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The One Page Project Manager for IT Projects
Communicate and Manage Any Project With A Single
Sheet of Paper 1st Edition Clark A. Campbell Digital
Instant Download
Author(s): Clark A. Campbell
ISBN(s): 9780470275887, 047027588X
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 1.94 MB
Year: 2008
Language: english
 THE ONE-PAGE
PROJECT
MANAGER FOR
IT PROJECTS
COMMUNICATE AND MANAGE
ANY PROJECT WITH A SINGLE
SHEET OF PAPER

CL ARK A. CAMPBELL

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

ffirs.indd v 6/6/08 3:46:15 PM

ftoc.indd x 6/6/08 3:46:36 PM
 Praise for
The One Page Project Manager

The One Page Project Manager for IT Projects: Communicate and Manage
Any Project With a Single Sheet of Paper is a remarkable resource for any
business or IT professional who are designing and implementing IT projects.
It is straightforward and easy to follow. Anyone who is practicing in the proj-
ect management field will simply have to have this book.
— Hossein Bidgoli
Editor-in-Chief
The Handbook of Computer Networks, The Handbook of
Information Security, and The Internet Encyclopedia
This book provides important tools for the IT executive. Ineffective proj-
ect execution is one of the primary causes of pain in IT departments, but
over-engineering project management methodologies too often take on a
life of their own. The One-Page technique has the optimal balance of ease-
of-use, flexibility and simplicity that are the hallmarks of a tool that can
be used by pragmatic, action-oriented IT teams. In addition to improving
project execution, managing with these tools will make status updates and
enterprise-wide communication a snap.
— John Baschab
Co-Author
The Executives Guide to Information Technology
Managing Director, Technisouce Management Services
If you’ve ever needed to manage several projects at once, you know the
dilemma: there has to be a better way to track the projects quickly, con-
cisely and reliably, but finding and learning that better way always seems too
tedious, costly, or complicated. This book solves that problem.
— Frank Luby
Author
Manage for Profit, not for Market Share
Harvard Business School Press
Partner, Simon-Kucher & Partners, Strategy and Marketing
Consultants

ffirs.indd i 6/6/08 3:46:14 PM

 This is the most productive method I’ve seen to capture the essence of proj-
ect management. Not too complicated, not too simple. For those with expe-
rience this is certainly a method to adopt for rapid, vivid, and persistent
communication. I wish I’d had this years ago, but am glad it came along
now. It clearly saves time for an organization’s key resources.
— Paul Germeraad, PhD
President of Intellectual Assets, Inc.
Instructor, Caltech
From Boise to Beijing Clark Campbell’s One Page Project Manager has
helped managers take complex tasks and reduce them to their most effi-
cient core activities. If you are looking to maximize talent, time and dollars
the One Page Project Manager is a MUST HAVE for your team.
— Chester Elton
Best-Selling Author
The Carrot Principle
When managing large projects it is easy to lose oneself in gritty details only to
wakeup and realize that you spent valuable time on the wrong issues. In the
One-Page Project Manager, Clark Campbell reveals a wonderful tool for keep-
ing projects on task. Only one glance and we see the big issues requiring
attention. It’s the perfect organizational solution for the executive needing
relevant project information.
— Taylor Randall, PhD
Professor, David Eccles School of Business
University of Utah
As you read through Clark Campbell’s book, you will say to yourself, ‘So
simple, yet intuitive and useful; I can put this to work today!’ IT projects
require meticulous attention to balancing scope, time, and resources. And
the most important factor in successfully maintaining this equilibrium is
communication, which the One-Page Project Manager delivers. Use The
One-Page Project Manager and your projects will better deliver tasks to
your objectives and stay closer to timelines and budgets, while facilitating
critical ownership and engagements.
— Todd Thompson
Former Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer
JetBlue Airways

ffirs.indd ii 6/6/08 3:46:14 PM

 While at initial glance this book may appear to be simply about developing
a “dashboard” for tracking an important project, it soon becomes clear
that it is much more than that. The approach outlined by Clark Camp-
bell, an experienced and accomplished project leader, provides a proven
process for project management that significantly improves the chances
that the project will be completed on time, on budget and on target for
its intended purposes. Furthermore, it provides a straightforward yet com-
pelling set of steps to ensure that those with the ability and responsibility
to achieve the desired results are supported, guided and focused in their
efforts to do so. This approach will prove especially beneficial to students
and practitioners who want to learn and apply the skills and tools of effec-
tive project leadership.
— Steven C. Wheelwright, PhD
Baker Foundation Professor
Senior Associate Dean
Director of Publications Activities
Harvard Business School
Impressive in its simplicity, yet universal in its application, the One-Page
Project Manager began assisting Chinese project managers in 2003, when
Mr. Campbell first lectured in Beijing. OPPM is easy to learn and use, and is
impressive in its clear capacity to communicate. It should be required read-
ing for every manager who wants to improve project performance, accu-
rately tell their story, and do it efficiently.
— Jonathan H. Du, PhD
CEO and Chairman
WiseChina Training Ltd.
Beijing, China

ffirs.indd iii 6/6/08 3:46:15 PM

ftoc.indd x 6/6/08 3:46:36 PM
 THE ONE-PAGE
PROJECT
MANAGER FOR
IT PROJECTS
COMMUNICATE AND MANAGE
ANY PROJECT WITH A SINGLE
SHEET OF PAPER

CL ARK A. CAMPBELL

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

ffirs.indd v 6/6/08 3:46:15 PM

 Copyright © 2008 by O.C. Tanner and Co. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise,
except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without
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the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley
& Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at
http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best
efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to
the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied
warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or
extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained
herein may not be suitable for your situation.You should consult with a professional where
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visit our web site at www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Campbell, Clark A., 1949-

The one-page project manager for IT projects : communicate and manage any project with a
single sheet of paper / Clark A. Campbell.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-470-27588-7 (pbk.)
1. Information technology--Management. 2. Project management. I. Title. II. Title:
1-page project manager for IT projects.
HD30.2.C3557 2008
004.068'4--dc22

2008011984

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ffirs.indd vi 6/6/08 3:46:15 PM

 CONTENTS

FIGURES ix

FOREWORD xi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv

INTRODUCTION xvii

CHAPTER 1—HOW TO CONSTRUCT

A ONE-PAGE PROJECT MANAGER 1

CHAPTER 2—READ THIS

IF YOU ARE THE CIO 27

CHAPTER 3—YOUR PROJECT TEAM:

WHO TO PICK, HOW TO
MIX-AND-MATCH 37

CHAPTER 4—THE ONE-PAGE PROJECT

MANAGER FOR THE PROJECT OFFICE 49

CHAPTER 5—RECOGNITION@WORK:
LAUNCHING A NEW INTERNET BUSINESS 67

CHAPTER 6—MANAGING AN
ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING
PROJECT 81

CHAPTER 7—MANAGING
CONSULTANTS 99

vii

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 CONTENTS

CHAPTER 8—ISO 9000:

GETTING CERTIFIED 109

CHAPTER 9—CUSTOMIZING THE

ONE-PAGE PROJECT MANAGER 119

INDEX 125

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 137

viii

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 FIGURES

Figure 1.1 Five Essential Elements of Every Project 7

Figure 1.2 Standard Template 9
Figure 1.3 The 12 Construction Steps—Step 1 10
Figure 1.4 The 12 Construction Steps—Step 2 11
Figure 1.5 The 12 Construction Steps—Step 3 12
Figure 1.6 The 12 Construction Steps—Step 4 14
Figure 1.7 The 12 Construction Steps—Step 5 15
Figure 1.8 The 12 Construction Steps—Step 6 16
Figure 1.9 The 12 Construction Steps—Step 7 17
Figure 1.10 The 12 Construction Steps—Step 8 19
Figure 1.11 The 12 Construction Steps—Step 9 20
Figure 1.12 The 12 Construction Steps—Step 10 21
Figure 1.13 The 12 Construction Steps—Step 11 22
Figure 1.14 The 12 Construction Steps—Step 12 23
Figure 1.15 The November ADC Report 25
Figure 3.1 Project Thinkers 38
Figure 4.1 Project Office Template 60
Figure 4.2 Mount Olympus Company Project
Office Report 61
Figure 5.1 The January Recognition@work Report 70
Figure 6.1 The May Cornerstone Report 84
Figure 7.1 The Phase One Consulting Report 101
Figure 7.2 The Phase Two Consulting Report 102
Figure 8.1 The September ISO 9000 Report 113

ix

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ftoc.indd x 6/6/08 3:46:36 PM
 FOREWORD

Clark Campbell has done it again . . . created another

One-Page Project Manager (OPPM) winner! What would
it be worth to you to insure that all of your Information
Technology (IT ) projects delivered their expected
value? Clark describes a high-level methodology and
tool to help you achieve this goal. Read on!
This book is specifically written for IT projects, which
need all the help they can get because they generally
have a poor track record of delivering expected value,
as evinced by the following chart. The causes for these
problems are twofold. First is IT effectiveness: the
business and IT departments are seldom closely aligned

Even in companies that recognize the importance of IT,

adequately fund IT, and actively seek to align IT with business
goals, outcomes can be disappointing.

70% agree with while 74% of

the statement, IT PROJECTS 1994–2002
“IN OUR COMPANY, FAILED TO DELIVER
IT IS HIGHLY THE EXPECTED
RELEVANT TO VALUE
ENABLING
GROWTH”
Agree
Canceled
Partially
Failed

Source: Bain annual management survey (n = 359), Bain Management

tools survey.

xi

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 FOREWORD

and can judge project priorities quite differently. In

other words, they are not operating as a singularly
focused unit with effective governance. Second is
IT efficiency: the IT organization is often inefficient
and lacks agility in its development and deployment
processes. When you put these two problems together,
the results include a large percentage of IT projects that
fail to deliver their expected results.
The OPPM for IT projects can help resolve these
problems. In my experience, the OPPM for IT helps in
three areas:

1. Organizing the project: Starting the project with a

simple multidimensional OPPM that lets you see all
the components of the project is extremely valuable.
Project Objectives, Tasks, and Team Members are the
beginning of establishing a successful project plan.
The OPPM becomes the high-level plan that can
be used with other detailed project management
tools for day-to-day project execution. If a potential
problem is not caught upstream, it is generally more
costly to resolve in the project downstream.
2. Establishing a common visual language: One of
the problems that causes disconnect between the
business and IT is language. Although generally
the business and IT speak the same national/cultural
language, there is a business dialect and a technical
dialect that are difficult to understand at times.
Some people call it jargon. The OPPM is a visual
representation of a common goal, the IT project. It is
easily understood by both business and IT and has
no jargon. It takes little, if any, training to understand

xii

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 FOREWORD

this common visual language used to improve

communication.
3. Improving IT and business alignment: Using the
OPPM as a project status communication tool
(weekly or monthly) drives a tighter connection
between the business and IT. This simple
multidimensional tool is easily understood and
offers a transparent view of IT to the business. The
process of regularly using a common visual language
to communicate project status effectively tightens
alignment between IT and the business.

How do I know this? I have successfully used the

OPPM in the last 10 years on a variety of different
IT projects in three different companies. I have also
experienced firsthand the described benefits. I have
been a CIO for 30 years and have been responsible
for the delivery of many projects. My most successful
projects have been in the last 10 years using this OPPM
methodology and tool. The method itself will not assure
success. There are many variables that need to be
managed to deliver a project that meets the expected
value. However, I have found this tool to be very effective.
How would you know if this would work for you?
Should you read the book and put OPPMs into practice
in your IT organization? Let me tell you a little more
about myself and my experiences to help answer this
question. I started my professional career with IBM and
spent 23 years in a variety of professional assignments.
My last five years with IBM were spent as the divisional
CIO of the General Products Division. Then, over the
next 18 years, I served as CIO for six high-tech computer

xiii

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 FOREWORD

companies: Memorex, Unisys, MIPS, SUN Microsystems,

Cirrus Logic, and Exabyte. In my last seven years, I served
as CIO for O.C. Tanner. Why is all of this important?
It is important because in my 30 years as a CIO, I have
participated and directed hundreds of IT projects of
all sizes and complexities. Many have realized their
expected value, and some have not. I only wish that
the OPPM had been developed and refined earlier.
To be candid, I think I have stepped, as it were,
into and out of nearly every IT project “glue bucket.”
And, given the last years with OPPM, I would highly
recommend the use of this tool in all IT projects. It is
simple to use, easy to learn, and provides significant
value to a project. The OPPM helps get a project going,
creates a common visual language for communication,
and effectively improves the IT business alignment.
This is an innovative and simple tool that I consider
a breakthrough for project management. If you need
more motivation and/or help, give Clark a call and
invite him to speak to your team and/or provide some
on-site training.
Read the book and deploy OPPM is my
recommendation. Good luck, and good reading!
DAVE BERG
[email protected]

xiv

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Projects are, most of all, people dependent. A book

about projects is certainly not dissimilar. And indeed,
many people contributed in various ways to this book.
In over 80 years at the O. C. Tanner Company, the
disciplines of project management emerged at various
times, places, and under the leadership of Obert C.
Tanner, Carolyn T. Irish, and O. Don Ostler. The
genesis of the One-Page Project Manager (OPPM)
was the coming together of three requests by CEO
Kent Murdock. First, for all leaders to secure formal
project management training; second, to codify a set of
company specific project management methods; and
third, to provide him with a simple, but not too simple,
communication tool for projects large and small.
The initial OPPMs were designed by a team tasked
to build a $10 million automated storage and retrieval
facility. Wayne Carlston, Klaus Goeller, David Petersen,
Dennis Smith, and I provided the basic ideas, which
Byron Terry brought to life in Microsoft Excel. Once the
form was designed and populated with data mined from
the Primavera and the various Microsoft Project plans,
David Petersen collaborated with all the stake-holders,
filled in and aligned our progress, and prepared the very
first periodic OPPM reports to management.
Could the OPPM be helpful in Information Technology
(IT) projects specifically? Our original project (about

xv

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

which The One-Page Project Manager, was written)

contained a modest $3 million IT component. This early
indication that the OPPM might be IT useful was further
sustained by more comprehensive IT projects guided
by and communicated about using the OPPM. The
collection of IT project successes and failures, coupled
with a growing appreciation for and refinement of the
OPPM are the backdrop for this new book. This was
amplified by the remarkable demand for the first book.
All of this is a collection of insight, contributions, and
support from:

● The project teams that tackled Cornerstone, Entrada,

ISO 9000, and a myriad of smaller IT projects.
● Byron Terry, Alan Horowitz, and Volkmar Nitz, whose
fingerprints may be found throughout the book.
● The Project Management Office.
● Shannon Vargo, Deborah Schindlar, and the team at
John Wiley & Sons.
● Operating Leaders, Management Team, and
Professional Services Group at O. C. Tanner.
● Meredith, Mick, Tracy, Annie, Emma, Abe, Jane, Kate,
Jarv, Jennie, Claire, Owen, Bennett, Peter, Genny,
Lauren, Maren, Thane, Laina, and James.
● Marjorie and Asa; Edith and John.

Finally, gratitude is extended to a continually

expanding group of companies and individual users
and refiners of the OPPM.

xvi

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 INTRODUCTION

Over more than a decade, the One-Page Project Manager

(OPPM) grew from its fledgling ideas into a standard
protocol within the confines of a single corporation.
Now, with the first book exposed to the refining grist of
the free market, it has found a unique and meaningful
place in the discipline and profession of project
management. I never could have forecast that OPPM
would frequently be Amazon’s #2 best-selling project
management book just behind the Project Management
Book of Knowledge (PMBOK), or that it would often be
among the top 50 best selling of all management books.
This second book, The One-Page Project Manager
for IT Projects, is in response to a growing number of
inquiries concerning more specific guidance on how
OPPM has in the past, and may in the future, be used
specifically for IT related projects.
During the early years of project management’s
40-year growth history, time lines and PERT scheduling
techniques were the most commonly taught methods.
Construction, engineering, defense, and aerospace
were the drivers of more formal methods, with
Primavera launching its project management tools in
1983. IT projects themselves began to be aggressively
supported with the launch of Microsoft Project in 1990.
Construction and IT projects possess both divergent
and convergent requirements, broad similarities, and
critical differences. Together, these have fueled much of

xvii

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Other documents randomly have
different content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of In the Garden
of Delight
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: In the Garden of Delight

Author: Lily Hardy Hammond

Release date: November 12, 2020 [eBook #63729]

Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Mardi Desjardins & the online Distributed

Proofreaders Canada team at
https://www.pgdpcanada.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE GARDEN

OF DELIGHT ***
 IN THE GARDEN OF
DELIGHT
BY

L. H. HAMMOND
AUTHOR OF “THE MASTER-WORD,” “IN BLACK AND
WHITE,” ETC.

NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1916,
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
 To

LUCY AND CALDWELL

IN MEMORY OF THE WHEELED-CHAIR SUMMER

AT PEN-Y-BRYN
 CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A Country Child 1
II. Bird Corners 16
III. In Make-Believe 37
IV. The Dark O’ the Year 57
V. Premonitions 81
VI. Before the Dawn 115
VII. Spring Magic 126
VIII. Blackbird Diplomacy 150
IX. The Proof of Courage 169
X. The Routing of Uncle Jason 186
XI. Where the Battle Was Fought 204
XII. In the Garden of Delight 229
XIII. While the Nest Was Building 241
 I
A Country Child

There is one thing, at least, in this puzzling world which, though

everything changes it, nothing can spoil: and that is out-of-doors.
Long ago, when this place was stately old Cedarhurst instead of
home-y Bird Corners, and I a wilful small girl climbing trees and
tearing my frocks whenever Great-aunt Virginia and Great-aunt
Letitia were both looking the other way at the same time—a
coincidence as blissful as it was infrequent—I thought being
outdoors was heaven enough for anybody.
In the long winter afternoons I sat by the big wood fire in the
back parlor and hemmed towels and napkins—when I wasn’t pulling
out yesterday’s work because Great-aunt Virginia found the stitches
too big: and I looked out at the cold, bare hills, blue and beautiful
against the pale sky, and longed to play over them like the winds,
and to be whirled up into the air like the brown leaves which
scurried about them all winter long. And in the spring, when the
budding branches draped the trees with jewelled mists, all silver and
green and gold and ruby-red, I wished the great-aunts had learned
to play on the grass with their whole selves, instead of just with their
fingers on the big old rosewood piano, which stood stiff and square
in the front parlor, an instrument of torture to rebellious hands that
longed to be pulling wild-flowers, and to ears tuned to catch the
songs of birds. And in summer time, when the rain blotted out the
hills, and every leaf of every tree sang the Song of the Rushing
Winds; when the lightning ran zig-zag all over the sky and the
thunder jarred the house—oh, why should great-aunts call one
indoors, and shut the free winds out, and put cotton in their ears,
and make little girls come away from the windows, and the
chimneys, and every place where they wanted to be, instead of
leaving them out in the rain to be drenched like the flowers and
shake themselves dry like the birds?
And in autumn—but those memories are too painful! On frosty
days the house was shut tight, the log fires kindled, and my small
person swathed in insufferable flannels—flannels!—in a Tennessee
October! And when I rebelled, there were fearsome tales of children
who had died of pneumonia, or gone into consumption, because
their misguided relatives had allowed them to play outdoors in the
cold.
And yet outdoors was never more beautiful. Some of the hills
were far and blue, and some were near and green, or brown with
stubble, or yellow with stalks of corn. The grass in the pasture was
greenest green; and when I slipped out on the back porch the
sycamores down by the brook rustled their drying leaves and called
me as loud as they dared. And the doves flew by in flocks, and the
killdeers whirred up from the valley with wild, free cries, and the
field-larks sang on the fence-posts, or lighted on the short, sweet
grass, the white of their outer tail feathers shining in the sun. But
Great-aunt Letitia would call me back to the parlor, where she made
tea, which she and Great-aunt Virginia drank, sitting in rosewood
arm-chairs, dressed in soft shimmering silks, with cobwebby lace
about their throats.
I myself balanced unhappily upon one of the big square
ottomans, too small to get far enough back on it to have any
purchase against the slippery horsehair, and painfully conscious of
Great-aunt Virginia’s eyes on my awkwardly swinging feet. I kept my
place as best I could, holding a bit of egg-shell china, and sipping
my odious cambric tea.
This was the chosen time to instill proper principles of conduct
into my callous little soul. The gentle old aunts made a duet of it,
and I always thought they practiced it together beforehand, like a
“piece” on the piano. It was really very easy not to hear!
I always sat on the ottoman nearest the center table. The other
was nearer the east window, and showed the long front drive
bordered by the stiff lines of cedars, which gave Cedarhurst its name
before the great-aunts were born. But the one by the table had the
double advantage of giving me a dutiful appearance, being equally
distant from both of the arm-chairs, and of allowing me, by an
almost imperceptible sliding to one corner, to look out of the silver-
maple window to the jug of water I kept in the center of the seven
trunks, a drinking fountain for all the birds of the place. I sat very
still during the duet, my head raised a little to see the lowest
branches, where the birds always alighted; and I often quite forgot
my cambric tea until Great-aunt Letitia gently reminded me of it. My
docility touched them very much. I heard Great-aunt Letitia tell
Great-aunt Virginia one day that she was afraid I would never live to
grow up, my expression was so rapt when they urged my duty upon
me; and she felt as though there were an invisible halo above my
little brown head. I was running in through the hall when I heard
this, and stopped in breathless amazement. I had no thought of
eavesdropping, but I saw Great-aunt Virginia wipe her eyes; and
Great-aunt Letitia almost sniffed. I sat stiller than ever after that,
and rolled my eyes a little; and Great-aunt Letitia sent for the doctor,
who said I needed calico dresses and mud pies. The great-aunts
were shocked at first, but the doctor was firm. And after that I
played outdoors unless the thermometer was very unkind and the
wind in an especially dangerous quarter.
There are really two of the-most-beautiful-place-in-the-world.
One of them is the real outdoors; and the other is outdoors in the
Land of Make-Believe. The advantage of the real outdoors is that its
loveliness is ready-made. One invents nothing; one merely opens
eyes and ears and soul to drink in beauty and joy, and learns, almost
without knowing it, the most curious and interesting things. The
advantage of Make-Believe is that when things are as they shouldn’t
be, one can instantly step over into that blessed country and make
them be exactly what they should. No one ever sees you do it,
either, or guesses that you can make a world in a twinkling, out of
dreams. It has all the charm and mystery of a fairy ring, or fern
seed, or Aladdin’s lamp. One’s body can perch on a horsehair piano
stool, twisting one’s two little meat legs about its one fat leg of
rosewood, and great-aunts may be sure you are practising scales
most faithfully; and all the time you are really running races in the
wind with charming, dirty children who tear their dresses all day
long, and never had their hair in curl-papers in their lives.
And that is only the beginning. For one can learn so well the road
to that dear land that one never forgets it, even in grown-up days.
There is never any sickness in Make-Believe. One can walk and run
there always, though one’s body lies weak and helpless, or drags
slowly about, year after year, in a world that is full of pain. One can
slip away from the long, black, sleepless nights into a lovely world
where imagination is the motive power, and all one needs and all
one longs for lie ready to one’s hand.

It was the January after I was sixteen that Cedarhurst burned

down. It was a bitter cold time; and the heaviest snow I had ever
seen turned my familiar world into fairyland under the winter moon.
It was Great-aunt Letitia who found the fire. She had been
looking for it all her life. One of the most familiar memories of my
childhood is the waking at night to hear a soft rustle past my open
door—the doors were always left open that we might smell the fire
when we really had one—and to see Great-aunt Letitia, her white
hair tucked away under a dainty nightcap and the light of her candle
bringing out soft gleams in her flowered silk dressing gown, as she
followed her highbred nose to the spot where it assured her a fire
had broken out. It used to frighten me at first; but I grew too
accustomed to it even to wake. So it taxed my credulity to the
utmost when, on that bitter night, she roused me to tell me with
tense white lips that Cedarhurst was in flames.
How the fire started, we never knew. It burst through the floor of
the empty guest room first, and the ceiling of the dining-room below
it. But however it started, it was there; and there was no one to
fight it but two fragile old ladies, a half-grown girl, and the terrified
Negroes. It was before the days of rural telephones, and the house
was in ruins before any one in the village knew our need. We carried
the news ourselves when we drove into Chatterton in the gray dawn,
shivering with cold. We were all fully dressed, of course; the great-
aunts would have perished in the flames before they would have
shocked the stars of heaven by appearing outdoors in the mildest
disarray. And we saved the family silver, a portrait or two, great-
grandmother’s sewing table, a few books, and the clothes upon our
backs.
On the way to the village Great-aunt Virginia said we had much
to be thankful for in that our lives were spared; but hers, had we
known it, was already lost. She had stood in the snow after the
flames barred all access to the house, until the roof fell in and her
birthplace was a mass of ruins; and before we had been a week at
the home of her nephew, Cousin William Wrenn, she had died of
pneumonia, leaving Great-aunt Letitia and me, as she told us in the
parting, alone and unprotected save for the Father of all, to whom
she trusted us.
But Great-aunt Letitia, whom every one expected to wither and
droop without her sister’s sheltering care, developed an amazing
power of decision. She seemed crushed at first. But on the fourth
day after Great-aunt Virginia had been laid to rest in the hillside
burial ground at home, she came into the family sitting room,
looking, in her deep mourning, very tall and white and frail, and
announced that she had decided not to rebuild Cedarhurst, but to go
to the city to live.
I could scarcely believe my ears. The city’s outmost edge was
only fifteen miles away, but even the village of Chatterton, peopled
largely by our own relatives, seemed crowded and bustling after the
wide quiet of the fields at home. That this frail, retiring old lady
should contemplate a plunge into the vortex of a city whose
inhabitants were numbered by tens of thousands—really several tens
—seemed madness. But her determination was fixed.
“This dear child needs the advantages of city life,” she declared.
“I always found the country exceedingly quiet myself, and-er not
altogether—progressive. But I deferred to Sister Virginia’s judgment.
Now, however—” her voice trembled a moment, and then went on
quite steadily—“the responsibility is mine, and I cannot shirk it. I
think Lydia should have city advantages. I shall go there and devote
myself to her education, and prepare for her entrance into society at
the proper time.”
Argument was of no avail. When I avouched my preference for
the country she said quietly that I knew nothing of the city yet, and
that every one should try more than one side of life before making a
final choice. She was very gentle, but Great-aunt Virginia herself
could not have been more inflexible. We went, to the envy of my
cousin, Billy Wrenn, and to my own silent and passionate grief.
As I grew older, Aunt Letitia grew younger—younger, that is, in
her ideas and in her desires for me. She cared far more than I about
my clothes, and took a livelier interest in possible lovers. I
understood, beneath this late blossoming of pleasure in what she
called gay life, the starved aspirations of her own youth, shut away
in the seclusion of her beautiful home during the many years of her
widowed mother’s invalidism and morbid grieving for her husband.
There were times when her dead-and-gone girlhood rose to life in
her eyes, and a soft color tinged her delicate cheeks, as she
imagined for me some small social triumph or admired me in some
new dress. I divined that she was immensely interested in my men
friends, though her shyness in discussing them was even greater
than her interest. I wondered often if she had a love-story of her
own; but I never knew. My own love-story, when it came, gave her
great happiness; and for three years after my marriage she lived
with us in great content, and passed out at last in utter peace.
My husband is known in our family circle as the Peon, since he
entered into a contract to work for me without wages for life. He
brought into our home at our marriage his brother’s orphaned child,
David Bird, a little fellow four years of age, who flatly refused to call
me auntie and dubbed me Mammy Lil. That was many years ago;
and as the time has passed the Peon and I have realized with
deepening gratitude our debt to the little child who has given our
home its crowning joy. But for David we would have been childless,
growing old alone; for we owe Caro to David, too. I have never
flattered myself that we could have captured and held the heart of
that tricksey birdling if David had not added to our attractions
childhood’s lure to a child.
For our years in the city, however, we found David sufficient in
himself. He has grown up like the Peon’s own son, sturdy, steady,
large of body and of heart. He has stood well in his classes without
much effort; but more because it is his disposition to do thoroughly
whatever he does at all than because of any great love for books. He
is deliberate in manner, and somewhat slow of speech; and his
steady gray eyes seem made to look facts in the face. He has always
moved in straight lines, mentally and physically, cutting through
obstacles which Caro would flutter around in a twinkling; yet
somehow he arrived at the goal in time to secure whatever he set
out to obtain. He was rather too solemn as a child, and regarded
me, apparently, somewhat as the Peon did at times, with an air of
amused and affectionate tolerance. I used to hunt through his small
personality for the spark of fun I was sure lay hidden there, and as
the years passed I caught the glint of it more and more frequently;
but it was really Caro who brought it out into the open, and set it, a
perpetual signal, in his eyes.
I found it easy to awaken in him my own love of outdoors, and
together we made friends with such birds as could be enticed to our
shady yard in the city’s outer circle. We were sworn comrades in our
enmity to the English sparrows, and the bond of a common foe was
one of the many things that drew us into a fellowship unusually
close. The Peon used to say that no boy came to genuine manhood
without something in the way of an evil to hate and to fight; and for
my part I joyfully set up the English sparrows as the embodiment of
all wickedness, to be destroyed beak and tail. My own objections to
them were the result of long watching; but David’s hatred sprang to
life full-fledged the morning we found four of the wretched bullies
fighting one small chickadee, which hung head downward from a
twig of privet, his eyes shut tight, his claws clenched, and his throat
and breast exposed to his enemies’ vicious bills. I think some deep
thirst for justice seized the child’s soul at sight of the helpless victim,
and ever since he has been mindful of weak things in a way
surprising in a boy so ruggedly strong.
He has been wonderfully mindful of me, always. Long before we
left the city I had learned to enjoy outdoors from a cot under the
trees in the back yard. The pain which was to be by turns my
companion, my jailer, and my emancipator had already laid upon me
an iron hand. I was up and about when the Peon was at home; but
when he came in unexpectedly he learned to look for me under the
drooping silver maples in the yard; and my old-time love of birds
was an easy explanation of the many-cushioned cot and the long
hours I daily spent upon it.
David filled the birds’ drinking fountain for me when he came
home to leave his books and get his bat or his football; and I would
lie there, watching my visitors, wondering at the variety of birds to
be seen in a city yard, and wishing the sparrows’ duels were less on
the harmless French order. They never fought because they needed
to do it; it was always for something perfectly futile and foolish.
They would leave all the food I could scatter to tear one crumb from
a neighbor. For it is English sparrow nature never to be satisfied with
what they have, to want only what some one else is enjoying, and to
get it for themselves if they can. David and I were fully agreed that
if anything more hateful was ever created we wished to be spared
acquaintance with it.
 II
Bird Corners

It is to Uncle Milton that I owe our return to the country, and all
the delights of Bird Corners.
Uncle Milton is an inheritance from my great-aunts and
Cedarhurst, where he had the finest flowers and the most flourishing
vegetable garden in the country. He is a lean old Negro, tall, and
straight as a pine. His features are finely cut; and with his gray hair,
long gray moustache, regular features, and skin like polished bronze,
he makes a distinguished appearance, even in his old blue jeans. He
is a real lover of the outdoor world, and the earth and the plants
know it. He bends over the flower-beds lovingly, with eyes that see,
not dirt, but all dirt’s possibilities of beauty and life. There is never a
plant set carelessly nor a seed that falls by chance. No wonder all he
touches grows!
That he went to town with Great-aunt Letitia, and stayed there
afterward with me, spoke eloquently of the strength of affection
between us. But after my great-aunt’s death he did not accept the
situation without constant protests, and the advice which my youth
and ignorance demanded.
“You ain’t got no mo’ business in de city dan I is, Miss Lil,” he
said spring after spring, as I sat on the grass by the flower-beds and
watched his fork go in and out like clock-work, leaving behind it long
rows of fresh-turned earth. “You done los’ all dem roses you had in
yo’ face at home. Ef Miss Ferginny done lived she wouldn’ put up wid
dis foolishness not er minute.”
“But the city is more convenient for Mr. Bird,” I would explain.
“Some day when he is rich enough he expects to give up business,
and then we will go back.”
 “He’ll be givin’ up his wife fus’ news you know,” growled the old
man, stopping to thin the thick border of violets. “An’ he’ll be goin’ to
bury you dar by Miss Ferginny and Miss ’Titia befo’ he goes retirin’
from business ef he don’ look out. We-all got er plenty ter live on
now—you got er plenty widout his’n; en ef you ain’t, I kin make er
plenty outen dat groun’. Hit’s de riches’ lan’ in Davis’son county. I
made hit pay befo’, en I kin do hit agin, stidder was’in’ it on po’
white-trash renters like you all do. But I ’clare to gracious, Miss Lil,
ef you-all don’ go, I will. I been mixin’ up wid town niggers till I’m
plumb wo’ out wid ’em. Dis is de las’ spring Milton’ll fix yo’ flowers in
dis mizzable little cramped-up lot.”
He had said this so often that I regarded it as one of Nature’s
regular spring processes; and beyond a sudden deeper stirring of my
constant homesickness, his threats passed unnoticed. But one
February morning he came out and stood by my cot under the trees
with a face at once elated and downcast.
“Are you going to begin the spring work today?” I asked in
delight.
He looked embarrassed.
“Hit’s sorter early to rake dem leaves offen de beds yit,” he said.
Then he hesitated. “I ’spec I ain’t gwinter be able ter do de wuk no
mo’.”
“Are you sick?” I asked anxiously. Then I saw the new look in his
face, and gasped. “You’re going to the country!” I cried.
“Yassum, I is. I can’t stan’ it yere no longer, Miss Lil: I’m er gittin’
too ole fer town; I des bleeged ter go out whar God made de worl’
en breathe free en be er man ergin, befo’ I die.”
The years had slipped from him like a cloak. I looked at him
enviously—just as an English sparrow might look at some bird of
stronger flight, I reflected suddenly, and scowled at one of my
greedy kinsman in the walk, trying to gobble all the best crumbs at
once.
“I’m glad for you,” I said honestly. “When do you go?”
“When my mont’s out. But I hates ter go, Miss Lil.”
 “What am I to do here?” I demanded, the sparrow in me refusing
to be quenched altogether.
“I’ll do de bes’ I kin,” he said. “I been lookin’ roun’ fer you all
winter. But dese town niggers is a onery set, fer sho’. When you-all
comes home Milton’s comin’ back.”
“Never mind,” I said; “we’ll manage somehow.”
I closed my eyes because they were getting full of tears. He
moved away, and I let the tears come. I wanted the country, too;
and more and more as my illness grew, and it became increasingly
difficult to take my part in the busy city life. The more one’s bodily
freedom is restricted by weakness and pain, the more one longs for
the unconfined spaces of earth and air, for wide horizons and
sweeping winds, and wings that flash far up into the sunshine,
above the shadows where one must lie, conning the hard lesson of
patient idleness. And I wanted Uncle Milton—the visible link between
me and that dear world of hill and sky for which I longed. Return to
it seemed so bright a possibility while another heart, even this old
Negro’s, held it as dear as I. If he went from me he would leave my
hope bereft. I lay with closed eyes, absorbed in longing for that dear
receding vision of delight.
“Don’ you see how bad she wanter go, Marse John?” said Uncle
Milton again, close beside me. I sprang up in amazement, to find
him and the Peon by my cot. “She ain’t gwine ter say a word ef she
think hit’ll discommerdate you; but de chile’s e’en erbout breakin’
her heart fer de country, same as I is.”
“Uncle Milton,” I began indignantly; but the old man brushed my
words aside.
“You en Marse John fight hit out, honey,” he said. “Mek ’er tell de
trufe, Marse John. Hit’s you en her fer it now; Milton’s done his bes’.”
He turned deliberately and walked out of the yard.
It did not take the Peon long to get the facts, to answer all my
objections as to the inconvenience to himself, and to settle finally
our immediate return. We would rebuild Cedarhurst at once.
 “Oh, no,” I cried, “not Cedarhurst! Let us build our own home, all
sunshine and out-of-doors! It isn’t the old house that I love; it was
too cold and stately and dark—such an indoors kind of house. It’s
the hills I’m homesick for, and the sky, and the biggest maple, and
the pasture, and the sycamores down by the brook.”
“But we can’t sleep in the maple,” objected the Peon, “nor eat in
the pasture when it rains. There must be a house.”
“Oh, of course. But let it be our house—not Great-aunt Virginia’s.
You may really build it any way you please if only you will have
porches enough, and so many windows that wherever you sit you
can lift your eyes and look right out, miles and miles and miles. And
I’d like all the rooms to have a southern exposure, of course, on
account of the breeze and the sun, and east windows for winter
mornings, and west windows for the sunsets. I don’t care about the
rest.”
“I insist upon bath-rooms and a kitchen,” said the Peon; “mere
scenery is not a sufficient sanitary basis for life. But what shall we
call it—Cedarhurst?”
“Oh, no! Just a plain, every day, home-y name—something that
belongs to us and the birds. Why, we’re Birds ourselves, Peon, dear.
Let’s be sociable and call it Bird Corners.”
“But there aren’t any corners,” said the practical Peon; “the place
lies straight along the pike.”
That is a man’s way. He thinks he must face facts and shape his
course accordingly, poor slave to the visible that he is. But a woman
conquers facts by turning her back upon them, and playing they are
something else.
“The birds will make the corners,” I explained patiently. “Before
I’ve been putting out crumbs a month there’ll be bird pikes cutting
through the place at every conceivable angle, and crossing each
other under that seven-trunked maple where my cot will be. And if
that won’t be bird corners, what will?”
So we prepared for our homing flight. Uncle Milton went out at
once to trim the trees and prune the shrubbery and vines; and the
occasional days he bestowed on us in town were full of delight for
me, filled as they were with reports of progress at home. For it was
home, before dirt had been broken for the house; the city dwelling
was a mere temporary shelter.
“De jonquils out home is showin’ up fine,” he announced one
morning in mid-February; “hit’s time to sorter stir up dese yere lazy
town flowers. En I’ll trim de trees, too, seein’ I’m ’bout done wid ’em
out home. I ’spec de city folks what’ll live yere atter we-all gone’ll
want what little dab er trees dey got in dis yard.”
He looked scornfully at the back yard, generous in size, after the
fashion of our Southern cities, and shaded with fine old trees. But a
little later, high in the hackberry, his love of all earth-rooted things
swept contempt from his heart, and his dark old face shone with
happiness as he wielded the hatchet with rhythmic strokes.
That is always the beginning of the spring work—the severance
of death from life, that life may rise again, even out of death. Where
would life draw this dead matter next? To darkness first, to growth
most surely, and perchance, some day, to wings. And the dark old
man with the happy face was servitor of life—life for the dead as for
the living; for death is but the underside of life.

We went home early in May. The house would not be finished

until October; but outdoors was all ready for us, and we could not
waste the summer for lack of a house.
“You know,” I argued to the Peon, “we had a beautiful time in the
mountains last summer; and we slept in a two-roomed cottage with
only weather-boarding between us and the trees outside. Why can’t
we have a shed with a gasoline stove, and a couple of tents to live
in?”
So we had them. The Peon and David drove in to Chatterton
daily and took the train for business and school; and I fed the birds
and followed Uncle Milton, and drank in the changing beauties of
earth and sky. And all summer we watched our home grow, from
cellar to roof-tree, till it became a thing complete, and fitted into the
landscape for which it was designed.
We set it on the old home’s hill, which overlooked the
countryside, and faced it toward the sunrising. The dark lines of
cedars which had bordered the approach to the old house were left
at one side, and the road, curving from their upper end, swept into
full sunshine and passed under a great beech, which spread its tiers
of leaves above the doorway. It is an unpretentious house, rambling
about pretty much as it pleases in its efforts to give southern and
eastern and western exposures to all the rooms. Porches are
everywhere, and the windows either open on them, like doors, or
stop a little above the floor at low, cushioned seats, which tempt one
to sink down and wonder once again at the beauty of this fair
country of middle Tennessee. There are no curtains at the windows,
nor mats of vines outside. But up the widely-separated columns of
the porches run clematis and jasmines which cross the great
openings in narrow bands, above and below. So all summer the
fretwork of green leaves frames the landscape, a perfect, yet
everchanging picture in each of the wide spaces. The east end of the
living-room is of glass, and my flowers flourish there in winter time.
In my own room the bed stands in a deep recess formed all of
windows on the three sides. A low seat runs under them within
reach of the bed. All through the dark, sleepless night I can lie there
and watch for the first paling of the eastern sky, and follow the level
light as it moves softly along the southern hills, creating the
shadows which make the light so clear.
It must be confessed that some of the kin at Chatterton thought
my wits astray that first summer, and the Peon but a soft-headed,
poor-spirited creature for giving way to my whimsies. Camping out
was not as popular then as it is now; and the older members of the
family did not hesitate to commiserate the Peon and David. That
they professed to enjoy our long picnic only added to the
heinousness of my folly.
Cousin Chadwell Grackle and his wife were among my first
callers. Cousin Chad is always to the front when anything new crops
up in the family. He has cried the sins and shortcomings of the
whole usual order so long that even he is half bored with them, and
the prospect of something new to criticise whets his social appetite
to the keenest possible edge. Cousin Jane is his reflection and echo.
If she were not, even her stolid nerves could scarcely have endured
his painful type of piety without disaster.
They drove up one sunshiny morning, after they had seen the
Peon and David pass on their way to town. I was on the cot under
the biggest maple. Its seven trunks fall apart like long-stemmed
flowers in a vase, spreading into a great green tent whose leafy
curtains droop in a circle full seventy feet across.
The blackbirds were my principal guests that morning, a
sanctimonious crew in sleek black coats, solemn, censorious, and
self-satisfied to the last degree. All birds which walk instead of
hopping are awkward-looking; but none are as preposterous as the
blackbirds, because none of them put on such sanctified airs. As
they moved about this morning, their heads thrust meekly forward,
ducking modestly as they stepped, they appeared to be meditating
on their neighbors’ sins. But they had their tribe’s keen eye for the
main chance, and it was a swift bird and a wary one which secured a
big crumb with these feathered Chadbands in the yard.
I looked up at the sound of wheels and nearly choked with
swallowing my laughter. Cousin Chad and Cousin Jane did look so
sleek and proper, that as I rose to meet them I could not refrain
from throwing some extra crumbs on the grass for possible additions
to my breakfasting guests.
They descended ponderously and looked at me with the
apprehensive scrutiny one might bestow on a lunatic who is liable to
break out immediately in a fresh place.
“How are you, Lyddy?” inquired Cousin Jane, with sepulchral
anxiety. Cousin Chad, busy with the hitching-post, listened with his
back as well as with his ears. They both know perfectly that I have
always been Lil to everyone except the great-aunts, and that Lyddy
has been an abomination to the entire family connection, and
especially to me, since they first invented it in my childhood. That is
why they stick to it. They believe in chastenings, do my cousins, the
Grackles—particularly when they are the chasteners.
“I’m perfectly well,” I answered, with added emphasis to my
usual formula. “Come and sit down. There’s no need to ask how you
and Cousin Chad are; you look the picture of health.”
“Appearances don’t do to go by, Lyddy,” she answered solemnly,
sinking ponderously on a creaking campstool. “Chadwell’s been
havin’ sciatica, and I’ve stayed awake nights with him till I’m just
about worn out. But I’ve never made my afflictions an excuse for
shirkin’ my duty. We came over to say that as you seem to be
without a roof over your heads we’d take you to board till your
house is finished—if it ever is.”
She glanced contemptuously at the amorphous piles of building
material just beyond us.
“You can have the second spare bed-room upstairs,” put in
Cousin Chad. “It’s more to my interest to put you in the front one;
but livin’ comes high any way you take it, and I want to consider
you. I reckon John ain’t able to spend much, with all this building on
hand. The back room’s small, but you three can make out in it. If
you want the other, of course it will cost more. You can come over
this evening after John gets home, and he and I can settle the terms
after supper.”
I kept my face quite straight, and made a handsome contribution
to current fiction.
“It’s so kind of you. John will appreciate it as much as I. But we
really enjoy camping, and would not give it up even for those lovely
rooms of yours, Cousin Chad. Thank you so much.”
Cousin Jane’s rubicund complexion assumed a purplish hue.
“Do you intend to kill that delicate child of Henry Bird’s, making
him sleep out in the weather all summer?” she demanded.
“No,” I said, considering; “I don’t intend to kill him, exactly. And
he isn’t at all delicate.”
 “Well, he will be by the time you get through with him—if he ain’t
dead,” broke in Cousin Chad. “Lyddy, it’s my duty to speak plainly,
and I’ll not shirk it. Letitia spoiled you from the time you were born,
and John Bird seems bent on keeping it up. David will pay the
penalty for it. We do a very different part by the orphan the Lord
made it our duty to take charge of, I can assure you. Caroline
Wrenn’s health is taken care of, with a view to her future usefulness
as a Christian. But of course you’ll stick to your own ways.—Well,
I’ve warned you: my conscience is clear. Come, Jane: we’d better be
going.”
“I’m glad your conscience is clear, Cousin Chad. I know that’s a
comfort to you, if I’m not. But we can be good friends, can’t we,
even though our ideas are different?”
“I shall not turn my back upon you if you’re in trouble, Lyddy, if
that’s what you mean,” he answered. “I hope I know my duty better
than that. But when you want help again you must ask for it. I don’t
intend to offer it.”
“That’s a bargain, then,” I said; “and we must both remember it.”
Cousin Jane looked at me sharply, but Cousin Chad was already
heaving her into the buggy, and she turned to get a good grip on
the side. The vehicle creaked as she settled in it, and groaned when
Cousin Chad sank beside her.
“Good-bye, Lyddy,” she said. “We’ve done our best. I hope you
won’t regret it.”
This quite upset me, and after the cedars hid them I lay laughing
until the thought of poor little Caro suddenly sobered me. What were
they doing to Billy’s child? I must make friends with Cousin Jane,
somehow, and entice the little thing over to Bird Corners as much as
possible.
There was no one else whom our erratic manner of life really
scandalized, except Cousin Jason Blue; and he, as he took occasion
to tell me when he met me out driving one day with Caro, never
made a fool of himself like Chad Grackle by meddling. If a woman
wanted to follow her nature and behave like a lunatic, and her
husband chose to allow it, it was none of his business; so he
shrugged his shoulders and passed on.
Cousin Jason and the Grackles are the only kin I have in all
Chatterton whose kinship I would discount if I could; but there is no
denying they belong in the family. Cousin Chad’s father was my
grandmother’s third half-cousin on my father’s side; and Cousin
Jason’s mother was Cousin Lysander Hilliard’s step-daughter by his
second marriage: there could scarcely be anything plainer than that.
And if Cousin Jason had his drawbacks, there are none about his
half-sister, Grace, fifteen years his junior, and, except Ella, the
dearest friend I have. She married George Wood soon after I
married the Peon, and they have a daughter, Milly, about the age of
Caro Wrenn.
David took kindly to country life, and to his numerous cousins-by-
marriage. There were plenty of boys among them; and though at
first they resented David’s city ways, their respect for him grew
immensely when they found how far he could bat a ball; and after
he had whipped Bob White in single combat he was admitted to
Chatterton boydom as a comrade in full fellowship. There was no
particular reason for his fighting Bob, so far as we dull grown-ups
could discover, except that Bob was the leader of his set, and a fight
was considered the necessary initiation to membership. As soon as
this was made clear to him, David had painstakingly trodden on
Bob’s toes, and the preliminaries were arranged at once. The boys
were excellent friends, before and afterward; and the Peon would
not allow me to discuss the matter with David. They talked it out in
private, and reached some amicable male conclusion of their own.
Of the girl cousins David was loftily tolerant, excepting Caro
Wrenn. She was five years old the spring we came back to the
country, when David was half-past nine. Her mother had died when
she was born, and her father, Billy Wrenn, had gone to Colorado
three years afterward, to die there of consumption. He made Cousin
Chad Caro’s guardian before he died, knowing, as we all did, Cousin
Chad’s remarkable ability in reaping financial harvests from even the
smallest investments; but he left the child herself with her mother’s
sister, Sally Martin, never dreaming that death would again bereave
the little creature of a mother’s love. Sally died, quite suddenly, less
than a year after Billy; and Cousin Chad and Cousin Jane, intent, as
usual, on doing their impeccable duty, assumed sole care of the little
heiress, and installed her in their own childless and virtuous home.
A more incongruous setting for her could scarcely have been
found. She was a tiny creature, with rose-leaf skin, great hazel eyes,
a mop of red-brown curls, and a mouth where laughter bubbled all
day long. Quick and bird-like in all her movements, she flitted in and
out of the most unexpected recesses in the twinkling of an eye, with
endless flutterings of hands and skirts and sweet gurglings of
suppressed laughter. Almost from her cradle she sang—queer little
soft croonings which slipped into tunes before she could speak their
words. Cousin Jane scarcely knew what to make of her, and was torn
between a sincere desire to do her Spartanly-Christian duty by her,
and her solemn puzzlement over what she considered the child’s
combination of depravity and charm. Even Cousin Jane could not be
very severe with her; but she had an uneasy sense of spoiling her
every time she forebore the rod, so that I found her more than
willing to turn the child over to me for the greater part of the time.
This arrangement gave my revered relative ample warrant for
looking closely into my household affairs and reproving me for
everything she did and didn’t discover; it was her duty to know all
about a place where dear Caroline spent so much of her time. And
when Caro departed from Cousin Jane’s ideals, as she did with every
movement of body and mind, it was a great relief to my pious cousin
to be able publicly to disavow all responsibility for the child’s
shortcomings. What, as she constantly inquired, could one expect of
Caroline when that scatter-brained Lyddy would persist in
encouraging the child in her flightiness? She published abroad her
own powerlessness to control either Caro or the situation, and
openly washed her hands of the consequences.
Caro and I bore up as best we could, and the Peon and David
stood by us nobly. David, indeed, was ready to fight his idol’s battles
with Cousin Jane herself. In fact, he grew up with a lack of respect
for that excellent lady which tempted her to assume the role of a
prophet, in which capacity she dwelt at large on the penitentiary as
David’s ultimate place of residence. Caro always responded to these
prognostications that, if Davy went to the penimtentium, she would
go, too, as soon as she was big enough, and keep house for him,
and make the cook give them ice-cream every day that came. And
so the matter rested.
 III
In Make-Believe

It is four years since I wrote those last words. Not long after,
Caro went away to school. David went North to college that year,
and was only coming home for the regular holidays. He still held to
his boyhood preference, and was determined to be a scientific
farmer: and since the Peon and I were to have him with us always,
we wanted him to have a few years quite away from us in which to
make his own adjustments to life. So they left us the same week,
David with all a boy’s love to hold him back, and a young man’s
eagerness to urge him away; and Caro in as nearly easterly weather
as her sunny nature ever experienced.
It was Cousin Jane who first decided on Caro’s banishment. For
the sake of her own peace of mind she had of late years resigned
the child almost entirely to me; but every now and then she had
what Caro called a “qualm spell.” During these painful periods Caro
resided with the Grackles, strictly, not even coming over to take
lunch with me. She arose at five and extinguished her light at nine;
and pinned on the wall beside her bureau, in Cousin Jane’s firm
handwriting, was a schedule of useful occupations for each of the
intervening sixteen hours.
She had so much time for devotions, so much for meals, so much
for school, for study, for “domestic occupations,” for “improving and
useful reading,” and for “practical sewing.” Cousin Jane never
allowed precious time wasted on fancy work; and if she thought it
was all like the awful things she had in her parlor I don’t in the least
blame her for thinking it wicked.
However, Caro’s time was laid out for her as exactly as the
squares on a checker-board. She fed the chickens, argued with the
old biddies who wanted to “set” in the wrong place, and wheedled
the arrogant old Buff Orpington, who ruled the hens and Cousin
Jane with ease and contempt, into doing whatever she wanted of
him. She made butter that drew near-smiles to Cousin Jane’s stiff
lips, and evolved cakes that called forth lectures to Cousin Chad on
the sin of gluttony. She sewed, without a murmur, or a particle of
trimming, undergarments of good, reliable, ever-wearing domestic.
She was always foresighted enough to make ample allowance for
their shrinking when washed; whereby she both pleased Cousin Jane
and insured an excellent fit for little black Josie when she returned to
us with a halo of virtue above her red-brown curls. She read history
till she could put me to the blush. She washed the best tea-cups and
the Persian cat. She dusted the parlor daily. And from her early
childhood she made irreproachable jam.
It really was excellent training for her; thorough good discipline,
as Cousin Jane would say; especially as it was interspersed with
“spells of Bird-Cornering,” during which she sojourned with the Peon
and me. For the period of discipline always followed an accustomed
round. It began with a Cousin Jane all severity, lynx-eyed to drag
poor Caro’s delinquencies to light and overcome them by unsparing
criticism. But Caro has always made play of everything, finding by
the talisman of her own happy heart the hidden beauty, or laughter,
of the ugliest and solemnest things. She did all Cousin Jane found
for her to do—which is saying a good deal—not only cheerfully, but
with whole-souled delight, as if it were her very meat and drink.
Doing it that way, she did it beyond criticism; and Cousin Jane would
begin to relax, unwillingly, unable to find a flaw, yet with an uneasy
feeling that something must be wrong, or Caro couldn’t possibly be
enjoying herself so much. When she set herself to mortify Caro’s
girlish vanity the child met her more than half-way. She did her best
to “slick” her curls, and donned shapeless gingham aprons as
joyously as though they were made of jewels and lace. Cousin Jane
would find herself being mollified to the point of indulgence in spite
of herself; and about that time Caro would come flying into the yard
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