Sometimes a whole mile or so of the line disappeared as the fire burned down into lower ground; and then with a swirl of flame and smoke, the smoke luminous in the glare, it moved magnificently up into sight, rolling like a breaker of fire bursting on a reef of land, buried the hillside in flame, and then whirled on over the top, its streamers flapping against the horizon, snapping off shreds of flame into the air, as triumphantly as a human army taking an enemy fort.  Never again, never again!  We went through some hardships, we suffered some ills to be pioneers in Iowa; but I would rather have my grandsons see what I saw and feel what I felt in the conquest of these prairies, than to get up by their radiators, step into their baths, whirl themselves away in their cars, and go to universities.  I am glad I had my share in those old, sweet, grand, beautiful things—­the things which never can be again.

An old man looks back on things passed through as sufferings, and feels a thrill when he identifies them as among the splendors of life.  Can anything more clearly prove the vanity of human experiences?  But look at the wonders which have come out of those days.  My youth has already passed into a period as legendary as the days when King Alfred hid in the swamp and was reproved by the peasant’s wife for burning the cakes.  I have lived on my Iowa farm from times of bleak wastes, robber bands, and savage primitiveness, to this day, when my state is almost as completely developed as Holland.  If I have a pride in it, if I look back to those days as worthy of record, remember that I have some excuse.  There will be no other generation of human beings with a life so rich in change and growth.  And there never was such a thing in all the history of the world before.

I knew then, dimly, that what I saw was magnificent; but I was more pleased with the safety of my farmstead and my stacks than with the grim glory of the scene; and even as to my own good fortune in coming through undamaged, I was less concerned than with the tragedy being enacted in my house.  I could not see into the future for Rowena, but I felt that it would be terrible.  The words “lost,” “ruined,” “outcast,” which were always applied to such as she had become, ran through my mind all the time; and yet, she seemed a better girl when I talked with her than when she was running over the prairie like a plover following old Tom and the little clittering wagon.  Now she seemed to have grown, to have taken on a sort of greatness, something which commanded my respect, and almost my awe.

It was the sacredness of martyrdom.  I know this now:  but then I seemed to feel that I was disgracing myself for not loathing her as something unclean.

“It’s a boy!” said Doctor Bliven, as I came to the house.  “The mother ain’t in very good shape.  Seems exhausted—­exhausted.  She’ll pull through, though—­she’ll pull through; but the baby is fat and lusty.  Strange, how the mother will give everything to the offspring, and bring it forth fat when she’s as thin as a rail—­thin as a rail.  Mystery of nature, you know—­perpetuation of the race.  Instinct, you know, instinct.  This girl, now—­had an outfit of baby clothes in that bundle of hers—­instinct—­instinct.  My wife’s going to stay a day or so.  I’ll take her back next time I come out.”