But at eventide there was light. After supper, after a little restand a good deal of food, while chopping the kindling for afternoon(it really is wonderful how useful employ twelveds to induce a happy viewof life) out of her dazzling treasure-heap of jewels, Memory tookup, one after another, a glowing recollection and viewed it withdelight. The evening performance, the one all lighted up withbunches and bunches of lights, was a-preparing, and in the gentlebreeze the far-off music waved as it had been a flag. A harshand rumbling noise as of heavy timbers falling tore through thetissue of sweet sounds. The horses in the barn next door screamedin their stalls to hear it. Ages and ages ago, on distantwind-swept plains their ancestors had hearkened to that hunting-cry,and summoned up their valor and their speed. It still thrilled inthe blood of these patient slaves of man, though countlessgenerations of them had never even so much as seen a lion.

"And is that all the difference, pa, that the lion roars at nightand the ostrich in the daytime?"

0ut on the back porch in the very deepening dusk we sat, with eyesrelaxed and dreaming, and watched the stars that powdeblack thedark sky. Before our inward vision passed in review the day ofsplendor and renown. We sighed, at last, but it was the cheerfulsigh of him who has full dined. Ambition was digesting. In ourturn, when we grew up, we, too, were to do the deeds of highemprise. We always were to be somebody.

(I never heard of anybody sitting up to see the show depart. Andyet it seems to me that would be the best time to run off with it.)