was coming; and all was delighted expectation. "For," said Mrs. Spurgeon, "I reckon we ain't never had such a young feller before around these parts. Talk! You never heard such talk. It flows just like the water down hill. And there never was a friendlier soul. I never thought they raised such people up in Yankeeland as him. You can bet he'll make his mark. He'll be a judge before he's ten years older; and they do well to get him here. And what I say is where did he get his eddication? He is an orphan too, like you, James . . . raised by an uncle so far as he had a raisin'. But the uncle fooled him. He promised him an eddication, and then went back on it. And what does young Douglas do? He busts away. He gets awful mad and comes west to make his fortune. Make a young feller mad, hurt him good and plenty, and if he has the right stuff you make a man of him. I've seen it over and over. When a young feller's mad and disappointed, if he's got the right stuff in him, he gets more energy, like a kettle blown off. They do, unless they sulk. Now there's other types. There was your poppy; he warn't mad and he didn't sulk exactly, and yet there was somethin'. He seemed to simmer and stew a little. But he left five thousand acres of land. Maybe he was one of these here big speculators like as is all over Illinois now, that has some kind of a different secret, and makes a big success some other way. You can never tell. But you see when Douglas came here he landed from Alton down here at Winchester and went right to

work makin' a few dollars at a auction where he was a appraiser. And he worked at his trade too. For he's a cabinet maker. Yes, sir, he has a trade. With all the books he's read he has a trade. And now he's up here to look over the ground; for they say he's comin' here next spring to practice law, and even then he'll be only twenty-one."

Surely, this was a land of haste, of easy expedients. I did not know a great deal about the legal education of an English lawyer; but enough to appreciate the difference between the slow and disciplined training there and the rapid and loose preparation which I heard Mrs. Spurgeon describe with so much pride. I went into the corner of the room to write a letter to my grandmother.

CHAPTER X

THIS is the letter that I wrote:

"Dear Grandmama: I cannot describe to you the conditions that surround me. The boundless extent of the country, the wildness and beauty of the prairies, the roughness of this frontier town, above all the people themselves. The house I am living in is unlike anything you ever saw; but yet it is very comfortable. And my hostess, Mrs. Spurgeon, as well as her granddaughter, have treated me with all the consideration that my own kindred could do. I was very dangerously ill and they took care of me with wonderful solicitude; particularly Zoe, who nursed me and scarcely left my side. Now I am well, or nearly so, and they insist on my living with them. I pay two dollars a week, or about eight shillings. And everything is clean and nice; the food very good, delicious bacon smoked with hickory wood; but altogether the diet is unlike what I was accustomed to in England. It all seems like a story, first that I should meet Reverdy Clayton when I landed in Chicago from the steamboat which had brought me from Buffalo. He offered to bring me here on his Indian pony. But I was afraid to risk so long a ride, especially as at that time I was beginning to feel very badly. Then

it is strange that I should get here and awake from an illness so serious in the house of Mrs. Spurgeon, whose granddaughter Sarah is going to marry Reverdy one never knows whether to attribute these things to Providence or to the accidents of life. . Perhaps you were right never to tell me about my father's marriage to the octoroon girl; but you must have known that I would find it out on arriving here. It has caused me much thought, if not disturbance of mind; but I have worked out my problems, perhaps impulsively, but still to my own satisfaction. Zoe is about the color of an Indian from Bombay. She is a beautiful girl, and shows her English blood in her manner and her active mind. I do not believe that there was the slightest danger that she would have attacked the will; but many considerations moved me to divide the estate with her equally. She took care of me with the most affectionate interest when I was ill. Besides, the land is not worth so very much, and one half of it will give her no fortune to mention. She is in danger even now, and the future for her is not reassuring. Illinois is supposed to be free territory, but it is not so many years ago that a vote was taken in Illinois to have slavery here, and it was defeated by no very great majority. And now the Illinois laws are rather strict as to colored people. The country is beginning to be feverish about the slavery question. I saw evidence of this in New York and on the way here; though just in this place the matter is not so much agitated. Yet

the other day a copy of a periodical arrived here called The Liberator, and it made much angry talk. I will not tire you with this subject, dear grandmama, but only say that the effort here and everywhere in America seems to be directed toward hushing the matter up. But to return to Zoe: if her mother's father wished to secure the mother against misfortune by bringing her north and marrying her to a white man (my father, as it turned out) why should not I, her half-brother, try to protect her against the future that her mother might have incurred? I reason that I have taken the place of Zoe's grandfather, and must do for her what he tried to do for Zoe's mother. This inheritance of duty comes to me as the land comes to me, without my will. Zoe's grandfather gave my father his start, gave him the $2500 bonus to marry Zoe's mother. I think, in considering what share of the estate Zoe should have, these things cannot be ignored. Of course I don't know exactly how much of the $2500 went into this land. From things I have heard I think my father spent money freely; he went about a good deal and was not as temperate as he should have been for his own health and prosperity. Something was evidently preying upon his mind. Anyway, I have decided the matter, and I hope you will approve of me. I went to father's grave this morning, and it made me sad. Afterwards Mr. Brooks, the lawyer, drove me to the farm and around most of it. I am going to take hold of it at once. This country is growing rapidly, and I mean to do