prettily spotted with blossoms of the dogwood, flowering currant and rhododendron. The carpet beneath dotted with a decoration of dainty wild flowers such as trilliums, anemones and spring beauties. Up on the headlands beyond these foot-hills, on one side a mighty river with an Indian name was roaring along, on the other side a placid lake so like our own Lake Stevens. Through this valley runs a good highway for the autos love to journey there and where the autos go you'll find good highways-generally. A white, white church, a white schoolhouse, many white houses as far as you can see for the hills enclose this "Happy Valley all around and from a distance you can not readily see where the white roadway makes its exit through an archway of green into less happy regions beyond. A veritable Arcady we had found because the red Mercedes was afire and we could not go the other way. In front of the best white house we stopped and Mr. Gleason went in to interview his friends and see if they would board a woman with her child. It was just the kind of a house that as a child I was forever drawing on my slate.

An upright painted white with a round window looking like an eye near the roof, then two windows lower down and on the first floor a window and a door. No porch nor bay windows of any kind, but a bay hedge led from door to gate and down its friendly walk we went, for they would take a woman and her child. I don't feel that it is quite right

to enter the sacred precincts of people's homes and then write them up, for "a man's house is his castle," but I know my hostesses and hosts will pardon me. Many, many cruel, unjust, and untrue things have been said of where I was and wandered those four and a half long and weary years, so in sort of a challenge I sit here many miles away from your friendly, hospitable firesides and boards and bid you tell these Ohio folks who and of what sort you were that harbored a grief-stricken woman and her child. Yes, but though the miles may separate I still can feel the warmth your firesides gave us, the comfort and good cheer received from those seated by their side. Oh, good people, who took in a stranger woman and her little child and treated us with rarer kindness than ever I have received from friends in my life. Tell them what you saw while we were there, for they say it was revenge not love that made me go "She did not love her boy." Can you tell any away. different? You who saw us in our sorrow-tell them here that I did love my child and taught him "as far as the circumstances would allow" and cared for him and loved him. Yes, I loved him more than any mother ever loved before. You can tell them that and as all you, my hostesses and hosts, were people of honesty and truth they must believe you.

Yes, they took in a mother and her child although our clothes were poor and out of style and we were nervous and sick from grief and anxiety.

While the kind little lady was brewing our Sunday

tea we talked with our host and before we had conversed very long we discovered that he knew Captain Brown in Sandusky who died there last year after sailing on the Great Lakes for many years. We were not giving much data concerning ourselves so we found out quite a bit about our host while his wife was making the tea. He had lived for years on the Great Lakes and had been always on the police patrol between the United States and Canada, then sergeant and chief of police in a large western city, and going to Seattle in the early days had made his money in a short time and so was able to buy this beautiful ranch and live the life of the landed gentry in this happy vale.

But tea is ready in this spotless house, white within and out, and I must say "Au Revoir" to you while we are drinking it.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SIMPLE LIFE-ITS

CONTRASTS

FROM LIFE IN THE CITY.

Of course "Happy Valley " was a local name given to this pretty spot by the people living there. "A local habitation and a name. Being constantly used in course of time it began to be the real name of the place. And to-day in the telephone directory you will find "Happy Valley" and letters are directed there. In all my travels I have never found another such community. They had built a private telephone line of their own, connecting, of course, with the main line at the nearest town. I had had some experience with these "party lines." Usually when your number rings 3 long-2 short-clickety, click, clickety, click, down goes the other receivers on the line and you take the message as quickly as can be and "hang up" or you call central and ask for a certain number, clickety, click, clickety, click, down goes the dozen receivers and you give your message or grocery order hurriedly and "hang up." Next day you Next day you hear what you ordered for dinner or the message you took, only greatly exaggerated and more of it. And there is always some one on the line who will call 3 long-2 short and say "Have

you heard the news about so and so? Yes it's true," and then she will go on and tell you a lot more true things until finally you hear a gruff masculine voice saying to central "Can't you shut that woman off?” He might have said "Can't you shut her up?

Yes, these are some of the joys of a party line in some localities, but in "Happy Valley" it was different. If the telephone rang it was some neighbor asking for some help with their ranch work or asking if they could not help our host with his spraying or his spring plowing, or in the evening word came frequently, "Please put a record on the phonograph.' And you might be sure that while we were enjoying "What Am I Going To Do When The Rent Comes Round," or Bad News" or "What Happened To The Dog" or Sousa's marches or a dozen others, at the other end of the party telephone was an eager group of the children all trying to put the receiver to their ears so they could hear the music. These were the joys of a party line in "Happy Valley."

66

While in "Happy Valley "my little boy could well

say my

"Daily Teachers had been Woods and Rills.
The Silence that is in the starry sky.

The sleep that is among the lonely hills."

We found the prettiest place to study in across from the house on the mossy hillside. It was just the opposite here from the way we were located at Lake