THE children were brought up in the oak-tree. Richard made a cradle-box at the end of one of the low boughs that almost swept the ground and there was always one baby in the box on the bough and one on the ground among the roots—a new one that had just come down from the bough.

And then, presently, one of those on the ground—with the help of Eleanor and a chair—climbed to the first branches close to the trunk.... Then another one climbed, and another, till they were all swarming in the great oak—no longer close to the trunk, but far out on the branches among the leaves, swinging and lilting in the wind.

The boys played they were sailors climbing the masts that swayed giddily beneath them; they sat on cross-beams and gazed out to sea; or they were on the scaffolding of tall buildings, hammering great steel beams into place as the sky-scrapers rose in the air; or they were the advance force of an army—scouting aeroplanes, swooping toward a besieged town.

Between the branches of the great tree and the wind that swayed them or drove shrilly against them, the boys adventured on life. But Annabel made of the tree an outdoor home as like the one across the lawn as the leaves and branches and a great trunk shooting up through the centre would permit. The tree-trunk was the chimney, of course, and she had roaring fires in every room, up stairs and down, and cooking and sweeping and dusting, with lively flourishes and much running up and down stairs. She was a little lonely at times, because the boys—who did not really care for the game—would suddenly desert her for excursions in the aeroplanes, or to shoot arrows from the house-top. She was liable to find herself, at any moment, with her house swept and dusted, and no one to live in it with her. Only down from the top among the leaves and the swaying limbs would come wild growls and quick whispers—intent and breathless calls to action.... Then Annabel would leave her dust-cloths and her pots and pans, and creep stealthily up, up, up—till the topmost branch was reached, and the wind blew in her face, and her little pigtails stood straight out with delight and she was filled with the glow of life. For days she would play the game in the top of the tree. And then, some morning, she would find herself back among her treasures—her sticks and bits of moss and leaves, close to the trunk of the tree, going up and down stairs in happy content; and her imagination would grow deep and intent. Her face, pressed against the bark, seemed no longer to need the swing of the dangerous branches and the surging of the wind to rouse it. She would sit close to the trunk of the tree on a solid limb, and play the great game almost without stirring—a deep silent game that stirred her to the very core.... The boys were willing to play house with her and sometimes to sweep and dust a little along the branches, and visit back and forth, upstairs and down. But as for sitting on a limb, intent and still, gazing at what went on beneath the line of sight!... They left her sitting there alone, gazing at nothing, and fled to the top of the tree and yelled with shrill vacant calls of delight and relief.

But when the youngest baby, who proved happily to be a girl, when the time for climbing came—when this youngest baby had been pulled and boosted by Annabel up into the tree beside her, and when two of them could sit happily side by side, looking at each other in silence, then there seemed a fairer division of forces.

Gradually the boys, when they ventured far out on dangerous limbs, would feel a silent tug pulling them back to the heart of things.

And underneath the tree where the children played, Eleanor sat with her sewing or reading or with the youngest baby on her lap, and sang to it or played with it till it was time for it to sleep in its cradle-box in the tree....

And Richard coming home at night, or at noon on half-holidays, would find his family there, and he would climb with the boys, or sit with Eleanor under the tree, or play with the youngest baby. Or he would stroll with his pipe back and forth across the lawn, puffing it and listening to the voices that came from the tree, or watch his wife, with the sunlight and the shadow-leaves falling on her work.

Sometimes he took them all for excursions into the country—at first in street-cars, crowding and piling in; and then in the old surrey that was big enough to carry them all; and at last in the touring-car that swept up the miles.

There was no pause in his prosperity; though the tax of the growing family made it a little difficult sometimes to adjust business and family demands.... And then suddenly the money began to come in and pile up faster than he could use it. He was counted one of the solid men of the region; and the family life expanded on all sides. The problem now was not whether the business could afford it, but whether the children’s characters could afford it.

Richard and Eleanor sought for expensive schools that would force a child to live simply and fare hard and think keen and straight; and when no such schools were to be found, Richard took William Archer out of the expensive school that was making a nonentity of him, and put him into the business and drove him hard.

And Annabel was brought home on the plea that her mother needed her.

She was not quite strong that year, it seemed.

So Annabel took charge of the house—and of Eleanor and Richard, and of every one in sight.

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