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955 
 
 3 355 
 
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 C ^7~Z, 
 

 "Whoever loves on Pawnee Rock will love always 
 and always," she murmured softly 
 

 THE 
 
 STONE 
 
 
 MARGARET HILLflcCARTER 
 
 Aw-tkor of 
 
 T no Peace of i ne Solomon Valley, 
 Tne Price of i ne Prairie, tire., 
 
 IlWral-ed bi; J. Allen St. Jodn 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 A.C.McCLURG,CQ 
 
Copyright 
 
 A. C. McClurg & Co. 
 1915 
 
 Published September, 1915 
 
 Copyrighted in Great Britain 
 
 1INTING COMPANY, CHICAGO 
 
5* 
 
 LITTLE STORY is offered to such 
 as hold it good to believe that, in this prac 
 tical old world, the things that are not seen are 
 greater than the things that are seen; and that 
 sometimes the eyes of innocence and love and 
 trust even the eyes of a little child can look 
 far into the real heart of life. 
 
 M551865 
 
 l A 
 
We may build more splendid habitations, 
 
 Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculpture, 
 
 But we cannot 
 Buy with gold the old associations. 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 1X/TAY air, shot through with gladsome 
 ^ morning light, overhung all the 
 prairies, swathing the brow of old Pawnee 
 Rock with a diaphanous veil filmy and fine 
 as the draperies the master painters once 
 drew about the shoulders of rare old 
 Madonnas. Wide away the landscape 
 stretches in lengths of shimmering green 
 checked across by flat brown roadways, 
 and melting at last into a mist of lavender- 
 gray. The only break in all this level 
 realm is Pawnee Rock grand old cita 
 del of the Plains, upreared in its majes 
 tic loneliness the watch tower of the 
 prairies through, uncounted centuries. 
 
 The westbound Santa Fe train was 
 swinging away down its shining trail of 
 steel, its coil of silvery smoke untwisting 
 behind it. In the observation car Edith 
 Grannell watched the land waves roll by 
 with face aglow. Hers was an attractive 
 face, with sunny, gray eyes shaded by dark 
 lashes, straight black brows, a mouth and 
 
 [3] 
 
Cfte Cornet 
 
 chin bespeaking character, with a sense of 
 humor in the little up-curve of the lips; 
 while from the pile of lustrous brown hair 
 to the firm white throat between the lines 
 of the soft linen collar there was the mark 
 of dainty, cleanly, healthy youth. A keen 
 reader of human nature might sometimes 
 catch the sweep of a quickly vanishing 
 shadow coming into the gray eyes now and 
 then, token of a deeper feeling than most 
 light-hearted girls of twenty-two possess. 
 
 It came into her eyes this morning as 
 she took in the passing view. It was not 
 her first sight of the prairies. The hap 
 piest part of her orphaned childhood had 
 been spent on her uncle s ranch in the 
 West, and now he had written to her to 
 come again for a summer s visit to this 
 place of cherished memory. 
 
 " I wonder if Uncle Samson will know 
 me. It has been twelve years since I was 
 here." The gray eyes darkened momen 
 tarily. 
 
 Twelve years in boarding schools, 
 with chaperons in vacations! I ve never 
 seen Uncle Samson once in all this time, 
 and he s the only other Grannell in the 
 world, so far as I know. I wonder why 
 he never asked me to visit him before. 
 Or rather why he should write me now to 
 spend the summer here." 
 
 The shadow vanished from her eyes as 
 she added: "He s been good to me in 
 his way; I m not going to find fault. And 
 now that I can take care of myself, I hope 
 I can make some returns for the money 
 he has spent on my education, and " 
 there was a little choking pain in her 
 
Cfte Cornet Stone 5 
 
 throat "it will be good to feel that 
 there is some place that seems something 
 like a home. I ve been homeless so long." 
 
 On this May morning, Samson Gran- 
 nell, rich ranch owner in the great Kansas 
 wheat belt, was motoring up to the village 
 to meet the train. He did not notice any 
 thing of rock, or sky, or fleeting purple 
 cloud-shadows on green prairies. What 
 he did note was the thrifty promise of 
 June in the wheat fields and the straight 
 lines of the long narrow roadways between 
 them. His mind this morning, however, 
 was not altogether with his eyes on the 
 wheat fields and roadways. While they 
 lost nothing of the commercial value of 
 the landscape, he was busy with plans of 
 his own. 
 
 " Edith is under obligation to me before 
 everybody else," he mused. " I ve sup 
 ported her and educated her, and I m the 
 only living person to be interested in her 
 welfare. Now if she is a sensible girl, 
 this will be the biggest thing of all if 
 my plans carry and they will carry." 
 
 As he sent his big car swiftly along the 
 level road against which the seas of green 
 wheat were surging like ocean tides about 
 a bar of level sand, Grannell did not repeat 
 even to himself what this biggest thing of 
 all might be. But the square-cut jaw was 
 index to how well any plan of his must 
 thrive when he said, " It will carry." 
 
 At the station he did not go forward 
 to meet his niece climbing down from the 
 Pullman beyond the water tank. Every 
 thing, including nieces, came to him. 
 
6 Cfte Cornet >tone 
 
 u You are Edith, I suppose." He gave 
 her his hand as if to ward off a more 
 affectionate greeting, just as twelve years 
 ago at this very place he had given her his 
 hand to ward off a more affectionate part 
 ing. But the young lady who met him 
 showed no signs of tumultuous effusion. 
 Instead of the shy little child whom he 
 was unconsciously expecting, came a girl 
 with shining eyes and lustrous hair and 
 cheeks of apple blossom pink; a girl with 
 the vigor and health and grace of youth. 
 
 The gown of dark-blue soft stuff, fin 
 ished with the embroidered linen collar 
 and cuffs, the stylish little blue straw hat 
 with white quill things of latest millinery 
 fashion, the dainty white-stitched blue 
 gloves even the quaint little monogram 
 pin, 
 
 wrought in gold, the finishing ornament 
 below the V-shaped collar opening that 
 left the white throat free not a feature 
 was as Grannell had unconsciously pic 
 tured. And least of all had he anticipated 
 the certain, indefinable air of self-control 
 and self-reliance. 
 
 Jim Gledden, hackdriver for the village 
 hotel, and Captain Klews, the one-armed 
 postmaster, gazed with undisguised curi 
 osity after the disappearing car into which 
 Grannell had hurried his niece. 
 
 Them two look near enough alike to 
 be father and daughter," Jim declared. 
 
 " How d you make that out? Gran- 
 nell s colder n a fish since he s got so rich, 
 an I see with one eye that that girl s got 
 
Cfte Comer Sterne 7 
 
 what you d call magnetism, an it s a gift 
 of the gods, I reckon," Klews returned. 
 
 " Well, you say there s been no end of 
 letters between em, and he begun it," Jim 
 Gledden insisted. 
 
 " When Sam Grannell begins things 
 whose benefit is he contendin for, his n, 
 or somebody else s?" the postmaster 
 retorted, flinging the lean mail bag into 
 the empty hack. " He s let that niece of 
 his n go homeless for years. Him a wid 
 ower and childless, and getting well off 
 steady. Just payin board somewhere for 
 a relative ain t nothin but cheap charity 
 towards your own flesh an blood. He s 
 working out some scheme of his own now. 
 You know that s his brand of human kind 
 
 ness." 
 
 Klews looked at the liftle dust cloud 
 receding down the long level highway, and 
 a shrewd twinkle in the gossipy old fel 
 low s eyes told that he had an opinion of 
 his own about things. Edith Grannell s 
 coming became his special grievance hence 
 forth; while, according to the custom of 
 the two to differ, Jim Gledden espoused 
 her cause and made it his own. 
 
 Meanwhile, as Samson Grannell, with 
 his niece, sped out toward the open coun 
 try he was carefully bridging over the 
 years that lay between the little girl whom 
 he had known and this charming self- 
 poised young lady for whom he found 
 himself unprepared. It is so difficult in 
 one s mind to let children grow up. 
 
 " I suppose you are glad to be through 
 with school. Did you have a big enough 
 check for your commencement? " he asked. 
 
8 C&e Corner Stone 
 
 " I ve never needed for anything that 
 money could get," Edith replied, " and I 
 want to pay you for your generosity, for 
 I can earn my living and take care of 
 myself now." 
 
 The village postmaster was right when 
 he declared that " Samson Grannell was 
 colder n a fish." His face was expression 
 less now as he broke in : 
 
 " If you owe me anything it is to do 
 what I want you to do." 
 
 " I ll be glad to do anything I can for 
 you," Edith declared with a shining light 
 in her gray eyes. 
 
 She was not thinking of the heart-hungry 
 years wherein he had been to her only a 
 name on a bank draft, yet a half-conscious 
 query rose in her mind as to the full extent 
 of such an obligation. 
 
 Then don t speak about earning your 
 living unless you want to offend me. We ll 
 settle that now." 
 
 The set lines of Grannell s mouth told 
 that he had clinched a bargain, while the 
 little up-curve of Edith s red lips hinted 
 at another mind than his. But he could 
 not see that then. 
 
 " Has the country changed much? " he 
 questioned as indication that that incident 
 was closed. 
 
 " Everything seems changed," Edith 
 replied. The old open prairie is one 
 great wheat field now, and there are no 
 trails left, only straight roads. Are they 
 all like this?" 
 
 " Most of them. We follow section 
 lines now. There s only one old fellow 
 left to freeze out, and then the whole 
 
Cfte Cornet ^tone 9 
 
 country will be straight-cut as a checker 
 board," her uncle replied. 
 
 " I like the trails best, maybe because 
 I remember them best," Edith commented. 
 
 " We are going a long distance out of 
 our way this morning. I have business 
 with a man out here if I can find him at 
 home. But this wheat is worth looking 
 at anyhow." 
 
 As they made a turn in the road Gran- 
 nell pointed toward a stretch of tender 
 young wheat. Beyond it looming up from 
 the floor of the prairies was Pawnee Rock, 
 a great stone outcrop for whose abrupt 
 upheaval some old volcano must have 
 stoked its fires in the forgotten aeons of 
 time. Sloping gently on one side from a 
 faint swell, dim outline of a prehistoric 
 river bank, it breaks on the other in a sheer 
 stone cliff, isolated and majestic. Like 
 the sphinx of the desert it sits, looking out 
 across the level plains, and the winding 
 foolishness of the Arkansas river forever 
 pushing its way aimlessly about. Just 
 now the bronze front made a splash of 
 rich warmth above the vivid green at its 
 base, while the gray crest softened into the 
 blue and pearl of the sky above it. 
 
 " Oh, wonderful! " Edith cried. " Don t 
 you wish that was on your ranch, Uncle 
 Samson? " 
 
 "What? The rock? There was never 
 any wheat raised on it, nor anything else, 
 but h " he caught himself. "No, I 
 don t want it. Every old plainsman has 
 his tale of horror to tell about that rock. 
 It s the corner stone of all the tragedies 
 of the Plains. They were all built on it 
 
10 Cfte Corner 
 
 or about it. We ve quit building on things 
 like that now. Our best security is a good 
 bank security." 
 
 A horse and rider suddenly stood put- 
 lined on the very edge of the bluff, making 
 a statuesque figure against the skyline. A 
 black horse always has the advantage of 
 color, but this one had beauty of form 
 also, while its rider sat firm as a cavalry 
 man, looking out across the landscape, 
 unconscious of the heroic picture he and 
 his horse were making. 
 
 With the splendid features of the scene 
 before her, the words of the man beside 
 her seemed sordid to Edith. For one long 
 minute she gazed upward as one who turns 
 from weakness to strength, and the shadow 
 in her gray eyes was like the shadow of 
 the cloud sweeping across the wheat fields. 
 
 Then she said with a smile: 
 
 There s no tragedy about that, and it 
 seems to belong up there. Is it set just for 
 our benefit? " 
 
 That s a young neighbor of mine. 
 He is the most popular fellow in the 
 wheat belt according to what Captain 
 Klews and Jim Gledden, official gossips, 
 were saying down at the station this morn 
 ing. They say that all the girls are crazy 
 about him, but it s a dead certainty he ll 
 marry some rich girl, or one with prospects 
 of money, or he wouldn t be his father s 
 son. He was always a quiet sort of boy, 
 and generally keeps you guessing." Gran- 
 nell s expressionless face may have 
 changed a trifle as he added, " He ll be a 
 big ranch owner one of these days. He is 
 an only son, and his mother is a widow, 
 
Cfte Corner Sterne u 
 
 one of those women who is set in her ways. 
 
 I hope you will get acquainted with him 
 
 soon." 
 
 There was a dangerous light in the girl s 
 
 eyes, but her mouth was forcibly demure 
 
 as she replied: 
 
 " I m afraid I m not in his class. He 
 
 sounds like a cad from this distance. I 
 
 suppose he is a crushing flirt, too." 
 
 " Oh, a fellow in his position, popular 
 
 with everybody, is bound to be more or 
 
 less of that, I suppose. It seems to make 
 
 life interesting, but they get over it." 
 
 Grannell was not "Mite sure of his ground. 
 " And what is the name of the young 
 
 wheat-belt prince? " Edith asked. 
 
 " Homer Helm. You may remember 
 
 him." 
 
 Grannell was looking down the straight 
 road before him, as if he were looking 
 down the years of time. Edith s head 
 drooped a little, for she was thinking back 
 to one sweet day when her only playmate, 
 a freckle-faced little boy with big dark 
 eyes, a boy two years her senior but not 
 nearly so tall as herself, had come for a 
 last play .with her. The pink deepened on 
 her cheek as she remembered that he had 
 kissed her good-bye, the only good-bye kiss 
 that had been given her when she left the 
 West. That little boy was Homer Helm, 
 and the memory of that good-bye kiss had 
 been a sacred possession in the poverty of 
 a loveless childhood. To her mind he had 
 never grown up, but was still the little boy 
 of that far-off day, and she wanted to keep 
 him so. 
 
 It was almost noon before the two 
 
12 Cfte Corner >tone 
 
 reached the end of their journey. At the 
 crest of a prairie swell a strip of woodland 
 with a bit of open pasture lying beyond 
 came suddenly to view. It was carefully 
 fenced along its irregular outline, save for 
 a bit of grove opening on the roadway. 
 
 Down the slope of this swell from which 
 almost every foot of the Grannell ranch 
 might be seen, the stiff, sunny road gave 
 place to a winding way under trees green 
 with May leafage. Here and there a bit 
 of stone outcrop put in a picturesque touch, 
 and at the bottom of the slope a little 
 stream offered that rare thing in Kansas, 
 a real rock-bottom ford. It was such a 
 spot as calls up to the newcomer tender 
 memories of clear brooks in eastern wood 
 lands. Grannell shut off his engine and 
 paused awhile where the trees threw their 
 cool shadows across the way. 
 
 " I don t remember this part of the 
 road," Edith said, half-conscious of its 
 appeal. " Is it put here to make folks 
 homesick? " 
 
 We didn t come this way in the old 
 days," her uncle replied. " The Gran 
 nell ranch and the Helm ranch hadn t 
 extended their boundaries so far and gath 
 ered in so much of this ground then. I 
 always stop here to be sure my tires are 
 all right before I try that hill down to 
 the ford; or to look at the ranch over 
 there in the sunshine; or just from force 
 of habit, maybe. You know habits tighten 
 on us as we get by forty-five." 
 
 Edith looked pensively down the cool 
 length of road invitingly comfortable after 
 the straight, unshaded highway. There 
 
Cfce Corner Stone 13 
 
 was no voice in the air of that May morn 
 ing to tell her that this was a battle ground 
 for a struggle in which she was to have no 
 small part. 
 
 " It is a good place to rest in. I hope 
 it will always be here," she said thought 
 fully. 
 
 " It s useless to hope that," Grannell 
 declared. " It s the last of the trails, and 
 Noel Waverly, the old sissy who owns the 
 ground, won t give up to have it changed; 
 so the road winds down here, crooked as 
 a snake s track, to the ford. But we ll 
 burn him out before long. He s cut off 
 on one side now. Some of these days we ll 
 shut up this road, and bridge the creek 
 straight ahead, leaving him with no outlet. 
 The county commissioners have tried sev 
 eral times to put a bridge down there, but 
 I ve fought it every time, pending the 
 changes bound to come. They ll try to 
 get one through this fall, but I ll see to 
 it that it s only a cheap temporary affair. 
 Waverly is a stubborn fellow, the last of 
 the old plainsmen; still living, in mind, 
 back in the days of the Santa Fe Trail. 
 He loves a cart and oxen yet, and he 
 wouldn t trade a stout old pony of his, 
 that he calls * Kit Carson, for the finest 
 touring car ever turned out. But his time s 
 coming." 
 
 "Who will bring it to him?" Edith 
 inquired. 
 
 " Oh, the fellow you saw up on Pawnee 
 Rock has the.biggest grip. But we ll all 
 help him. We ve quit living in the fifties 
 out here; we are in the march of the twen 
 tieth century." 
 
14 Cfte Cornet >tone 
 
 Suddenly there came to Edith the 
 memory of long summer Sabbath after 
 noons with the same little freckle-faced, 
 brown-eyed boy again. There was a plain 
 home under big cottonwood trees, with a 
 gray-bearded man on the doorstep telling 
 stories of Indians and wagon trains, of 
 blazing heat, and no water nearer than 
 the sand-baked Arkansas river, of scalp- 
 ings, and arrow-wounds, and miraculous 
 rescues for beautiful women, till the 
 shadows lengthened, and the little girl and 
 boy trotted home, hand clutched in hand, 
 half afraid of a Pawnee raid out of yellow 
 wheat stubble, or the war whoop of the 
 Cheyennes from the brown grasses. . 
 
 But the memory vanished as Edith 
 caught sight of a blue sunbonnet pushed 
 back from a tangle of frowzy golden curls, 
 and a little round face, pink as a peach 
 blossom, with big blue eyes staring at 
 her from a thin screen of bushes beside 
 the road. 
 
 To see the child shut in with brown 
 grasses and gray shrubbery, with the shim 
 mer of overhead green and the still 
 shadowy valley behind her, was like finding 
 a living picture in a tarnished old frame. 
 When she found herself discovered the 
 little one who had been watching the auto 
 mobile and listening to all that had been 
 said, disappeared in a thick clump of pic 
 turesque greenery a little distance from 
 the road. 
 
 " Whose child is that? " Edith asked. 
 
 " That is little Faith Clover, Noel 
 Waverly s grandchild, the old cuss who 
 won t give up this crooked trail for a de- 
 
Cfce Cornet: Stone 15 
 
 cent road. He wouldn t put her into an 
 orphan asylum. When a man is tied to 
 his home like that he knocks the corner 
 stone out from under his prosperity and 
 prosperity is the corner stone of life with 
 us. And besides, the youngster didn t need 
 him. Anybody can take care of a child. 
 He was a hard-headed, hard-fisted fighter 
 in his younger years. Never asked nor 
 gave quarter to anybody. But that child 
 has made a change in him. Another spurt 
 now and we ll be at the ranch. There s a 
 short cut by the footpath up from the ford, 
 but it s a good half mile by the road." 
 
 Grannell s tone changed with the last 
 sentence as he gripped the steering wheel 
 and sent the car forward with an easy 
 swing. 
 
 As for Edith she was beginning already 
 to understand why for twelve years she 
 had known her uncle only as a name on a 
 bank draft, and she was glad that the fair- 
 haired little orphan who had cuddled down 
 in the bushes behind them would never feel 
 the loneliness she had felt. 
 
 Samson Grannell s commodious farm 
 house, with all the modern equipments of 
 a city dwelling, carried a welcome to all 
 who were invited within its doors (Gran- 
 nell never invited those who were not 
 welcome), and its most hospitable offer 
 ings were awaiting the coming of Edith 
 Grannell. 
 
 After their lunch together her uncle 
 said: " I m going to leave you alone here 
 to get yourself adjusted. I shall be busy 
 all this afternoon. By the way, what is 
 your favorite pastime? " 
 
16 Cfte Cornet 
 
 " I ve wanted to ride horses ever since 
 I was here years ago. I m not one bit 
 afraid, and I m sure I could learn easily," 
 Edith replied. 
 
 She did not see the gleam of approval 
 in Grannell s eyes, nor the lines of satis 
 faction settling about his lips as he left 
 her. Evidently things were working to his 
 liking. 
 
 Late that afternoon as she came out 
 to the veranda, Edith caught sight of a 
 handsome cream-colored horse being led 
 by someone down the driveway toward 
 the barns. 
 
 " I wonder whose horse that is," she 
 thought, as it disappeared. Then her mind 
 ran into other lines. 
 
 " Everything is interesting here. Uncle 
 Samson most of all. He is literally mar 
 ried to money and to having his own way. 
 I can see that already. He doesn t seem 
 to want me to feel my obligation to him 
 but he says I owe it to him to do what 
 he wants me to do. That s all right, Uncle 
 Samson, up to a point. If it s lazy living 
 off a rich uncle when this visit s over, 
 there ll be two Grannells with two minds." 
 
 The girl was so bewitchingly pretty with 
 the beauty of one born to ease, coupled 
 with the charm of one who is wholesomely 
 self dependent, that she might well have 
 broken a harder will than Samson Gran 
 nell s. 
 
 " He says I ll offend him if I speak of 
 earning my own living. How does he 
 think I can live then? Maybe he thinks 
 I could capture that popular snob who is 
 so sought after, but who must have a rich 
 
Cfte Corner tone 17 
 
 wife or a girl with prospects. I have 
 4 prospects plenty of them. They are 
 my stock in trade. I wouldn t have him 
 nor his to-be heritage," she added half 
 aloud with a scorn in her eyes, and a curl 
 of her lips. " But if he comes trying to 
 impress me with his importance I can play 
 the game out for the fun of it. That s 
 not the little Homer Helm I used to know, 
 though." 
 
 A sadness followed the scorn, and she 
 resolved not to think of him again. But 
 for all her resolves the figure of the horse 
 and rider on the verge of the bluff came 
 back to her all that day, and her dreams 
 that night were all of a little playmate, 
 hardly so tall as her shoulder, suddenly 
 standing like a giant on the edge of a high 
 place like the gray edge of Pawnee Rock. 
 
II 
 
 God took care to hide that country till He judged His 
 
 people ready, 
 Then He chose me for His Whisper, and I ve found it, 
 
 and it s yours ! 
 
 KIPLING. 
 
 TN the twilight of this May day little 
 Faith Clover sat beside her grand 
 father watching the afterglow of sunset 
 through the cottonwood trees. Old Noel 
 Waverly called his home " The Shadows." 
 Forty years before, there had been here 
 only a few bushes growing along a dry 
 draw in the prairie; today a veritable 
 woodland followed the windings of the 
 creek. But the trees had been of Noel s 
 planting. His hands had brought water 
 to them in their early struggle for a foot 
 ing. Tenderly he had guarded them 
 against roving stock and drouth and 
 prairie fire until the years when, tall, and 
 green, and strong, they protected him from 
 the heat and moved the heavens to more 
 generous rainfall in the day of drouth. 
 The old plainsman had seen the passing 
 out of the prairie wilderness and the in 
 coming of twentieth century progress. He 
 had seen, too, the passing out of wife and 
 children; had seen his once big cattle range 
 dwindle to a few acres. And now, with 
 the snows of seventy-five winters on his 
 head, he was ranchman (in a small way), 
 [18] 
 
Cfte Corner ^tone 19 
 
 gardener, and housekeeper, as well as 
 father, mother, and companion to his little 
 grandchild, the last of the Waverly blood 
 he should ever know. Withal, he was 
 hale and rugged beyond the strength of 
 many younger men, and, with the wisdom 
 of experience, acute to read men s motives 
 and forecast results. 
 
 Faith s playground was in the open 
 woodland between the house and the road; 
 here because she was companionless and 
 alone, she dwelt in an imaginary realm 
 which, like all children of normal minds, 
 she peopled to suit her fancy. 
 
 "Tell me the story, Dando." Faith 
 was almost eight years old, but she still 
 clung to her baby name for her grand 
 father. Nestling against his side tonight, 
 she cuddled down to listen. 
 
 " It s just the same old tale, Faith. You 
 tell me one," her grandfather replied. 
 
 " You tell me first," Faith insisted. 
 
 " Well, once on a time there was an old 
 man and his daughter and two plainsmen 
 on Pawnee Rock waiting for a wagon train 
 from the fort to come along. The old 
 man and the younger ones went down to 
 the river for water and left the girl up 
 there alone. And a young scout was away 
 on the prairies at sunset and the Indians 
 surprised him. They were Comanches on 
 the warpath and he rode and rode." 
 
 "To Pawnee Rock?" Faith asked 
 eagerly. 
 
 " Yes, toward it, but the Indians were 
 gaining on him, and his pony stumbled into 
 a prairie dog s hole it must have been, and 
 fell, breaking its leg." 
 
20 Cfte Cornet 
 
 "And then, what?" Faith questioned 
 eagerly. 
 
 Then he ran, and ran on foot toward 
 the rock. But the arrows whizzed after 
 him and he would have perished in its 
 shadow only suddenly " 
 
 " What? " Faith s blue eyes shone, like 
 stars in the twilight. 
 
 u Suddenly a rifle shot right over his 
 head hit the nearest Indian, and another, 
 and another, all coming from the top of 
 the rock. The young girl, oh, such a pretty 
 girl, with big blue eyes, and golden hair 
 her name was Mary." Noel Waverly s 
 voice was low and tender. 
 
 That was my grandmamma, Dando, 
 and she saved you that evening. And she 
 said she d be my grandmamma for you 
 always and always. I wasn t here then, 
 but that didn t make no difference to her, 
 and what else? " 
 
 " Nothing else." The voice was still 
 tender. 
 
 You learned to love my grandmamma 
 on Pawnee Rock." 
 
 " And I loved her always love her 
 now," the old man said softly. 
 
 " Do folks that love on Pawnee Rock 
 love always and always? " Faith asked. 
 
 " Always and always," Noel Waverly 
 replied. 
 
 " Is Pawnee Rock very far away? " the 
 little one questioned. 
 
 " Not very far when you go in a gaso 
 line outfit, but a good long way for our 
 old Kit Carson to trot. I ll take you there 
 some time you little shut-in child," he 
 added under his breath, " so innocent of 
 
Cfte Cornet Stone 21 
 
 the world outside of this tiny place, so won 
 derful in the world of your imagination." 
 
 Then I ll make my people live on 
 Pawnee Rock," the little girl declared. 
 
 "Your people?" 
 
 1 Yes, all my beautiful people. They 
 are really truly people," Faith explained. 
 u There s nobody else to play with, and 
 I can make them all so pretty, and good, 
 or bad, just like I want them." 
 
 "Oh, you little dreamer! " her grand 
 father said, softly stroking her tangled 
 curls. You are a lonely child." 
 
 " No, I m not, Dando. I have my brave 
 young scout and my beautiful girl when 
 ever I want them. I saw her today. Oh, 
 I was going to tell you a story." 
 
 " I m listening," the old man said. 
 
 " Well, I was down in the fairies bush 
 by the old Santa Fe Trail where I play 
 like it crosses the big Missouri river, and 
 a great wagon train and sixty yokes of 
 oxens, all full of people came by, and they 
 had to run and hide in the woods for they 
 .thought the Pawnees were coming. But 
 it wasn t. It was a big automobile and a 
 beautiful lady, enough to be a grand 
 mamma, was in it, and a big man. I think 
 he was an Indian. They stopped a long 
 time in the shade right by my castle, you 
 know, and I heard them talking. The big 
 man said * Noel Waverly is an old sissy 
 and and crooked as a snake s track/ 
 and he said * I ll burn him up and cut off 
 one side. He s an old cuss. That s 
 what he said. But the lady was just as 
 sweet as if I d made her." 
 
 " Oh, you strange little romance-maker! 
 
22 Cfoe Corner 
 
 Faith, how much of this is really true?" 
 Waverly asked. 
 
 "All of it, Dando," Faith answered 
 gravely. 
 
 "No, you are making up part of it," 
 her grandfather insisted. 
 
 "Which part?" Faith asked. 
 
 The evening shadows were too deep to 
 catch the twinkle in her roguish eyes. 
 
 Why, the man isn t an Indian. He 
 is Samson Grannell. He is trying to get 
 Mrs. Helm and her son to shut up our 
 road and force us to sell this little place to 
 him and Mrs. Helm so they can run sec 
 tion-line roads, and cut down all our trees 
 and straighten the creek and make a great 
 wheat field of this beautiful grove your 
 grandmamma loved." 
 
 " Don t let him do it, Dando," Faith 
 urged. 
 
 " I never will." Noel Waverly set his 
 jaws sternly. He was a stubborn man. 
 Only stubborn men, his kind of men, could 
 have conquered the Plains and made the 
 wheat belt possible. " He s got some 
 scheme afoot now. Maybe that s why he 
 sent for this girl to come out here." 
 
 " Maybe there will be a lover for her 
 like the pretty girl with the rifle," Faith 
 suggested. And then the tired little head 
 drooped against the old man s arm, and 
 the busy brain was still in slumber. 
 
 Noel Waverly sat in the shadowy silence 
 long after Faith had gone to sleep. 
 
 " I m an old man, now," he mused, half 
 aloud. " Nearly all my land is gone. The 
 big Helm ranch and the big Grannell ranch 
 are swallowing up what I used to call 
 
Cfte Corner ^tone 23 
 
 mine. I wasn t a fortune builder. I cut 
 sod for other men to build on. And now 
 all that s left to me is a few head of stock, 
 a garden, and a truck patch, and this strip 
 of woodland pasture following the wind 
 ing of the creek so many rods on either 
 side less than seventy acres across the 
 last quarter of it this woodland that I 
 planted, The Shadows that Mary loved. 
 I ve kept it with its crooked bounds 
 fenced and marked in memory of her. 
 What difference does it make that the 
 boundaries are curves instead of section 
 lines? The rivers wind in and out, the 
 prairies ripple like waves of the sea, the 
 sky is a dome. You can t straighten 
 the rainbow. Life is made up of curves, 
 too lines of beauty, as well as sharp 
 angles of fact. And we were so happy 
 here, Mary and I, for we loved each 
 other. You may buy acres and acres of 
 wheat land with money and you may build 
 a fine house with money, but the life is 
 more than meat, and the body than rai 
 ment, and the corner stone of a home is 
 love." 
 
 Then the old man stiffened in. his chair 
 and his face grew stern. 
 
 "I remember when Grannell was poor 
 enough, him and his wife, living in a little 
 three-roomed house out on the prairie. 
 She died early. Maybe if he d put the 
 real corner stone under that little three- 
 roomed house she might have lived. 
 Now he s a graspin widower whose only 
 god is money. Prosperity does that for 
 some men. He s shut me in on his side of 
 the ranch. And he knows that Isabel Helm 
 
24 Cfte Cornet 
 
 holds the mortgage on my place." The 
 old man s face was gray with the shadow 
 of calamity. That mortgage was due 
 thirty days ago. I wonder if Grannell 
 knows that. Of course he does. And it s 
 hard sleddin even to pay interest. But 
 she won t foreclose on me, nor shut up my 
 road out of here as long as she has the 
 say about things. Homer gets everything 
 in his name when he marries. I wonder 
 what he ll do. He s a quiet boy and no 
 body knows what he thinks." 
 
 A new thought leaped up in Waverly s 
 mind. 
 
 " Grannell s up to some scheme, or he d 
 never have sent for that niece of his to 
 come back now." He stroked the sleep 
 ing child s golden hair with a loving hand. 
 " Poor little Faith ! You ve had some 
 body to love you always, while that little 
 girl has lived among strangers till now. 
 Now! Well, I know Grannell s breed. 
 He wants to freeze me out of * The 
 Shadows, and he ll never stop till he s 
 tried every means. I believe I can see the 
 beginning of the end in this move. But 
 I won t give up yet." 
 
 In spite of his burdened mind, there was 
 a spark of the old-time daring in Noel 
 Waverly s eyes as if he sniffed a new dan 
 ger of the Plains that he must outwit. 
 
Ill 
 
 And our pathway wound through the fields of wheat; 
 Narrow that path and rough the way, 
 But he was near and the birds sang true, 
 And the stars came out in the twilight gray ; 
 Oh ! it was sweet in the evening time ! 
 
 T ITTLE Faith Clover was in Clover 
 " Castle, a cunning bower, which Na 
 ture and her grandfather s loving hands 
 had wrought for her in the grove near the 
 road. Here, unseen herself, she could see 
 .her old Santa Fe Trail, and her Missouri 
 river (the rock-bottomed ford), the In 
 dian tepees in the distance where the silos 
 on the Grannell ranch stood up tall and 
 white, and even Pawnee Rock the red 
 roof of the big Helm cattle barns. No 
 body passing up or down the trail escaped 
 her eyes, and she made a story for each 
 one. The isolated child had, perforce, to 
 build a world of her own, and she inter 
 wove the seen and unseen so closely that 
 she herself could not say which was real 
 and which only fancy. 
 
 Faith was giving a tea party for her 
 doll, a poor enough rag affair, but en 
 dowed with all beauty and charm by the 
 child s ready imagination, and forty other 
 doll guests were beginning to arrive from 
 Japan and London and Larned, Kansas, 
 when a real prince came riding out of 
 fairyland in search of a princess. So 
 [25] 
 
26 Cfte Cornet 
 
 Faith dropped the social function, to make 
 a princess for him. It was so like a real 
 story that Faith had no trouble " fixing the 
 corners," as she phrased it, when she built 
 romances out of " dream stuff " only. 
 
 Homer Helm riding up the Waverly 
 line to look after the fences, came whis 
 tling along the shady bound of the wheat 
 field. 
 
 He was a stalwart young fellow, six feet 
 in height with physique to match. His 
 face had the ruddy tinge of outdoor coun 
 try life, not the hard brown of the farm 
 drudge, for he was a master, not a serv 
 ant, of the soil. 
 
 u Poor old Waverly! " he muttered, as 
 he slid from his horse. 
 
 Slipping the rein over his arm, he began 
 to stiffen up a weak spot in the fence with 
 the hatchet he carried. 
 
 As he stooped to his task, his horse 
 suddenly reared, jerking the rein on his 
 master s arm. 
 
 " Ho, Blackstone! what s the matter 
 now? " he spoke quietly. 
 
 " It s the princess coming. I didn t 
 have to make her, she is real," Faith 
 Clover exclaimed excitedly behind the 
 bushes. But Homer did not hear her. 
 Neither did the princess. 
 
 Edith Grannell was coming up the steep 
 slope from the creek, carrying a basket of 
 wild flowers and a little white linen jacket 
 that matched the white linen dress she 
 wore. Bareheaded, with her rich brown 
 hair catching the glint of the sunlight in its 
 heavy fold, and her eyes with the startled 
 look in them, she was wondrously hand- 
 
Cfte Corner @>tone 27 
 
 some just now. Any young prince s heart 
 would beat faster at sight of her. 
 
 Ordinarily, Homer Helm would have 
 lifted his hat and turned away. From his 
 side of the equation he was no ladies man. 
 He had always been a quiet boy with a 
 dignity that w r as misjudged shyness. Yet 
 since he had come home from college to 
 manage his mother s ranch he had been 
 the lion of the community. He was young 
 and handsome after the strong, rugged 
 type of manly good looks; reserved, but, 
 to those who knew him well, of innately 
 winning manners. 
 
 He was as yet only the representative 
 of his mother. Isabel Helm was a strong- 
 minded quiet woman, of kindly disposition, 
 and strangely handsome because of her 
 dark eyes and the pretty pink flush forever 
 coming and going on her cheeks. 
 
 At this unlocked for meeting Edith 
 Grannell was the first to speak. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, did I frighten your 
 horse? " she asked. 
 
 The voice stirred a curious vibration 
 to life in the young man s memory. 
 
 " Oh, no! he can always find something 
 to rear up over. He keeps on the lookout 
 for that," Homer replied, conscious that 
 he was staring at this white-robed figure; 
 at the round white arms below the lace at 
 the elbows; at the gold monogram, 
 
 at the shapely throat; at the face crowned 
 with lustrous hair, and eyes the color of 
 cloud-shadows on brown prairie grasses. 
 
28 Cfte Corner Stone 
 
 " He is very handsome anyhow." Edith 
 looked admiringly at Blackstone and 
 turned to pass on her way. 
 
 Then came that strange phenomenon of 
 youth. Passing around the corner of the 
 Helm and Waverly fences, Homer mo 
 mentarily blocked her way. He had no 
 idea who she might be, but he did not 
 want to end the interview here. 
 
 " Do you like horses? " he asked. 
 
 " Better than anything else," Edith re 
 plied. " If I want to take the shortest 
 cut from the cradle to the grave, with 
 fewest stop-over privileges, I ll take a 
 touring car, but when I want to live and 
 see the life about me, I prefer a thorough 
 bred." 
 
 There was a bran-new seven passenger 
 beauty in a new garage beyond the red 
 cattle barns, and Homer had never known 
 a girl before who didn t prefer a car to 
 any other vehicle. Yet here was one who 
 smiled at him, but not on him, coolly de 
 claring her preference for a thoroughbred 
 roadster. Unconsciously this girl was cut 
 ting his self-complacency, too, but she was 
 none the less interesting for that. 
 
 u I am going to have a splendid cream- 
 colored saddle-horse as soon as it is 
 trained," Edith went on. u Its name is 
 White Rock. I think there is something 
 of the Pawnee Indian about me, for I love 
 to ride. Do you think horses are so very 
 dangerous for women to manage?" 
 
 In spite of her prejudice against the 
 grown-up Hpmer Helm, Edith was finding 
 it easy to talk to him. 
 
 Homer looked at Blackstone to hide 
 
Cfte Cornet >tone 29 
 
 his surprise, for he was the owner of the 
 cream-colored horse in question. 
 
 " I am sure White Rock is not. I am 
 selling him to the Grannell ranch myself, 
 and I m training him now. I didn t know 
 who it was for. Samson Grannell bar 
 gained for him a week ago, if I d get him 
 trained fit for a woman s hand. I sup 
 posed he had some good buyer, and he 
 was getting a commission." 
 
 Tell me all about his traits and tricks 
 the horse s I mean; then it won t take 
 so long for me to get to ride him." 
 
 " Won t you sit down? " 
 
 Homer threw Blackstone s rein over the 
 fence post with the words, and the two sat 
 down opposite each other on a low rock 
 outcrop. 
 
 * They are over the line into my fairy 
 land; they belong to me," little Faith 
 Clover declared, her big eyes fastened on 
 the two unconscious of her presence. 
 
 Above them the leafy branches swayed 
 gently in the breezes of May. Before 
 them the wheat rippled softly up to the 
 curving bound of " The Shadows." Be 
 hind them the wooded valley rested in the 
 quiet of the early summer afternoon. And 
 far overhead hung the great fathomless 
 arch of the heavens with clouds of pearl 
 drifting far away in its dreamy azure 
 depths. 
 
 " I am "Miss Grannell, Samson Gran- 
 nell s niece. I have come here to visit for 
 the summer," Edith explained, reverting 
 gracefully to conventional demands. 
 
 Everything was changed with this 
 simple introduction. Heretofore Homer 
 
so Cbe Cottier 
 
 Helm had had little interest, except busi 
 ness interest, in Samson Grannell or his 
 relatives. 
 
 " I am glad you are here." Homer 
 knew he was getting on awkwardly, for 
 his first impulse was to rise and shake 
 hands. " I am Homer Helm. Our ranch 
 joins Grannell s, except where this little 
 wiggle of grove and pasture along the 
 creek divides us. It is a pretty place, un 
 profitable though for all of us, and a 
 losing game for old man Waverly. He s 
 mortgaged to the limit." 
 
 Big, and handsome, and capable to do 
 or to undo, the speaker appeared as he 
 said this. Edith recalled what her uncle 
 had said about the disastrous future await 
 ing Noel Waverly. It was not the sun 
 shine but the shadow that came into her 
 gray eyes, with Homer s words. 
 
 " Tell me about this old Noel Waverly. 
 We can talk of White Rock afterward," 
 she urged. 
 
 It was delicious to hear her speak so 
 familiarly of the things so common to him. 
 It seemed to make her presence perma 
 nent. He had been feeling from the first 
 moment of the interview that this was the 
 only time they would ever talk together. 
 
 " I ve known him all my life. He used 
 to tell me tales of the Plains he was a 
 freighter in the early days and of old 
 Pawnee Rock. Many a summer after 
 noon I ve listened to his stories, till I was 
 afraid to go home." 
 
 Homer Helm paused. The red color 
 surged into his face, then ebbed away, 
 leaving it very pale. 
 
Cfte Corner Stone 31 
 
 u Are you Edith, the little girl I used 
 to know, who went away so long ago? " 
 he asked. 
 
 Something in his deep voice was appeal 
 ing. 
 
 4 Yes, I am Edith who went away so 
 long ago." 
 
 For one long moment they looked at 
 each other and neither could guess the 
 other s thoughts. 
 
 " I remember that you were freckled 
 and wore a pink sunbonnet on the back of 
 your neck," Homer declared at length, 
 chopping at a bush with his hatchet. 
 
 " I remember that you were not nearly 
 so tall as I, and that you always had a 
 finger tied up with a more or less sanitary 
 looking rag," Edith answered. 
 
 Homer laughed and looked at his large 
 shapely hands. 
 
 " I was an unfortunate cuss," he said. 
 " I m still that way. I broke an arm be 
 fore I was fourteen, and a leg on the col 
 lege gridiron. I broke my head in a race 
 at the county fair. I ve broken a good 
 many of the ten commandments, and about 
 everything else, except my heart and 
 it s not altogether immune. Just now I m 
 breaking a deliciously vicious colt for Mr. 
 Samson Grannell; and I may even try to 
 break into good society some time." 
 
 u Breakers ahead! Do all the young 
 men out here have as much energy as you 
 have? " Edith inquired. 
 
 Homer wondered if she was covertly 
 ridiculing him and his kind, holding the 
 social life of the wheat belt in a sort of 
 contempt. 
 
32 Cfte Corner 
 
 " We are a fairly energetic lot out 
 here," he answered with seeming careless 
 ness. " Is that bad form in the East? 
 We get as far as the universities ourselves 
 sometimes. Some of us can expand the 
 binomial theorem real fast; and we can 
 appreciate a Corot sunset even if we do 
 have a superior article in the real thing 
 out here." 
 
 "Astonishing!" Edith declared look 
 ing away, and keeping down a smile. 
 " It is a good looking country anyhow." 
 
 " Oh, the country is a cracker-jack," 
 Homer assured her. " And you ll take to 
 the natives sooner or later. They all do. 
 Have you come out to live, or just to look 
 at us awhile, and then vanish from our 
 view?" 
 
 " I suppose he is sounding my pros 
 pects. I ll mystify the young gentlemen 
 a bit," Edith thought. Aloud she said: 
 " It all depends on how well you behave. 
 My plans are indefinite. You see if my 
 face won t be my fortune, my hands will 
 have to be, unless but that s family 
 matter, and uninteresting to anyone else. 
 Tell me about your sociological stratum 
 out here." Edith s eyes were full of a 
 dancing light. 
 
 Followed then a grotesque picturing of 
 the impossible in the great rich Kansas 
 wheat belt, all of which Edith pretended 
 seriously to believe, wondering the while 
 at the young man s ability to hide the self- 
 conceit she had attributed to him. 
 
 The minutes ran unnoticed; and, al 
 though they talked of the wheat belt of 
 Kansas and of the West in general, neither 
 
Cfte Corner S>tone 33 
 
 one referred again to the days of their 
 childhood together. 
 
 The level rays of the sun were striking 
 through the trees when they suddenly re 
 membered themselves. 
 
 " I ll walk home with you, if you don t 
 care," Homer said, with a hungering for 
 the interview to continue. And together 
 they followed the winding path, half 
 shadow, half sunshine, between the Wav- 
 erly woodland and the fields of wheat. 
 
 Little Faith Clover in her leafy castle 
 clapped her hands as she looked after 
 them. 
 
 "It s real," she murmured. "They 
 are a real story." 
 
IV 
 
 I am dreaming again of the golden years 
 That have sped like arrows across the sea ; 
 And strange, sweet visions return to me 
 
 And memories sad too sad for tears 
 A curious blending of hopes and fears, 
 Once painted by fancy, wild and free. 
 
 A. W. MACY. 
 
 ^ I A HE path from the Waverly grove 
 ^ to the Grannell home led down the 
 shaded slope to the stepping-stones at the 
 ford of the creek, across a bit of meadow, 
 and through the corner of the orchard to 
 the shady dooryard. Along this path the 
 two young people loitered in the late after 
 noon, and the way was very pleasant, as 
 the paths of youth should be. 
 
 " I hope this will not be our last walk 
 together," Homer said courteously, as 
 they reached the gateway to the shady 
 lawn. 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Helm," Edith began, 
 but her companion broke in. 
 
 " Oh, call me Homer. We needn t be 
 formal, need we? " 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Homer," Edith 
 amended. " My name, by the way, is 
 Edith. I ll be glad to walk anywhere till 
 I learn to ride." 
 
 " I have a notion I could train White 
 Rock better with you to help me. Will 
 you do it? " Homer asked. The inspira 
 tion just came to me." 
 
 [34] 
 
Cfte Corner >tone 35 
 
 " Delighted," Edith ejaculated, " if you 
 have the time to waste on me." 
 
 " I ll take the time, and it won t be 
 wasted either. It will be a real missionary 
 work I m sure. My main occupation on 
 earth is to serve my community, anyhow," 
 Homer replied. 
 
 " Oh, I ll have Uncle Samson pay you 
 so much per teach," Edith declared. 
 
 "Good! I ll demand full wage, too. 
 But, seriously, when shall we begin? " 
 
 " Whenever you are ready to begin 
 seriously," Edith replied, a challenge to 
 mischief in the laughing gray eyes. 
 
 " It s a bargain, then, but I warn you 
 it s a good season s work, although well- 
 bred horses learn fast," Homer assured 
 her. 
 
 " So do well-bred people. Good-bye, 
 and many thanks." 
 
 The laughing gray eyes held a place be 
 fore Homer Helm s mind as he galloped 
 away toward the big red barns that made 
 a playlike castle, or a playlike Pawnee 
 Rock for Faith Clover. 
 
 " She s a girl a fellow can be sure of," 
 he thought, as his mind ran over the whole 
 afternoon again and again. " I wonder 
 what she thinks of me." 
 
 What Edith thought she said to her 
 uncle at tea time. 
 
 " I met your neighbor, Mr. Helm, to 
 day. I think I can understand why he has 
 a reputation for popularity and also why 
 you say he is something of a flirt. He can 
 carry off the part without pretending to 
 do it. He must be all the less worthy 
 down underneath the pretense. He is 
 
36 C6e Cornet >tone 
 
 going to teach me to ride this summer, but 
 I promise now, Uncle Samson, I ll not let 
 my scalp be added to his collection of 
 trophies." Edith spoke lightly, too busy 
 with, thoughts of the afternoon to notice 
 her uncle s long silence. 
 
 If Samson Grannell had broken that 
 silence he would have said: 
 
 ; What you think and what Homer 
 Helm thinks is nothing to me. I have one 
 plan for these two ranches, one dream to 
 be fulfilled, and you two must bring it 
 about. I shall play my game carefully, 
 and I never lose-" 
 
 Late that evening Homer Helm sat in 
 his little runabout car before the door of 
 the village postoffice, waiting for Captain 
 Klews to bring his mail. A trip to the 
 postoffice every evening was a part of the 
 routine of the Helm household, although 
 the rural mail route included the Helm 
 ranch in its course every forenoon. Mar 
 ket quotations on stock and grain were too 
 important to the young manager to be de 
 layed by slow delivery of morning papers. 
 ." Let your clerk run the office and 111 
 give you a turn around town," he called to 
 the postmaster. 
 
 " Coming in a minute. Don t take the 
 trouble to get out," the old Captain called 
 cheerily from behind the glass box-sections 
 of the postoffice. 
 
 " It would break the old gossip s heart 
 not to get out here and sit in the car awhile 
 and tell me the latest stories going. Who 
 says women have a monopoly on busy 
 body business, anyhow ? " Homer mused as 
 he lounged back in his seat. 
 
Cfie Corner Stone 37 
 
 "Here s your mail Kansas City an 
 Topeky papers, an your farm journals." 
 
 Captain Klews gave Homer the mail 
 and sat down on the comfortable cushions 
 with a sigh of satisfaction. 
 
 " We didn t have none of these here 
 easy seatin s when I was a young man and 
 your pa was helpin to take the three-quar 
 ters that was left of me off in the battle 
 field, an me a-bleedin to death slow. An 
 your pa never left me " 
 
 Evidently this was a well-known story, 
 for Homer, smiling kindly, interrupted: 
 
 " That s all right. You ve about stopped 
 bleeding now. Tell me the news." 
 
 Captain Klew s eyes twinkled, for he 
 was a born gossip. 
 
 " Say, d you hear about your new neigh 
 bor up there, Sam Grannell s niece? " 
 
 "No. What s to hear? " Homer was 
 looking at his speedometer as if it were a 
 Chinese puzzle. 
 
 " Why, they re tellin she s come out 
 here to marry some rich feller. Seems 
 strange they d say that about her knowin 
 how little store Sam sets by riches. You 
 know he sent for her to come. He s al 
 ways paid her bills, but never invited her 
 out here till now. He couldn t be aggin 
 her on in this, d you reckon? " 
 
 Klew r s laughed boisterously and winked 
 knowingly at Homer who was still en 
 grossed with the speedometer. 
 
 " An you hadn t heard? Course you d 
 be the last one to hear it." This with a 
 sly dig in the young man s side. " Maybe 
 she s playin into Grannell s hand, an 
 maybe it s gossip. She ain t got an Eastern 
 
38 Cbe Corner 
 
 chap, one of them snobs, on the string, too, 
 I should hope. I don t pay much atten 
 tion to anything I hear though. How s 
 your ma? " 
 
 " No, you don t pay much attention, 
 that s a fact," Homer answered drily. 
 " Mother is very well, except a little short 
 ness of breath, now and then, when she s 
 excited." 
 
 " She d better not get excited. Them 
 pink cheeks of hers ain t real natural in a 
 middle-aged woman." 
 
 * They surely aren t artificial," Homer 
 said with a smile. 
 
 " She s a mighty good-lookin woman 
 anyhow. Well, here we are. How quick 
 you can git round town and back in one of 
 these fire wagons. You don t have to go 
 right out home, do you? " 
 
 " I forgot about this being the dark of 
 the moon, and my lights are bad. I must 
 be going." 
 
 As he leaned across to open the door 
 for the crippled man, Klews said in a low 
 voice : 
 
 " Homer, don t let no girl do you, 
 specially one of Sam Grannell s backin . 
 Don t do it. I ve knowed you so long I d 
 hate to see that." 
 
 There was so much of genuine affection 
 in the old man s voice that Homer patted 
 the armless shoulder as he helped the post 
 master from the car. 
 
 There was no moon, no star, no light 
 for Homer Helm on that homeward ride. 
 
 " I m in for a horse-training stunt any 
 how," he muttered as he sent his runabout 
 on at a furious rate. " What difference 
 
Cfte Corner >tone 39 
 
 does it make if she does want a rich hus 
 band, or whether one or a dozen * Eastern 
 snobs, as old Cap. Klews calls them, has 
 the inside track. She s not like any other 
 girl I ever knew. If she wants to play a 
 mere season s game out in the wheat belt, 
 I m her man. And we ll run one jolly race 
 for one jolly summer anyhow. The fall 
 can take care of itself. If it s money she s 
 after, I haven t it, that s all. I m Isabel 
 Helm s hired boy and she won t care for 
 me. And I couldn t care for her. So the 
 horseback riders will ride on and on, and 
 the gossips may go to the fellow who 
 will get em all without my sending. 
 
 " I used to look up to her when I was 
 a little lonely boy long ago. Somehow, 
 I ve kept thinking I d always look up to 
 her if we ever met again. And now I 
 know I ve always been wanting to meet 
 her again. The thing has sort of grown 
 up with me as I grew. Just a boy s boyish 
 dream, that s all. And she is a real live 
 worth-while girl damn a gossip ! " He 
 growled vehemently, as he leaned down 
 and pressed the electric button below the 
 seat. 
 
 " I may as well turn on the lights now. 
 Lord forgive me for telling Klews that 
 lie about them; I had to get away quick 
 right then. The loving-hearted old scamp 
 would pretty nearly die for me because 
 he was my father s army comrade but 
 he couldn t know " 
 
 The sentence went unfinished in the 
 young man s mind. The night shadows 
 hid the young face. 
 
ttrpie 
 
 aze 
 
Who shall say in the heart of a child, 
 Fanciful, joyous, light and free, 
 Full of vagueness and mystery, 
 Pure, and simple, and undefiled, 
 Never there comes, in fancies wild, 
 Glimpses of what is yet to be ? 
 
 A. W. MACY. 
 
 O find how Providence can u scatter 
 plenty o er a smiling land " one must 
 see the great Kansas wheat belt on a ban 
 ner crop year. Samson Grannell s ranch 
 had never before known such an enormous 
 yield, and the Grannell bank account was 
 increasing in proportion to the harvest re 
 turns. Already the owner of the ranch 
 and bank account was planning yet larger 
 profits for the coming season. To such 
 men as Grannell money has only one use 
 to beget money. 
 
 On a summer afternoon in August, the 
 Grannell automobile stopped beside the 
 Waverly grove. The owner and a shrewd- 
 faced man sat in the comfortable shade 
 looking out at the creek and woodsy val 
 ley and the few acres of open meadow 
 beyond. 
 
 " You get the lay of it? Any civil en 
 gineer can do that," Grannell was saying. 
 The old man s bound to go under any 
 how. This thing s not going to hang fire 
 forever, and we may as well be ready to 
 begin on it and not lose any time when the 
 
 [43] 
 
44 Cfte Cornet 
 
 end comes. Now figure this road in, the 
 new shorter road off, the cost of straight 
 ening the creek and grading down that 
 rough part. Then there s a little expense 
 in clearing off this growth." 
 
 Grannel took off his hat to let the little 
 streak of cool air coming up the valley fan 
 his brow, the man beside him making rapid 
 notes as he talked. 
 
 " Say, Sam," the pencil rested and the 
 
 keen eyes studied Grannell s face. 
 
 What s your grudge against the old 
 
 man? Why not let him hang on here 
 
 awhile?" 
 
 " Look at the profit in wheat lost every 
 year," Grannell returned. 
 
 " Do you get it all?" queried his 
 companion. 
 
 " I ll control it mainly. Helm and I 
 will square our places. All that triangle 
 down there will be added on to my ground, 
 eventually. All that prevents it being 
 there right now is a woman hanging on to 
 an over-due mortgage instead of foreclos 
 ing. But she can t say a word after her 
 son marries. He. ll be sole proprietor 
 then. Think of two such fine ranches with 
 a corner chewed off like this between em. 
 We ve each got five sections, the best 
 wheat land west of Hutchinson. This 
 measly sixty-six and seven-eighths acres 
 goes zigzagging through here a few rods 
 wide on either side of the creek, marked 
 and fenced in to the inch by an old back- 
 number plainsman. Their day has gone 
 by. We are living in a practical age, not 
 an age of imagination. We deal in straight 
 lines, not curves, and you don t find much 
 
Cfte Corner @>tone 45 
 
 mushy sentimentalism now-a-days. The 
 corner stone of things in this world is cold 
 cash." 
 
 " It s a comfortable place on such a 
 darned hot day as this, anyhow," the other 
 man asserted. " Kind of restful to see a 
 tree like these once in awhile by the road 
 side, and the natural curves of this slope 
 couldn t be beat by a landscape-maker. 
 Honest, Sam, isn t it all just dollars you 
 want? " 
 
 Grannell set his jaws sternly. 
 
 " I ve set my heart on it so long I m 
 never going to give up now till it s done. 
 And I m not the only common-sense busi 
 ness man around here. Helm knows all 
 this as well as I do. He s a young man 
 of judgment, and he ll show it too when 
 he is head of that ranch one of these days. 
 As to money, isn t it what we all want and 
 need? It s the only thing that talks to me. 
 That s the kind of a man I am." 
 
 Well, by jinks, you weren t always 
 that kind of a man. I knew you back when 
 your wife was living and you were poor. 
 Prosperity s been hard on you, Sam Gran 
 nell, I pity you." 
 
 Grannell made no response as he 
 stepped from the car to get a better view 
 of the place he was condemning. 
 
 " Hold on there. You are spoiling 
 some kid s playhouse," the engineer cried, 
 as Grannell broke down the bushes and 
 kicked aside the vines hiding the view 
 across the upper line of " The Shadows." 
 
 Grannell hardly noted the havoc he had 
 wrought in Faith Clover s castle, nor did 
 he see the tragic face and tear-wet eyes of 
 
46 Cfte Corner 
 
 the little girl who had slipped away just 
 at that minute and stood trembling beyond 
 the fairy bush. What could a practical 
 man of money and might know of castles 
 and fairy bushes and the heart-break their 
 loss would mean to a loving little dreamer 
 of dreams, a part of whose very life they 
 were? He dealt in realities, and wheat 
 land is a very real thing. 
 
 It seemed a long time to the shy child, 
 that these two men talked of levels and 
 timber and wheat values which she could 
 not understand and of the bad fortune 
 overhanging her beloved " Dando " which 
 she grasped clearly. It was a day of trag 
 edy as real to her as the great tragedies 
 that blight the careers of grown-up chil 
 dren in their larger world. 
 
 " Oh, Dando can fix it all right, Faith," 
 Noel Waverly declared that evening, as 
 he caressed the tumbled golden curls and 
 sought to cool the tear-stained face per 
 spiring against his shoulder in an effort to 
 hide its grief. " Don t cry, little sweet 
 heart. You can make a story out of all 
 this trouble, with a wicked ogre or a Paw 
 nee Indian. I know you can." 
 
 Faith looked up brightly. God s love 
 is nowhere sweeter than in the quick 
 mending of little broken hearts. 
 
 " I can tell you such a big, big story, 
 Dando, and it s not dream stuff, it s all 
 real, most of it is anyhow," she amended 
 conscientiously. 
 
 " It s about a prince and princess," 
 Faith explained. " He came riding up to 
 ward my castle on a big black horse, last 
 
Cfce Cornet Stone 47 
 
 violet time, tending like he was fixing the 
 fence where White Face pushed it to bite 
 the wheat, and just then she came right 
 out of a violet, I mean " Faith was try 
 ing hard to be practical " she came up 
 from the Missouri river, the creek, you 
 know, Dando, with flowers, and they were 
 both so s prised. I played they liked each 
 other right away, but they didn t know it. 
 I m most afraid they don t know it yet," 
 Faith added doubtfully. 
 
 " Is that all? " Noel Waverly asked. 
 
 " Oh, there s more. And I know, cross 
 my heart, it s all truly, and not dream stuff. 
 They come most every day close to my 
 castle. I try not to miss them. They may 
 need me any minute to tell them they love 
 each other. That s my part of its play. 
 Don t laugh, Dando. It s all just my story 
 I make -up about them." 
 
 Faith put up her hand to cover the old 
 man s mouth. 
 
 " She s got a horse named White Rock. 
 And his, the prince s, you know, is Black- 
 stone. Her runcle asked him to go riding 
 with her. I made that up myself. I 
 guess her runcle wants her to marry the 
 prince. I made that up, too. She s poor, 
 you know, and if they do marry, why all 
 the big ranches will be just one big ranch, 
 cept this little wiggle of grove and pasture 
 along the creek. That s what the prince 
 calls it. I didn t make that up." 
 
 Old Noel gave a start. 
 
 " That s that scoundrel s scheme. I 
 knew he was up to some cussedness," he 
 cried. 
 
 " Oh, I just made that fit in there about 
 
48 Cfte Corner Stone 
 
 the runcle, you know, cause he said today 
 that when the creek is straight and the 
 land is level and the trees all gone, the two 
 ranches would be square and he d control 
 it. How could he control it, Dando, less n 
 she marries the prince? He s his mam 
 ma s boy, and don t have to mind her 
 runcle." 
 
 Poor old Waverly sat very still while 
 Faith harked back to happier things. 
 
 u He s such a beautiful prince. I play 
 like all the ladies love him. But I play 
 like he loves to be with the princess best. 
 He comes up to the edge of the wheat field 
 when she is under the trees. And I visit 
 with them, and they never know. I play 
 like she is poor like Cinderella and her 
 runcle says money talks. It s going to end 
 all right though, and be happy ever after, 
 just like the story-book stories. But it s 
 so real, Dando, so real." 
 
 Faith paused a minute, then she added: 
 
 u They are going to Pawnee Rock pretty 
 soon. And you said yourself, Dando, 
 folks who love on Pawnee Rock love al 
 ways and always. I can t hardly wait 
 for them to come back. But, oh, Dando, 
 my castle s all broke down. How can I 
 visit with them any more, and how will 
 they know they shall love each other if 
 they don t find out on Pawnee Rock? 
 Maybe," she added with the philosophy 
 of childhood, " maybe though, there ll be 
 a way just made for the story to end. And 
 maybe the runcle won t take away the trees 
 my grandmamma loved, and make it all a 
 wheat field. And everything will be happy 
 ever after. I d rather have pretty cas- 
 
Cfte Corner @tone 49 
 
 ties and trees and my Santa Fe trail, and 
 Pawnee Rock and grandmammas, and 
 love. They are all better than just wheat, 
 Dando?" 
 
 " All better, Faith," Noel Waverly said 
 softly. " And some day everybody will 
 be happy ever after." 
 
VI 
 
 On Pawnee Rock in the sunshine, where the Winds of 
 
 Promise blow, 
 A cloud, free and fine as a fancy, veils the blue with 
 
 a milder glow. 
 O er the prairie grass its shadow, like a gypsy dancer, 
 
 sways, 
 Keeping time to the mystic music that the pulse of 
 
 Nature plays; 
 
 The purple and cream and amber of a hundred thou 
 sand flowers 
 Tint the land like an Aztec mantle, all the silent and 
 
 shining hours. 
 If there is in the world a nepenthe for the heartache 
 
 the most of us know, 
 On Pawnee Rock you may find it, where the Winds 
 
 of Promise blow. 
 
 TT is the way of some men that the 
 A farther they get from boyhood, the 
 stronger is the hold of youthful ideals 
 upon their minds, that with a strange re 
 serve and dignity they hide all the deeper 
 from the sight of men. As Homer Helm, 
 a shy little undersized country boy, grew 
 up to the stature of a stalwart man, cer 
 tain boy ideals had clung to him and 
 strengthened with his strength. Samson 
 Grannell had said, " Young Helm gen 
 erally keeps you guessing," but none of 
 his neighbors understood how timidity 
 had grown into reserve and dignity, off 
 set, in this case, by a naturally winning 
 personality. 
 
 Now in his fourth summer at home his 
 fine new automobile was jacked up off the 
 [50] 
 
Cfte Corner ^tone 51 
 
 cement floor of the new garage,- while its 
 owner- devoted himself to wheat harvest 
 ing; or, as reports ran, too often went 
 horseback riding with Samson Grannell s 
 niece. It kept Jim Gledden and Captain 
 Klews both busy to keep up with the gossip 
 of the day and make due report at train 
 time. 
 
 A penniless girl, supported by her uncle 
 must have a purpose in this visit. As to 
 her ever inheriting her uncle s- property 
 that was a problem. Sam Grannell wasn t 
 the kind of man to ever leave anything. 
 If he set his jaw, he d lug his whole ranch 
 right through the pearly gates in the face 
 of old St. Peter and all the other saints. 
 If ever Klews longed for the lost arm left 
 on the battle field, he longed for it now 
 that he might shake two fists every time 
 he heard the name of Grannell. 
 
 As to Edith Grannell, she ought to 
 know that Homer was just flirting because 
 she was the new girl in the neighborhood. 
 He d marry rich. It was in the Helm 
 blood to add to prosperity. This was the 
 community grievance, nursetl and devel 
 oped by Jim Gledden, who stood up as 
 valiantly for Edith as his old associate 
 fought for Homer Helm. 
 
 It happened that from the first day s 
 meeting under the trees in the Waverly 
 woodland, Homer and Edith, each safe 
 guarded in mind against the other, felt 
 secure in a summer-time association. It 
 could mean nothing more serious at most 
 than the discovery that neither one had 
 been deceived by the other. There was a 
 spice more of zest in the game each was 
 
52 Cbe Corner 
 
 playing, an old, old game anywhere, be 
 cause of this security; and the playing was 
 a little more reckless because deep down 
 there was a conscious disapproval of it in 
 each mind. 
 
 The one strange feature of this good 
 fellowship was that neither one spoke of 
 their childhood days together. Outside of 
 this they were becoming royal chums, tak 
 ing no further responsibility than the ac 
 ceptance of the offerings the careless sum 
 mer days brought to them. 
 
 It was only to Faith Clover, the lonely 
 little dreamer watching their coming and 
 going, that they became " playlike " 
 lovers. 
 
 On the day of the fall of Faith s castle, 
 Edith had come by the short path through 
 the Grannell fields up to where the grove, 
 sweet with refreshing morning air, invited 
 to an invigorating hour. On the evening 
 before she had lost her monogram pin as 
 she had visited awhile with little Faith, 
 who was playing about under the trees. 
 She might find it, for the grass now lay flat 
 and slick on the hard ground. 
 
 And here she had found Homer Helm 
 who had come up early, by chance of 
 course, to figure on the value of forage 
 as a late crop on the stubble next to the 
 woodland. 
 
 This is the best part of the day for 
 me," Edith declared, as they loitered about 
 the edge of the stubble field. " Another 
 hour and the sky will be brass and the 
 fields a furnace." 
 
 " Hard on freckles but good for the 
 corn in the corn belt, I mean. It is a 
 
Cfte Cornet >tone 53 
 
 seared land out there, though; a blazin , 
 blisterin , blightin , bloomin hot country 
 in August. It s my native habitat, but I 
 wonder that you stay here," Homer de 
 clared. 
 
 There was nothing in his face to show 
 what else he was wondering, as he looked 
 at her so refreshingly clean and comfort 
 able in her white morning dress. 
 
 The shadows deepened momentarily in 
 the gray eyes. 
 
 44 My uncle hasn t said I ve staid too 
 long yet, but, of course, I am not going 
 to sit here with folded hands always. All 
 summers come to an end, you know." 
 
 It would be easy to drift on if summers 
 were endless, but that firm mouth and 
 chin could never belong to a girl with a 
 purposeless life. 
 
 44 Working for one s living isn t a bad 
 proposition. Help is always scarce out 
 here. You can easily find a job," Homer 
 said lightly, u but this going away is quite 
 another story, even if it is a beastly hot 
 country. Good-byes are even worse than 
 dumb endurance, and traveling less com 
 fortable than staying in the shade." 
 
 Did they remember the day on which 
 they had separated once before? Neither 
 looked up at that moment, and Faith 
 Clover (in her castle also, because it was 
 the cool of the morning) wondered why 
 they should stop talking for so long a 
 time. 
 
 44 Oh, I can stand the heat all right. 
 I m up by daylight every morning not to 
 miss this delicious hour," Edith said at 
 length. 
 
54 Cfte Corner 
 
 " Edith, would you like to see the sun 
 rise from Pawnee Rock some morning? 
 The New Jerusalem hasn t anything over 
 it for coloring. Gates of pearl, and foun 
 dations garnished with all manner of 
 precious stones and seas of glass min 
 gled with fire. And Chat s no blasphemy 
 either." 
 
 U I wish I might. Is it far away? 
 Uncle Samson and I passed near it on the 
 day I came back to Kansas. We were all 
 the morning getting home." Clear in 
 memory was the picture of it as it had ap 
 peared crowned with the heroic figure on 
 the morning of her coming hither. 
 
 " It is not very far if we go in the auto, 
 but it s a glorious horseback ride if you 
 don t mind getting up pretty early for 
 beauty sleepers. Maybe you d rather go 
 in the car, though." 
 
 " And maybe I wouldn t. Some folks 
 don t need beauty sleep, and some are no 
 better looking with it anyhow," Edith de 
 clared. 
 
 Well, let s go tomorrow. My goose- 
 bone tells me this hot south wind is minded 
 to shift to the north by tomorrow morn 
 ing. Sometimes a streak of real Colorado 
 weather slips across the prairies for a brief 
 visit in August. Will you be ready to 
 start early? " 
 
 " The answer is I will, " Edith re 
 plied. 
 
 " Then the black charger and the white 
 palfrey will be pawing at your portcullis 
 in the gray light of the morning," Homer 
 responded. 
 
 " All right. I must go now. I came 
 
Cfte Cornet ^tone 55 
 
 up to find a little monogram pin that I 
 think I lost here," Edith said, searching 
 the ground about her feet. 
 
 " What was it like? " Homer s finger 
 was on the pin in his pocket, as he asked, 
 the question. He had found it and. recog 
 nized it as belonging to her before she 
 came up. He hesitated now merely to 
 tease her. 
 
 " Oh, it was just a little gold pin of a 
 club of girls I once belonged to. We 
 called ourselves the * Hope Ever Club, 
 and the club pin was like this.." Edith 
 drew the outline in the dust with a stick 
 
 Homer studied the figure. " H. E. 
 joined together," he said. " N-no, I don t 
 see it anywhere. I ll help you find it some 
 time, I hope ever," he added. 
 
 " It s no great loss," Edith insisted as 
 she started toward home. 
 
 " But it might be to somebody," Homer 
 called after her, as he mounted Black- 
 stone. Remember tomorrow morning 
 at the time St. Peter took for lying about 
 his friends, then we ll be off." 
 
 The least-known hour of the twenty-four 
 is the hour of dawn. Yet no other hour is 
 fraught with more beauty, or refreshing 
 sweetness than the dawn of an August 
 morning on the prairies. Whatever the 
 burden in the heat of the day, however 
 stifling the close night shadows, this one 
 hour comes in blessing. The birds twit 
 tering sleepily from the leafy coverts of 
 
56 Cfte Cornet 
 
 noonday, forget not at early mass to praise 
 God from whom all blessings flow. And 
 every growing thing grassblade and 
 flower and shrub and tree feels the 
 pulse of new strength for the new day. 
 
 It was yet too dark to see the road when 
 Homer and Edith started out the next 
 morning, and all the miracle of a new- 
 made day, a miracle as old as the Tuesday 
 morning of creation week, unrolled before 
 them. Black, shapeless shadows in the 
 landscape took form, turned gray, then 
 came to their rightful selves and purposes. 
 The wayside flowers seemed to burst into 
 bloom. And everywhere, from grove and 
 meadow and brown stubble came a wave 
 of music, soft and clear, the morning chant 
 of the birds rippling on, mile after mile, 
 rising at last in one grand chorus of hal 
 lelujahs. 
 
 Homer and Edith rode slowly at first 
 after the manner of good horsemen. But 
 long before the gray shadows had lifted, 
 the two horses were swinging in the easy 
 pace of the thoroughbred down the long 
 straight road, their hoofbeats smothered 
 in the soft black dust, until, at length, they 
 mounted the long slope that leads to the 
 brow of Pawnee Rock. 
 
 The fresh morning breeze was surging 
 over all the land. The west was a blur, 
 cool green and blue, against a void of dis 
 tance. Below them the stubble fields, gold 
 en-brown in the dawning light, rolled away 
 and away like a vast velvet carpet spread 
 to the very ends of the earth. A filmy cur 
 tain hung above the Arkansas river, hiding 
 its level sands and low-growing shrubbery. 
 
Cfie Corner @>tone 57 
 
 Above a horizon of blending purple and 
 scarlet, all the east was one roseate glory 
 shimmering through silvery mist and melt 
 ing at last far up the sky into an exquisite 
 tracery of mother-of-pearl, until the new 
 born August day was christened in a sun 
 burst of splendor, and the young man and 
 woman standing together watched the 
 world bid good morning to the light. 
 
 " Oh, this is superb," Edith cried as 
 they stood on the crest of the great vol 
 canic outcrop, and looked over the land 
 awaiting the chrism of a new day. 
 
 " Yes, it s worth the effort," Homer s 
 voice was rich and deep as he added, 
 " and I saw a new heaven and a new 
 earth, for the first heaven and the first 
 earth were passed away, and there was no 
 
 more sea. 
 
 Was it because of the early morning 
 hour, or because of the beauty of the 
 Kansas prairie below them, or because of 
 the uplift of soul that comes to him who 
 stands on high places, or because they were 
 alone together that the dross slipped away, 
 and the fine gold of life remained? A 
 long while they stood silently side by side, 
 a feeling of nearness, of a new under 
 standing of each other holding them both. 
 
 As they turned to view the long low 
 swell of land to the northward, a cool wind 
 came sweeping over its crest, bringing the 
 vigor of refreshing in its caress. 
 
 ; I was waiting for this north breeze. 
 I knew it was coming," Homer declared. 
 " It will be fine for the home run if we 
 ever have to make it. Let s live awhile by 
 ourselves up here." 
 
58 Cfte Cornet Stone 
 
 Tell me about this rock, while we are 
 resting," Edith said as they sat down fac 
 ing the great silent land to the south. 
 
 " It used to be ever so much higher. 
 It s been chipped and chopped off for com 
 mercial purposes. You know the grip of 
 commercial purposes." Homer checked his 
 tongue, as he remembered Samson Gran- 
 nell. " It was a landmark on the old Santa 
 Fe Trail, a citadel of the Plains in Noel 
 Waverly s day, a monument to more trag 
 edies than any other one spot in North 
 America. This was the corner stone on 
 which the civilization of the West was 
 builded, a thing to rest on and to fight 
 from. 
 
 " There were more Indian fights right 
 here it got its name from an awful 
 Pawnee battle; more rescuers and refugees 
 have stood on this cliff, the pursuers, and 
 the pursued; more nameless graves and 
 unburied dead in the soil below us. Some 
 times it was the white man, and some 
 times the red man, who held the fortress. 
 The Indians could see from the top here 
 to old Fort Zarah on the east and Fort 
 Larned on the west. They could count the 
 size of the wagon trains starting out from 
 either place, and when they got to the 
 foot of this bluff somebody perished, for 
 this was the place of sepulchre." 
 
 Edith shivered as she tried to picture 
 it all. 
 
 " Oh, don t be afraid. The danger 
 passed with the passing of old Noel 
 Waverly s breed. It isn t peril so much 
 as prosperity that threatens some of us. 
 By the way, what was it you said yesterday 
 
Cfte Corner Stone 59 
 
 about going away? Aren t you having a 
 good time here?" As he spoke Homer 
 was cutting some lines on the rock beside 
 him, at the risk of ruining his pocket-knife. 
 
 " I said nothing very definite, and I am 
 having a good time," Edith replied. " All 
 this is a matter yet to be settled between 
 Uncle Samson and myself. You said this 
 rock was the corner stone of civilization 
 in the West a thing to rest on and to 
 fight from. Uncle Samson and I do not 
 always agree on what is the real corner 
 stone of life to rest on and fight from. 
 But that s future history. Let s go back to 
 tradition. I saw you on the top of this 
 rock on the morning I came to Kansas." 
 
 " You did? " Homer ejaculated in sur 
 prise. Then he added, with pretended 
 sincerity, " Yes, I was out looking for you. 
 What did you think it was up here? " 
 
 " I thought it was a man." Edith had 
 almost said " strength as matched against 
 the man beside me," but she added: "I 
 thought it had grown quite a little. Do 
 you remember some of the Indian stories 
 we used to listen to until we were afraid 
 to go home, or have you forgotten them? " 
 
 Edith asked the questions to hide her 
 confusion for she had never meant to refer 
 to the old days until Homer himself should 
 recall them. 
 
 " I ve never forgotten anything of those 
 old days and I never want to forget." 
 
 Homer s eyes were still on the rock he 
 was carving, but there was a new note in 
 his voice, a note of sadness, as if speaking 
 of the beloved dead. " And since I haven t 
 forgotten anything, I still remember the 
 
60 Cfte Corner Stone 
 
 day you went away and left a little boy 
 so lonely." 
 
 He put one hand lightly on her shoulder 
 for a moment, as they suddenly rose to 
 their feet. 
 
 The horses, weary from the long jour 
 ney at an hour when a horse by nature 
 rests, stood quietly by with drooping heads. 
 
 No sounds came from the plains below. 
 The August morning was superb in its 
 silence. And they were together on Paw 
 nee Rock. In that moment the lost years 
 were bridged over. Samson Grannell s 
 well-planned scheme for his own profit, the 
 mutual mis-judgment of character forced 
 upon these two by greed and jealousy and 
 circumstance, the cheapness of a game of 
 mutual pretense and mutual deception - 
 all fell away in the presence of the sweet 
 air that plays about the brow of Pawnee 
 Rock and the broad grandeur of the earth 
 and the fulness thereof that lies in lengths 
 of fruitful beauty about its base. And yet, 
 neither this man nor this woman, each with 
 a sacred memory of a by-gone day, cher 
 ished by strange circumstances through all 
 the succeeding days, could dare to believe 
 that what had grown in precious value 
 to one meant more than one of a thousand 
 childhood memories to the other. 
 
 Edith looked up, the light of the morn 
 ing in her gray eyes; but Homer, who 
 was staring down at the lines he had been 
 cutting on the rock, lost their illuminating 
 ray. 
 
 " Edith, what was it that little mono 
 gram pin that you lost stood for?" he 
 asked in a changed voice. 
 
Cfte Corner >tone 61 
 
 " Hope ever," she replied carelessly. 
 " Was it anything like these lines 
 here?" 
 
 Edith saw the crude marking on the 
 face of the rock at his feet. 
 
 " Yes, just like that," she said. 
 
 " Too bad to lose it. It might stand 
 for a good many things besides your motto. 
 I like the meaning and the design. Shall 
 we come back here sometime and see if 
 the symbol has disappeared, too, like the 
 thing it stands for? It is a good place 
 to tie to when things get mixed up down 
 on the prairie. . Would you care to come 
 back again with me?" 
 
 There was a longing in the young man s 
 brown eyes, and a sort of weariness in his 
 motion as he turned to the waiting horses. 
 It was good to be up here with Edith as 
 he would have her be, free from mercenary 
 suggestion. Up here he could never doubt 
 her sincerity, her womanliness. lie was 
 tired and ashamed of the game he had been 
 playing. The summer was coming to an 
 end. Then Edith would be going away. 
 That was to be the end of everything. 
 
 ; Would you care to come back here for 
 a sunset some evening with me? " he asked 
 again, as he led White Rock aside for her 
 to mount. 
 
 An eager longing possessed Edith to 
 believe in him fully at that moment, and a 
 bitter resentment against her uncle s esti 
 mate of him as a flirt and a fortune getter 
 filled her heart. 
 
62 Cfte Cornet Sterne 
 
 When you want me to come again, 
 you may tell me so," she answered as she 
 caught the bridle rein. 
 
 u Are you really going away at the end 
 of the summer?" Homer queried as he 
 helped her to her saddle and stood looking 
 up at her, one hand resting on White 
 Rock s creamy mane. 
 
 He did not want the summer to end if 
 she said yes. Yet he hoped with all his 
 heart she would say it. It would so exalt 
 her above the cheap gossip that he hated. 
 
 A wave of deeper pink swept the girl s 
 fair cheek, as she said in a low voice: 
 
 " Nothing is settled yet, nor even begun 
 to be settled between Uncle Samson and 
 myself, except " She lifted her glorious 
 gray eyes, and the brave courage of the 
 young face was beautiful, but she did not 
 go further and her companion could only 
 guess at her wordless thought. 
 
 The streak of real Colorado weather 
 had slipped across the prairies and in its 
 cool refreshing the two young riders went 
 slowly homeward. 
 
rOWtl JIURP19 
 
 neatlt a Dome 
 
VII 
 
 A house is built of brick and stone with sills, and roof 
 
 and piers, , 
 
 But a home is built out of loving deeds that stand for 
 
 a thousand years. 
 
 AUGUST ran into September, and 
 September gave place to October. 
 Engineers had figured the cost of squaring 
 and leveling the ranches, and crucifying 
 an old man s life-dream, and still no 
 changes had been made. The woodland 
 of " The Shadows " grew golden brown, 
 the sumach and scrub oak on the slopes 
 were a riot of purple and scarlet, every 
 color of the rainbow shone in the frost- 
 fired grasses along the winding road. The 
 waters of the rock-bottom ford, deeper 
 from the fall rains, splashed the varnish 
 on the passing automobiles, the dreamy 
 air of a Kansas October hung over the 
 prairies, filling the hours with delight. 
 
 Yet all was not well in one corner of 
 the great Kansas wheat belt. Edith Gran- 
 nell who had been homeless for twelve 
 years now had a home so pleasantly 
 fastened about her that its ties were all the 
 harder to break. Samson Grannell gave his 
 niece no opportunity, nor excuse from his 
 viewpoint, to consider the ending of her 
 visit. Edith, however, went quietly for 
 ward with her own plans, although it was 
 
 [65] 
 
66 Cfce Corner tone 
 
 early September before she could make 
 an opportunity to speak of them. 
 
 " I have a call to Chicago, Uncle Sam 
 son," she said one day when she opened 
 her mail. " A schoolmate s mother writes 
 that she wants me to fill a vacancy just 
 made in a nurses training school. It is 
 the very thing I d like to do. Of course, 
 this is a little sudden, but I should be 
 going soon anyhow." 
 
 " Why should you? " Grannell inquired 
 in an even voice. 
 
 "Why? Because I can t stay here in 
 idleness, now that I can earn my living. 
 I don t want to offend you, Uncle Samson, 
 by speaking of this, but I ve taxed you 
 long enough." 
 
 As she stood up before him, capable, 
 determined, and winsomely attractive, she 
 seemed fitted alike to adorn a home or to 
 take care of herself, and Samson Grannell 
 for the first time began to realize this. 
 
 " Would you stay if I needed you? " he 
 asked without sign of offense in his voice. 
 
 " Oh, if you needed me, I would stay," 
 Edith replied. 
 
 " Yes, I m sure of it." 
 
 Grannel might as well have said, " Then 
 you ll not go," so decisive was his tone. 
 
 And Edith did not go. 
 
 Captain Klews once told Jim Gledden 
 that when Sam Grannell made up his mind 
 to a thing there was nothing left to Provi 
 dence but to get things ready for it. The 
 very next day the housekeeper made a mis 
 step on the cellar stairs, with the result of 
 a hard fall, and a dislocated shoulder, and 
 Edith s training as a nurse beg^n at once. 
 
Cfte Cornet Stone 67 
 
 " I could hire someone, of course," her 
 uncle said, " but I would rather have you, 
 and since you are determined to go into 
 wage earning, I ll pay you what I would a 
 stranger." 
 
 " I couldn t let you do that," Edith in 
 sisted. 
 
 " Then I ll have to get someone who 
 will, and let you go, although I need you 
 and want you to stay here," Grannell 
 replied. 
 
 That settled matters, and Samson Gran 
 nell had won the day. He had not yet 
 confessed to himself that the ranchhouse 
 would be strangely dreary without the 
 presence of this sunny-spirited girl, and his 
 conscience was as yet but dimly awake to 
 what he had lost through twelve lost years. 
 A swift realization of how much life she 
 had put into four walls now came to him. 
 But it was as a selfish man sees, and Sam 
 son Grannell had still much to learn. 
 
 All was not well with Noel Waverly, 
 who had never learned the swift fortune- 
 building art of a younger generation. So 
 while those about him grew rich, he was 
 finding it harder and harder to maintain 
 himself. 
 
 In the day of the elder Helm he had 
 given option jointly, in the event of his 
 death, to the two ranches that had already 
 acquired most of his once big holdings. 
 Bad fortune had made it necessary later 
 to mortgage the remainder to Isabel Helm, 
 whom he chose in preference to Sam 
 son Grannell, with the understanding, of 
 course, tLat Grannell should have the same 
 
68 Cfje Corner Stone 
 
 option on a share if foreclosure should 
 follow. 
 
 The mortgage was several months 
 overdue, but Isabel Helm had not fore 
 closed. 
 
 " Damn a sentimental woman! " Gran- 
 nell said often now. " Mrs. Helm is 
 letting old Waverly drag behind with 
 his interest when she could fix things. 
 Homer s marriage will settle everything, 
 and Homer will marry. This is an inter 
 esting game for the young folks, but they 
 mustn t play it too long. How cocksure 
 they are of themselves, never dreaming 
 who makes most of the moves for them 
 on this particular checker board. I ll have 
 to settle some things with him about the 
 Waverly land to make sure though, or 
 that mother of his with her big brown eyes 
 and cheeks growing red and white will get 
 some sort of promise out of him. I ve 
 hung on till I d die mad if this thing didn t 
 go through." 
 
 Homer Helm went East early in Octo 
 ber on business for his mother. Grannell 
 reasoned that what was done in his absence 
 might help to the quick culmination after 
 his return. 
 
 One ranch, six thousand four hundred 
 acres broad; every acre, save the building 
 sites, in wheat that was his dream for 
 the future. Just as Noel Waverly with 
 bowed white head dreamed of holding still 
 to the woodland " Shadows," that his 
 Mary had loved. 
 
 Homer Helm came to tell Edith good 
 bye on the evening before he left home. 
 It was in the full of the hunter s moon, 
 
C6e Corner Stone 69 
 
 and a silver radiance made the night 
 beautiful. 
 
 " I shall come home as soon as pos 
 sible, for mother is not very well, and 
 there are so many things to look after this 
 fall. Meantime, I ll hope ever for all 
 good things for all good Kansans," he said 
 as they stood at Edith s gateway. This 
 is a beautiful night to remember one s 
 blessings," he added, as he looked at 
 Edith s face in the moonlight. 
 
 Since that morning on Pawnee Rock 
 they had not spoken of remembering. The 
 old comradeship was lost for them, but 
 a newer understanding existed unworded 
 between them. The trivial purposes of 
 each in the May time when they first went 
 horseback riding together fell away before 
 the stronger feeling of the autumn days. 
 
 " This is not like that other good-bye 
 when you went away long ago, for I ll be 
 back in twelve days instead of twelve 
 years, yet I don t want to go. So many 
 things might happen while I m gone. I 
 don t like good-byes, so I won t say any. 
 I ll just run away now." 
 
 Homer gently lifted the girl s face be 
 tween his hands and looked into her eyes, 
 assured in mind that there was no shadow 
 of truth in the gossip that had so misrep 
 resented her. A moment later he was 
 galloping away. 
 
 Edith Grannell stood long at the gate 
 looking at the moonlight through tear-wet 
 lashes. 
 
 " He is not a flirt," she said softly to 
 herself. " He is not a selfish money-lover 
 who wants only a rich girl for a wife. 
 
70 Cfce Corner Stone 
 
 He s the grown-up little Homer Helm of 
 long ago." 
 
 So many things did happen in Homer s 
 absence, and afterward, that his anxious 
 forecast was as a prophetic call. 
 
 Early in the next forenoon Samson 
 Grannell sought out Noel Waverly. If 
 the interview was harsh, it was perfectly 
 plain and business-like, and no line of pity 
 softened the face of the rich ranch owner, 
 as he looked at the old plainsman, helpless 
 before him. 
 
 " I read you like a book," he declared 
 bluntly, unmindful that a little child with 
 big pitying blue eyes sat behind her grand 
 father s chair, clutching the back of his 
 elbow. " You ve played the sob game to 
 the end. You are going under now. If 
 you ll just let Mrs. Helm settle with you, 
 I ll give you a life lease, rent free, on five 
 acres I own six miles west. You won t 
 need it long. And you can put that child 
 in an orphan asylum. You ve kept her 
 too long already." 
 
 It was not to taunt the old man with 
 his brief life tenure, but the habitual 
 thought of gain that made the younger, 
 man consider how soon the five acres would 
 revert to himself again. But strangely 
 enough for the first time the word orphan 
 asylum grated on his own ears. 
 
 " It s up on the ridge. There s no trees 
 of course, but there s a good little two- 
 roomed house and a stable for a horse and 
 cow. There s a spring, some way off, it s 
 true, but you can save all the water you ll 
 use in a rain-barrel, and what do you care 
 for all this here at your time of life, Wav- 
 
Cfte Cornet Sterne 71 
 
 erly? We are living in a day of real 
 things, section lines and straight edges, not 
 fanciful curves and imaginary sentimental 
 ideas." 
 
 Noel Waverly knew all about that bar 
 ren five-acre tract lost to a poor freeholder 
 through debt; a dreary, sun-baked spot 
 with unpainted dwelling, and weed-grown 
 dooryard. For a few minutes he sat with 
 bowed head. Then the spirit of the plains 
 man woke to life. The man who had 
 hunted the buffalo and fought the Pawnee, 
 who had herded cattle on the range, and 
 held the land for coming occupation the 
 force without whom the great wheat belt 
 had been impossible this white-haired, 
 keen-eyed man, standing erect with flashing 
 eyes, hurled defiance at his enemy. 
 
 " I can read yon like a book, Samson 
 Grannell," he declared. " You let that 
 niece of yours go homeless for years, till 
 you wanted some means of controlling 
 Homer Helm. Then you sent for her to 
 make a match between them. Not for her 
 sake, but your own. You d turn her out 
 tomorrow, same as you would me, if you 
 didn t need her, for you want just one 
 thing, money. You taunt me about my 
 short life span. Why, man, I want to go 
 and be with Mary Waverly again, if only 
 I can save enough to protect my little Faith 
 here and support her till she can take care 
 of herself. She s never going to an orphan 
 asylum. Poor as I am, I m rich in one 
 thing where you with your younger years 
 and money are a pauper, and that s the 
 riches of love. You can t know what that 
 means. But Faith and I do. 
 
72 Cfte Corner 
 
 You talk about real things, as squares 
 and straight lines. Did you ever see a 
 section line? Most of the real things of 
 life are the unseen things. And even the 
 things you can see aren t straight lines. 
 The rivers curve in .and out. I never saw 
 a shower, blessing a burnt up Kansas 
 prairie, falling from a square cloud; I 
 never saw a three-cornered apple, nor an 
 eight-sided stalk of wheat. And as to 
 sentiment and imagination, out of sight of 
 human eyes are dreams and hopes and 
 loves and memories and home and heaven 
 and God Almighty who dwelleth not in 
 temples made with men s hands, and who 
 maketh the clouds His chariot. 
 
 " You can t understand life, Samsori 
 Grannell, until you learn what is real and 
 what is false, until you get the angles out 
 of your eyes, and the curves into your 
 heart. 
 
 " And once for all," the old man now 
 stood up erect and full of courage. " Once 
 for all, remember, I come of a fighting 
 generation, and I won t give up yet. The 
 Arapahoes roped me and staked me out to 
 die in the Cimarron country when I was 
 nineteen, but I m here yet. A wounded 
 buffalo bull had me down but I killed him. 
 The Comanches had their knives ready to 
 get my scalp but Mary saved me. The 
 Pawnees tied me to a stake to torture and 
 burn me but I was reserved for that five- 
 acre tract, seemingly ! I m never going to 
 lay down while I can fight another lick. 
 You hear what I say? Now, you leave my 
 house and never darken that door again 
 till you come in like a gentleman." 
 
Cfte Corner >tone 73 
 
 Grannell burst out in uncontrollable 
 anger: 
 
 u It s not your house, you old pauper 
 leach, and I ll never leave it till you 
 agree " 
 
 He got no further, for Noel Waverly s 
 iron fist shot out straight before him with 
 a force as fierce as it was swift, and un 
 expected, and Samson Grannell, the wheat 
 king of his community, reeled backward 
 and sprawled in an ignominious heap on 
 the blue grass under the cottonwoods of 
 the dooryard. 
 
VIII 
 
 The mystery of the untried days 
 
 I close my eyes from reading; 
 His will be done whose darkest ways 
 
 To light and life are leading. 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 TIT ON T you come over here, and do 
 something for me, please? " Lit 
 tle Faith Clover called across the ford to 
 Edith Grannell who was loitering down by 
 the creek on the afternoon after her uncle s 
 visit to " The Shadows." 
 
 " How can I get across? The water is 
 over the stepping stones," Edith answered. 
 You can cat across on the fence," 
 Faith explained. 
 
 " To cat " meant to creep across on the 
 water gate of the creek. Edith was lonely 
 enough to do anything to pass off a part 
 of the twelve days before her, so she 
 u catted " quite gracefully considering the 
 requirements of catting, and the narrow 
 ness of walking skirts. 
 
 "Will you come and see Dando?" 
 Faith asked. " He wants you, I most 
 know." 
 
 " If you both want me, I ll go, of 
 course," Edith responded graciously. 
 
 So the two went together to the little 
 home under the cottonwoods, where Noel 
 Waverly was sitting with stern face, look 
 ing out at the peaceful prairies, beyond the 
 
 [74] 
 
Cfte Cornet Stone 75 
 
 valley, and the purple haze that folds 
 down about them. 
 
 " I brought you something, Dando," 
 Faith said softly, coming up behind him. 
 
 Noel Waverly was too much of a man to 
 hold resentment against Edith on account 
 of her name. He had wished all summer 
 that he might meet her again, for he had 
 not forgotten the little girl of long ago. 
 But the Grannell household had little 
 intercourse with the old man of " The 
 Shadows." 
 
 " We know each other, Faith; he used 
 to tell me stories when I was only a little 
 bigger than you are. Can I do anything 
 for you? " She turned to the old man, 
 her face full of kindest interest. 
 
 Noel Waverly well knew that Samson 
 Grannell would push matters to a finish 
 now. In return for his fist would be Gran- 
 nell s heel, or his own neck. The presence 
 of Edith brought a new suggestion to him. 
 He would lay the case before her. Deli 
 cately, and without offense, if possible, he 
 would try to secure her help. He must do 
 something. This was a drowning man s 
 effort. 
 
 " Won t you sit down awhile and let me 
 talk to you, Miss Grannell? Forgive an 
 old man for troubling you. It may be you 
 can do me a favor." There was some 
 thing of the chivalry of the olden days 
 about Noel Waverly. He must have been 
 a man of attractive presence in his younger 
 years. 
 
 " I should be glad to do anything for 
 you that I could do," Edith assured him. 
 You know the history of these two 
 
76 Cfte Corner >tone 
 
 ranches on either side of me, and how the 
 owners sit waiting^ for me to die for 
 give me for saying it to square their 
 boundaries." 
 
 " Yes, I know," Edith answered. " And 
 I ve always felt sorry for you." 
 
 There was no doubting her sincerity nor 
 her genuine sympathy, and both were a 
 balm to the old man s sore heart. 
 
 " I m not a money-maker. I lived too 
 long in the days when ten thousand dol 
 lars was a fortune. My sons died young. 
 Then I began to sell off my land, and at 
 last my son-in-law, Jim Clover, came to 
 grief. Sickness, poor crops, cattle perish 
 ing in the blizzard, endorsing notes at the 
 bank for friends, all combined against him. 
 Jim was honest to the penny, but misfor 
 tune followed him. His wife, my daughter, 
 died the day Faith was born. The next 
 year my wife died. Jim lost his life in a 
 blizzard that winter. I took up the burden 
 he laid down and paid every cent that 
 nobody should lose anything through me 
 or mine. And I took my little grandchild 
 to my heart and gave her a home. But 
 now just as soon as Homer Helm comes 
 into his property, he can foreclose, and 
 drive me out, me and the little girl I ve 
 been father and mother to." 
 
 " Mr. Helm wouldn t turn you out." 
 Edith s face was full of surprise and 
 sorrow. 
 
 " Oh, yes, he will. You don t know 
 how ravenous land can make a man for 
 more land. As long as Mrs. Helm holds 
 the property she will befriend me. But she 
 may have to give up the control at any 
 
Cfte Corner >tone 77 
 
 time, or, she might die. Then I m at 
 Homer s mercy. I thought maybe you 
 wouldn t mind saying a word of what you 
 think about it to him sometime." Wav- 
 erly s voice faltered. 
 
 Stories of Homer Helm s increasing 
 love of property that she had denied to 
 herself came to Edith now with a new 
 meaning. Yet how could he who seemed 
 so manly and gentle, he who needed for 
 nothing, turn an old man out of his home? 
 
 " I should hate him and distrust him 
 always, if he did that," she said to herself. 
 Aloud she said, " I can t believe Homer 
 Mr. Helm would foreclose on you. But 
 I ll speak to him anyhow. He has never 
 talked about his business affairs to me. 
 Why don t you go to Mrs. Helm and ask 
 her to intercede for you with her son? If 
 I can do anything for you, I will be glad. 
 I must go now," and she rose to leave him. 
 
 " I thank you so much, Miss Grannell. 
 It was such a little while ago that you and 
 Homer were children here. Little sweet 
 hearts then. I remember how lonely he 
 was when you went away. Seemed like 
 he d never get over missing you. He was 
 never quite the same boy after that." 
 
 The old man s face beamed with grati 
 tude as his visitor shook his hand and went 
 her way. 
 
 The next evening Noel Waverly with 
 little Faith went .to see Isabel Helm. 
 There was a flush on her cheeks, and her 
 eyes were glowing with a strange but 
 kindly light as she listened to his plea. 
 Doing good to others had marked the way 
 of her life. 
 
78 Ci)e Corner >tone 
 
 " I ll never foreclose on you, Noel. 
 Homer has not mentioned marrying to me 
 yet. I have always felt that my husband s 
 will has been an embarrassment to him. 
 I ll tell you what I ll do. Life is uncertain 
 and so are marriages - she added 
 with a smile. " I ll send for a notary to 
 morrow morning, and have a signed state 
 ment of my wishes, duly witnessed, for 
 you." 
 
 Her cheeks were deeply pink and her 
 eyes were shining as she bade the old man 
 good-night. 
 
 The next morning the notary s services 
 were not needed. The red flush, token of 
 irregular heart action, had warned in vain. 
 Isabel Helm had slipped out of life smil 
 ingly, as one who falls asleep, and Homer 
 Helm entered unhampered into his own. 
 
 Noel Waverly s fist had helped tre 
 mendously to bring a speedy ending to this 
 land business for Samson Grannell. He 
 was determined now to thresh the matter 
 out with Isabel Helm, who was unjustly 
 keeping him out of his share of the Wav- 
 erly holdings. The young folks he could 
 whip into shape afterward. 
 
 As he was riding home from a two days 
 business trip he stopped at the top of the 
 slope by " The Shadows." He was so ab 
 sorbed in his own calculations that he did 
 not notice the presence of Faith Clover 
 until she stood beside the car looking up 
 at him. 
 
 "Are you waiting for Dando?" she 
 asked timidly. " He s gone over to Helm s 
 to the big red barn over there. Mrs. 
 
Clje Cornet tone 79 
 
 Helm went to heaven yesterday morning, 
 and- 
 
 " What did you say? That Mrs. Helm 
 is dead? " Grannell asked, clutching the 
 side of the car. 
 
 " Yes, I did," Faith answered simply. 
 
 " What are you doing here? " Grannell 
 did not know 7 why he asked the question. 
 His mind was dazed by the news he had 
 heard. 
 
 " Oh, I am playing like the prince will 
 come home pretty soon or the princess will 
 cry." 
 
 " And what do you know about the 
 prince?" Grannell asked, while looking 
 shrewdly at the innocent face before 
 him. 
 
 " I play like he loves the princess and 
 they will marry and live happily ever 
 after." 
 
 " The kid comes honestly by her notions, 
 she is just like the old man. But Homer 
 owns everything now." Grannell thought 
 as he tried not to exult. 
 
 " Well, what do you know about the 
 princess," he asked. 
 
 " She won t love the prince if he takes 
 Dando s trees and house, and everything. 
 She told Dando she knew the prince 
 wouldn t never do that." 
 
 Grannell did not care to hear any more. 
 Now was his time to act. The extermina 
 tion of Waverly and the small gain to be 
 acquired possessed him. Narrow purposes 
 are no less dominant than broad, generous 
 ones. Either may become the master of a 
 soul. 
 
 That evening came the crisis as the two 
 
80 Cfte Corner Sterne 
 
 sat together in the twilight after tea talk 
 ing of this sudden death of their neighbor. 
 
 " Everything belongs to Homer now, of 
 course," Grannell declared. " He will 
 make no concessions to Waverly. He has 
 wanted to be rid of the old man too long." 
 
 " Are you sure of that? " Edith asked, 
 glad that the evening shadows hid her face. 
 
 " I know it absolutely. Have known it 
 ever since Homer came home from college. 
 Why do you ask? " 
 
 " Because I would despise a man for 
 ever who would turn a poor old man out 
 of his home just to, add a few more acres 
 to his own big farm," Edith replied. 
 
 "Would you?" The voice cut like a 
 steel blade. " I m glad it s not in my 
 power to do it. You would despise me." 
 
 Six months ago her words could not 
 have hurt him. Their unconscious stab 
 tonight was index of how much she had 
 come into his life. 
 
 " Oh, Uncle Samson, you know I could 
 n t do that." Edith could say nothing 
 more. 
 
 " And you ll take back what you say 
 about despising the man who makes old 
 Waverly come to time?" He followed 
 up the advantage gained. 
 
 " Never! " Edith spoke decisively. 
 
 Samson Grannell shifted his plans at 
 once. 
 
 " Homer will marry some rich girl, or 
 one with prospects," he said after a long 
 pause, " or at least one with good business 
 sense about property values," he added 
 casually. " He d be sure to cut any girl 
 who interfered or objected to his squaring 
 
C6e Corner Stone 81 
 
 his ranch and making it more productive. 
 He s set on that. All any girl he cares for 
 would need to do would be to agree with 
 him. I know what I m saying, Edith." 
 
 " Little white lies must be all right if 
 they serve a big purpose," Grannell rea 
 soned to himself. " This affair between 
 the young folks must go no further until 
 things are made safe. Edith is a sensible 
 girl, and if it comes down to brass tacks, 
 she s too smart to let anything stand in her 
 way. Folks in love, too, will give up any 
 thing. I was a fool that way myself once, 
 ready to give up every principle I ever had 
 for a girl." 
 
 So Grannell philosophised. But the 
 trouble with the philosopher is that he 
 may mistake selfishness for wisdom. 
 
 " Edith, you ve been kept here too 
 closely nursing the cripple. How would you 
 like to run down to Kansas City and do 
 some shopping? Every woman likes to 
 shop, and you could go this week." Gran 
 nell shifted easily from one line to another. 
 
 " I would like it very much," Edith said 
 faintly. 
 
 The world had gone out from under 
 her feet tonight. Her uncle had always 
 known Homer Helm. He must know 
 what many others had hinted to her be 
 fore, the young man s love of riches and 
 she was penniless. The game she had 
 played in the early summer had become a 
 bitter reality now, and she must play on to 
 the end. 
 
 Homer Helm had no opportunity of 
 meeting Edith before his mother s funeral. 
 
82 Cfte Cornet Stone 
 
 Two evenings after the burial, he came to 
 call at the Grannell home. 
 
 u Edith has gone to Kansas City to 
 do some shopping," Grannell explained 
 smoothly. " She left early this morning. 
 You know when a woman has clothes on 
 the brain, you can t stop em, and this is 
 bargain week down there. Edith s got 
 good business sense. Of course, she has 
 reason to expect that I ll do well by her 
 sometime she s the only heir I have in 
 the world if she doesn t oppose my 
 wishes, and she won t do that. By the 
 way, she thinks just as I do about old 
 Waverly. She d have him out tomorrow, 
 if she had her way." 
 
 By his own standards, Samson Grannell 
 felt that he was putting on his niece the 
 value the rich young ranchman must highly 
 approve. Moreover, he trusted to the 
 willingness of a young lover to do what 
 ever the girl he loved should desire. He 
 had been the same kind of a fool once 
 himself. But he had worshiped too long 
 at one shrine now to see what lay back of 
 the set face and dark eyes before him. 
 His idol never crumbled. How could he 
 understand the sorrow and disappointment 
 of the younger man? 
 
 He would keep the two apart till his 
 point was gained. That would soon be 
 done. Then matters would shape up all 
 right and they would thank him in the 
 end. 
 
 By his adroit planning no opportunity 
 came to the two young people to question 
 each other or come to an understanding. 
 Edith waited in sadness for a settlement of 
 
Cfte Corner Stone 83 
 
 the Waverly matter, while Homer set him 
 self sternly to the task of ignoring and for 
 getting a girl whose motives were so un 
 worthy. 
 
 The golden light of October lay on all 
 the prairies. The purple haze of autumn 
 curtained the horizon. But the light was 
 a glare and the purple a deepening shadow 
 to two young hearts who had found dross 
 where they had hoped to find gold. 
 
 The days came and went, but Blackstone 
 and White Rock cantered no more to 
 gether along the level roads. Homer did 
 not call at the Grannell ranch except on 
 such business as might be transacted out 
 of doors, with the owner of the ranch. 
 Edith gave no opportunity for any inter 
 view when they met by chance in the same 
 company. Gossip took a new tack and 
 busied itself but neither one heeded a 
 word for nor against the other. The Helm 
 house was listed in the rural free delivery 
 route and old Captain Klews had few 
 occasions to report to Homer what Jim 
 Gledden gathered up by the way. 
 
 In spite of Grannell s protest the creek 
 was bridged in November. But largely on 
 account of his protest the structure was a 
 cheap affair, pending the time when a 
 permanent one should be built on the new 
 straight road to the north. 
 
liver onows 
 
 and jcar 
 
IX 
 
 A little child shall lead them. 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 months passed after the death of 
 Isabel Helm, and Christmas was ap 
 proaching. Homer Helm had not yet 
 pressed the foreclosure of the mortgage 
 he held against " The Shadows," but Noel 
 Waverly knew a reckoning day was near, 
 and he had not even enough money to 
 cover the over-due interest. He knew, too, 
 that there was small chance for Santa Claus 
 to remember little Faith this year. Few 
 heartaches are like that of knowing that 
 a trusting child must be disappointed on 
 Christmas morning. 
 
 December had been unusually mild, and 
 the day before Christmas was almost 
 balmy in its warmth, with heavy brown 
 shadows in the northwest, token of an ap 
 proaching storm. 
 
 " I saw old Noel Waverly starting to 
 town a while ago," Samson Grannell said 
 to Edith at lunch time. " Some men who 
 can t pay their debts have plenty to spend 
 at Christmas, it seems." 
 
 " It might mean a great deal to little 
 Faith," Edith ventured. 
 
 " The sooner she gets over expecting 
 such things the better. Besides, there s a 
 change coming. This weather is unnat- 
 
88 Cfte Corner 
 
 ural, and there s a storm mixing in the 
 northwest right now. The old man s a 
 fool to start on such a long ride with that 
 slow old pony. I m going to town myself 
 in the car pretty soon." Christmas had a 
 new meaning to him now, with Edith in 
 his home, but it was a selfish man s Christ 
 mas withal. " If those packages that I 
 ordered aren t in yet, I ll wait in town till 
 the morning train. But if they are, I can 
 make it there and back before dark. Noel 
 will be till in the night getting home," he 
 added, " and the young one will be there 
 by herself. It s a mercy if she doesn t up 
 set the lamp, or something. She ought to 
 be in an orphan asylum as I ve always 
 said." 
 
 It would have been easy for Grannell 
 to have taken his old neighbor in his car 
 for the trip to town. But Noel had ordered 
 him not to darken the Waverly door till 
 he could come in like a gentleman. That 
 had hurt worse than the old fist that sent 
 him headlong to the ground in a most un- 
 gentlemanly manner. He d show the old 
 fighting brute how a gentleman can get 
 to town and home again in comfort. He 
 passed the pony and its rider on the way, 
 both going and coming, but if he dis 
 tinguished them from the dust of the earth, 
 he made no sign. The wind was rising 
 before he left town, and a great drop 
 in the temperature foretold the uncoiling 
 of a blizzard from that frowning dust- 
 brown northwest that would soon be whirl 
 ing across the prairies in a fury of snow 
 and bitter ravening cold. But the storm 
 came more swiftly than Grannell had 
 
C6e Cornet >tone 89 
 
 anticipated, so he made his car snug from 
 the north blast, and sped onward in the 
 gathering darkness. Far behind him Noel 
 Waverly, hugging the little treasure that 
 should brighten his loved one s Christmas 
 morn, with the thinner blood of old age, 
 bent bravely against the wind as he urged 
 his faithful " Kit Carson " onward in the 
 teeth of the black terror sweeping down 
 on him. 
 
 Night fell quickly. A swirl of sleet made 
 the road treacherous. Grannell had to 
 slacken his speed and feel his way slowly 
 and carefully, while, like the hare and 
 the tortoise, the old pony and rider gained 
 on the big machine. It skidded perilously 
 as its driver went crashing down the wind 
 ing trail toward the new bridge. It was 
 not well built, as Grannell knew, and he 
 knew, too, who had most influenced the 
 commissioners in cheapening that building. 
 But he cursed it and its builders as he re 
 membered that the approach on one side 
 was already caving away. He knew what 
 might happen to him if he hit that side 
 at an angle. But the sleet put out the eyes 
 of the automobile and he plunged on 
 blindly in the darkness. 
 
 Meanwhile, at home, Edith watched the 
 night and the storm come down together. 
 She had no anxiety for her uncle. He must 
 be waiting in town over night. Christmas 
 time meant slow trains and choked express 
 cars. But her heart grew heavy as she re 
 membered little Faith. 
 
 " I can t bear to think of it," she cried 
 at last, wrapping herself against the cold. 
 
90 Cfce Cornet Stone 
 
 u She might try to go out to meet her 
 grandfather and get lost herself. I know 
 every foot of the path," and the pang of 
 haunting memories of summer strolls along 
 that woodland way came sharp to her 
 heart. 
 
 Every foot of the road was a battle in 
 spite of her knowing. Beyond the bridge 
 something seemed to catch at her ankle. 
 It must have been only a crooked stick, but 
 it felt to her gloved hand like the brass 
 rim of a wind shield. At last she found 
 herself in the room where little Faith sat 
 in the dark and cold. 
 
 Edith brought in wood and soon a blaz 
 ing fire filled the room with its warmth and 
 cheer. 
 
 " It was so black and lonesome without 
 Dando," Faith said, as she snuggled down 
 close to Edith s side. " I m so glad you 
 are here. Will you stay till he comes? " 
 
 " Yes, I ll stay till he comes," Edith said 
 with sinking doubt in her heart, as she 
 thought of the old man out in the storm. 
 
 " Did you know you are my playlike 
 princess? " Faith asked, putting both arms 
 lovingly about the girl s neck. 
 
 " Am I? I m. glad," Edith replied. 
 
 " And Homer is the prince and I want 
 so much to know if the story s ended. Your 
 runcle broke my castle, and I couldn t see 
 you any more and I don t know if it 
 ended." 
 
 Edith could not understand, so she only 
 hugged the little curly head to her shoul 
 der. And sitting thus they made a pretty 
 picture in the firelight. 
 
 "There s Dando now," Faith cried 
 
Cfte Corner tone 91 
 
 as the kitchen door opened; but it was 
 Homer Helm who stood before them. 
 
 Faith gave him a shy greeting, half 
 conscious of the chill that had come in 
 with him. 
 
 " Do you want to see Dando? He s 
 gone to town and it s so cold, she came 
 to stay with me till he comes back. Isn t 
 she good? " 
 
 Homer looked in surprise at Edith. 
 Had she come out in this storm to bring 
 comfort to a little girl whose grandfather 
 she would see made houseless tomorrow? 
 While Edith wondered what could bring 
 Homer Helm on Christmas eve of all eves 
 of the year to the home of the man whom 
 he meant to drive out of doors. But a 
 wall had come between them. Since his 
 mother s death, when they met the hard 
 look in his eyes was confronted with the 
 scorn in hers. His face was stern now as 
 if he meant to carry out a purpose in spite 
 of her presence. But his eyes were gentle 
 when he turned to Faith. The heart of a 
 child is quick to read character, and Faith 
 saw only a friend. 
 
 Will your Dando hang up his stocking 
 tonight? " Homer asked. 
 
 " I ve got it hanged for him, cause he 
 might forget," Faith replied. u Once he 
 did forget and Santa never left him any 
 thing." 
 
 ; Well, I ve just come from Santa 
 Claus," Homer went on. " He couldn t 
 get over here tonight. One of his reindeer 
 threw a shoe, so I ll take care of Dando s 
 stocking for him right now, and then I 
 must be going." 
 
92 Cfte Cornet Stone 
 
 " What a funny thing for Dando. Tell 
 me what it is, and, cross my heart, I won t 
 tell." 
 
 Faith fingered at a long envelope 
 crowded into the old man s woollen hose. 
 
 " Just a paper, part printed, part writ 
 ten, with some red lines and a gold seal - 
 I call it a sunflower." Homer replied with 
 a strangely defiant ring in his tone. 
 
 Faith looked up at the young man. The 
 eyes of a child see far. 
 
 " Does it say Dando must pay intrist? " 
 she asked earnestly. 
 
 " It says he needn t ever pay intrist, any 
 more. It s the mortgage my mother held 
 overdue for nearly a year. It s Dando s 
 Christmas present. I shall not die poorer 
 because for a few years I let an old man 
 live in security and peace. If I do, pros 
 perity isn t worth the price." 
 
 Homer was not looking at Faith, nor 
 speaking to her. He was looking straight 
 at Edith Grannell. 
 
 u Oh, you are a prince, a prince, a 
 prince," Faith danced about in joy. " It 
 will make Dando so glad, glad, glad. I 
 wish he d come." A shadow flitted across 
 the sunny face, as the storm rattled at the 
 windows. 
 
 " Won t you sit down, and wait for 
 Dando. And please, please tell me is the 
 story ended? " Faith pulled Homer into 
 a chair beside Edith, and stood up before 
 the two with eager questioning eyes. 
 
 " Is the story ended? " she repeated. 
 
 " You tell us what the story is. We 
 don t know anything about it," Edith said, 
 trying hard to control her voice. 
 
Cfte Cornet g>tone 93 
 
 " Why, it s just your ownselves story, 
 and I didn t make it up, I just played like, 
 only I never did know if it ended and you 
 lived happily ever after. I ll tell you how 
 I played it for you." 
 
 The young people involuntarily drew 
 closer together, and there swept over thenr 
 both a sense of the nearness of innocence 
 and love and trust to the real heart of 
 life. 
 
 " I lived in my castle bushes most all 
 summer," Faith began, " but it s broke 
 now. And when you first came princing 
 out of fairy land from your castle where 
 the big red barn is, I just play like you 
 know, and she came with wild flowers up 
 from the creek, that s my Missouri river, 
 and s prized you, I played like you were 
 a real prince and princess, and would love 
 each other. You came so often. I tried 
 not to miss you, for it was such a sweet 
 story." 
 
 Faith looked fondly at each young face 
 before her, as she prattled on. 
 
 " The prince found your little pin and 
 kept it, not cause he s a stealer, sure he 
 isn t no stealer. He just wanted it cause 
 you are his princess, I played like. But 
 you went to Pawnee Rock and my castle 
 got broke down, and White Face got in 
 and tore up the vines and I never did know 
 if you lived happily ever after, but you 
 must, cause you are so good to Dando 
 and bringed that nice Christmas gift for 
 Santa Claus, and the princess said you 
 wouldn t never turn us out, she knew you 
 wouldn t, she told Dando so one day, and 
 she asked him to go see your mamma, 
 
94 Cfte Cornet 
 
 cause she knew your mamma would take 
 care of Dando s home and trees and creek. 
 But your mamma went to heaven too 
 soon." Faith s sunny face clouded now. 
 
 Homer tried once to look into Edith s 
 face, but her eyes were for the little child 
 only. 
 
 " Is that all of your story? " she asked 
 in a low voice. 
 
 You went to Pawnee Rock and Dando 
 says, and he knows, that folks that love on 
 Pawnee Rock love always and always. 
 Please tell me is the story ended? " Faith 
 asked. 
 
 Edith made no reply, so Faith turned to 
 Homer who had risen to his feet. 
 
 "Not yet," he answered, "I m not a 
 stealer, Faith, and I hope ever. " 
 
Oh, Earth ! thou hast not any wind that blows 
 Which is not music; every weed of thine 
 Pressed rightly, glows with aromatic wine; 
 
 And every humble hedgerow flower that grows, 
 And every little brown bird that doth sing, 
 
 Hath something greater than itself, and bears 
 A living word to every living thing. 
 
 RICHARD REALF. 
 
 1VTEAN WHILE Noel Waverly fought 
 * his way over the long miles against 
 the blizzard s rage, trusting to Kit Car 
 son s wild instinct to carry him safely 
 through. 
 
 " They can keep their old gasoline 
 gigs," he said to himself, " and I ll keep 
 my old half-breed Indian pony. The sleet 
 hasn t blinded his glass eyes, he don t need 
 skid chains, and he s got some mind about 
 what I want; while a car like Grannell s 
 would go straight to hell, left to itself, 
 and not care how many goggle-eyed, big- 
 gloved chauffeurs it took along." 
 
 As he reached the top of the slope near 
 his home, an agonizing wail came to his 
 ears. Again it came, then the storm swal 
 lowed it. 
 
 " Somebody lost or hurt. I m pretty 
 cold, too. But we must find em, Kit. Go 
 on," he urged. 
 
 The pony plunged down toward the 
 caving approach to the new bridge over 
 the creek. And Noel Waverly, because 
 
 [95] 
 
96 Cbe Corner 
 
 he had been bred to danger, knew how to 
 find and meet it. The old frame had still 
 the vigor of the plains-hardened muscles, 
 and the old arms a strength many a softer- 
 sinewed young man might envy. He for 
 got the cold, and the darkness, and the 
 seventy-five years that had sapped his 
 vitality. 
 
 Down under the big touring car, Sam 
 son Grannell lay like a dying man, it 
 seemed to Noel Waverly, and Noel knew 
 the marks of that great Enemy. Then 
 came the miracle old as the miracles 
 down in Capernaum the strength of 
 soul that nerves the arm because the loving 
 heart will not pass suffering humanity by. 
 Noel Waverly, old, cold, and alone, wres 
 tled with the big inert weight that was 
 crushing the life out of his enemy, and 
 would not yield, until at last he won. With 
 a marvelous grip he lifted the crushed and 
 broken body of the helpless man to the 
 back of his slow old pony, and, fighting 
 his way on foot through the darkness and 
 bitter cold, he led Kit with his half-dying 
 burden up to the big, un-mortgaged Gran 
 nell house. The self-taught surgeon of a 
 younger day knew well the many ways 
 of saving life, of slipping back wrenched 
 joints, and stanching the flow of bleed 
 ing arteries. The first, and only, aid to 
 the injured served as well in the rich man s 
 home on this storm-wracked night of the 
 twentieth century, as it had done in the 
 day of arrow and tomahawk on the far 
 desolate plains of an unwon wilderness. 
 
 " How did you happen to find me? 
 How could you ever get me from under 
 
Cfte Corner Stone 97 
 
 that heavy machine? How could you get 
 me on your pony and up here through the 
 drifts? How could you fix these injuries 
 alone?" Samson Grannell asked the 
 questions feebly one after another as he 
 lay at length, awaiting the coming of dawn. 
 
 " And, why didn t you leave me to 
 die?" he added, with a groan, "a man 
 that s been a brute to you all these years? " 
 
 " Don t ask too many questions right 
 now. You better keep that shoulder still, 
 and bear the pain like a man. The doctor 
 will fix you up easier as soon as he can get 
 at you. This is just my old-fashioned 
 way of surgery. I belong to a generation 
 that s about gone out." 
 
 The unconscious stab of the words hurt 
 worse than any wound on Samson Gran- 
 nell s bruised body. Like a vision came 
 the grip on life, real life, that may belong 
 to a man poor in purse, old in years, but 
 young and rich, abundantly and eternally 
 prosperous, in human love. 
 
 " Waverly," he queried feebly, " I al 
 ways thought that you were a hard-fisted 
 plainsman in your younger years, and 
 you ve had enough bad luck to make you 
 hate the world. What has brought you to 
 a tendeV-hearted old age? " 
 
 " The corner stone of life is love" 
 Noel Waverly replied, as he sat beside the 
 bed, gently stroking Samson Grannell s 
 wrenched right arm, " and it may be the 
 love of a little child. With all their 
 dreams and odd gentle ways, sometimes 
 they can see right through what s only a 
 solid wall to us. Faith Clover made me 
 a lover, not a hater of men. If I had my 
 
98 Clje Corner Stone 
 
 way there d be no orphan asylums, but a 
 home for every child. You shut out the 
 biggest joy of your life, Samson Grannell, 
 when you sent your little niece away from 
 you. But you are a young man yet. 
 When you get well, you ll measure life in 
 curves as well as straight lines. And 
 you ll see that the unseen things, the feel 
 ings and hopes and longings of the human 
 soul are bigger than the things we measure 
 by the yardstick and weigh on scales, and 
 value in dollars and cents." 
 
 The sun of a December day had slipped 
 down the west, and hung a moment to send 
 one last broad sweep of radiance far up 
 the crystal skies a good-night to the 
 world as glorious as the grand good-morn 
 ing of an August day. 
 
 On the top of Pawnee Rock, Homer 
 Helm and Edith Grannell stood looking 
 to the west, where the after-glow of a win 
 ter sunset burned in an ineffable grandeur. 
 
 " Edith, do you remember when we 
 were here last August that I told you I 
 had never forgotten anything of the days 
 of our childhood, and so I hadn t forgot 
 ten the day when you went away and left 
 a little boy so lonely? " Homer turned to 
 his companion with the question. 
 
 u I remember," Edith answered, still 
 looking out toward the radiant splendor 
 of the winter sky. 
 
 " He looked up to you then. He s been 
 looking up to you ever since. He was a 
 lonely shy little boy who lived over the 
 days of childhood until the best things they 
 held became enshrined as the best things of 
 
Cbe Corner @tone 99 
 
 his manhood. The memory of a good-bye 
 kiss staid with that little boy who was two 
 years older and not nearly so big as the 
 little girl then staid, until he became a 
 man ever so much bigger and stronger 
 than the grown-up little girl. And he 
 knows, for Faith Clover told him, that she 
 is gentle, and kind to the poor, and that 
 it is not money but manliness that counts 
 with her. Edith, I ve wished so long for 
 an hour like this, but I could not be sure 
 that you would wish for it, too. You for 
 got all about me years ago and I m not 
 worthy of a place in your memory." 
 
 " I ve been told over and over that the 
 little boy grew up to care for rich girls 
 only, or girls with prospects, but I never 
 forgot that day," Edith said softly. 
 
 And then, somehow, two strong arms 
 were about her and on her lips love left 
 its first sweet kiss. 
 
 " Forgive me, Edith, it was only the 
 little boy who was glad again there s 
 no use trying that." Homer broke off and 
 stood silent beside her. 
 
 " Edith, I did find your monogram pin, 
 as Faith said, and I meant to give it to you 
 the next day. I was only teasing. But I 
 lost it myself, and now those markings I 
 cut here last August are gone, too." 
 
 Homer looked down on the rock at his 
 feet whereon he had cut the lines, 
 
 The symbol that I put here has faded. 
 Does that which it symbolizes endure? 
 
loo Cfie Cornet Stone 
 
 Edith, may I hope ever? May not this 
 monogram really mean Homer, Edith, one 
 forever henceforth? " 
 
 He had taken Edith s hands in his and 
 she let them rest there. 
 
 " Faith Clover says, Whoever loves 
 on Pawnee Rock will love always and 
 always, " she murmured softly. And 
 live happily ever after, " Homer added, 
 " because the corner stone of life is love." 
 
 Edith looked up. The manly form, the 
 strong face, the dark eyes filled with all the 
 longing of the years treasured since the 
 parting moment of a far away day of boy 
 hood; underneath her feet was the solid 
 old Pawnee Rock; out yonder the splendor 
 of scarlet and silver, the radiant twilight 
 afterglow at the end of a perfect day! 
 
FOURTEEN DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate rec 
 
 28Jul 56L] 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
M551865