of my old dreams for my mother, and blamed myself for treason to her memory, getting out that old letter and the poor work-worn shoe, and weeping over them in my lonely nights in the cabin on the prairie.  I can not now think of this without pity for myself; and though Grandma Thorndyke was one of the best women that ever lived on this footstool, and was much to me in my after life, I can not think of her happiness at my despair without blaming her memory a little.  But she meant well.  She had better plans, as she thought, for Virginia, than any which she thought I could have.

3

It was not more than a week after this donation picnic, when I came home for my nooning one day, and found a covered wagon in the yard, and two strange horses in the stable.  When I went to the house, there were Old Man Fewkes and Mrs. Fewkes, and Surajah Dowlah and Celebrate Fourth.  I welcomed them heartily.  I was so lonesome that I would have welcomed a stray dog, and that is pretty nearly what I was doing.

“I guess,” ventured the old man, after we had finished our dinner, “that you are wondering where we’re goin’, Jake.”

“A long ways,” I said, “by the looks of your rig.”

“You see us now,” he went on, “takin’ steps that I’ve wanted to take ever sen’ I found out what a den of inikerty we throwed ourselves into when we went out yon’,” pointing in the general direction of the Blue-grass Manor.

“What steps are you takin’?” I asked.

“We are makin’,” said he, “our big move for riches.  Gold!  Gold!  Jake, you must go with us!  We are goin’ out to the Speak.”

I had never heard of any place called the Speak, but I finally got it through my head that he meant Pike’s Peak.  We were in the midst of the Pike’s Peak excitement for two or three years; and this was the earliest sign of it that I had seen, though I had heard Pike’s Peak mentioned.

“Jake,” said Old Man Fewkes, “it’s a richer spot than the Arabian Knights ever discovered.  The streams are rollin’ gold sand.  Come along of us to the Speak, an’ we’ll make you rich.  Eh, ma?”

“I have been drailed around,” said ma, as she saw me looking at her, “about as much as I expect to be; but this is like goin’ home.  It’s the last move; and as pa has said ag’in an’ ag’in, it ain’t but six or eight hundred mile from Omaha, an’ with the team an’ wagin we’ve got, that’s nothin’ if we find the gold, an’ I calculate there ain’t no doubt of that.  The Speak looks like the best place we ever started fur, and we all hope you’ll leave this Land o’ Desolation, an’ come with us.  We like you, an’ we want you to be rich with us.”

“Where’s Rowena?” I asked.

Silence for quite a while.  Then Ma Fewkes spoke.

“Rowena,” she said, her voice trembling, “Rowena ain’t goin’ with us.”

“Why,” I said, “last summer, she seemed to want to start for Texas.  She ain’t goin’ with you?  I want to know!”