That night the old heart-hunger of childhood came back to me, the visions of the day-dreaming little boy that were almost forgotten in the years that had brought me to young manhood.  And clearly again, as when I heard Uncle Esmond’s voice that night on the tableland above the valley of the Santa Fe, I heard his gentle words: 

“Sometimes the things we long for in our dreams we must fight for, and even die for, that those who come after us may be the better for our having them.”

But these thoughts passed with the night, and in my youth and inexperience I took on a spirit of fatherly importance as I went down to St. Ann’s to safeguard a little girl on her way through the Kansas territory to the Missouri River.

It had been a beautiful day, and there was a freshness in the soft evening breeze, and an up-springing sweetness from the prairies.  A shower had passed that way an hour before, and the spirit of growing things seemed to fill the air with a voiceless music.

Just at sunset the stage from the north put me down in front of St. Ann’s Academy in the little Osage Mission village on the Neosho.

A tall nun, with commanding figure and dignified bearing, left the church steps across the road and came slowly toward me.

“I am looking for Mother Bridget, the head of this school,” I said, lifting my hat.

“I am Mother Bridget.”  The voice was low and firm.  One could not imagine disobedience under her rule.

“I come from Mr. Esmond Clarenden, to act as escort for a little girl, Eloise St. Vrain, who is to leave here on the stage for Kansas City to-morrow,” I hesitatingly offered my letter of introduction, which told all that I had tried to say, and more.

The woman’s calm face was gentle, with the protective gentleness of the stone that will not fail you when you lean on it.  One felt sure of Mother Bridget, as one feels sure of the solid rock to build upon.  She looked at me with keen, half-quizzical eyes.  Then she said, quietly: 

“You will find the little girl down by Flat Rock Creek.  The Indian girl, Po-a-be, is with her.  There may be several Indian girls down there, but Po-a-be is alone with little Eloise.”

I bowed and turned away, conscious that, with this good nun’s sincerity, she was smiling at me back of her eyes somehow.

As I followed the way leading to the creek I passed a group or two of Indian girls—­St. Ann’s, under the Loretto Sisterhood, was fundamentally a mission school for these—­and a trio of young ladies, pretty and coquettish, with daring, mischievous eyes, whose glances made me flush hot to the back of my neck as I stumbled by them on my way to the stream.

The last sun rays were glistening on the placid waters of the Flat Rock, and all the world was softly green, touched with a golden glamour.  I paused by a group of bushes to let the spell of the hour have its way with me.  I have always loved the beautiful things of earth; as much now as in my childhood days, when I felt ashamed to let my love be known; as now I dare to tell it only on paper, and not to that dear, great circle of men and women who know me best to-day.