy at
the age of seventy-eight. "It was so like him," she comments, "to
have that scrap of vivid colour in his pocket. He never was too
busy to fertilize a flower bed or to dig holes for the setting of
a tree or bush. A word constantly on his lips was `tidy.' It
applied equally to a woman, a house, a field, or a barn lot. He
had a streak of genius in his make-up: the genius of large
appreciation. Over inspired Biblical passages, over great books,
over sunlit landscapes, over a white violet abloom in deep shade,
over a heroic deed of man, I have seen his brow light up, his
eyes shine."

Mrs. Porter tells us that her father was constantly reading aloud
to his children and to visitors descriptions of the great deeds