Andrew McGill, the author of those books every one reads, is
my brother. In other words, I am his sister, ten years
younger. Years ago Andrew was a business man, but his health
failed and, like so many people in the story books, he fled to
the country, or, as he called it, to the bosom of Nature. He
and I were the only ones left in an unsuccessful family. I
was slowly perishing as a conscientious governess in the
brownstone region of New York. He rescued me from that and we
bought a farm with our combined savings. We became real
farmers, up with the sun and to bed with the same. Andrew
wore overalls and a soft shirt and grew brown and tough. My
hands got red and blue with soapsuds and frost; I never saw a
Redfern advertisement from one year's end to another, and my
kitchen was a battlefield where I set my teeth and learned to
love hard work. Our literature was government agriculture
reports, patent medicine almanacs, seedsmen's booklets, and
Sears Roebuck catalogues. We subscribed to _Farm and Fireside_
and read the serials aloud. Every now and then, for real
excitement, we read something stirring in the Old
Testament--that cheery book Jeremiah, for instance, of which
Andrew was very fond.
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