When I was rested, I journeyed through the islands to find old
friends, and found them. The heartiness of the welcome that met
me everywhere! No need of their telling me they were glad to see
me. It shone out of their faces and all over them. I shall always
remember that journey: the people in the cars that were forever
lunching and urging me to join in, though we had never met before.
Were we not fellow-travellers? How, then, could we be strangers?
And when they learned I was from New York, the inquiries after Hans
or Fritz, somewhere in Nebraska or Dakota. Had I ever met them? and,
if I did, would I tell them I had seen father, mother, or brother,
and that they were well? And would I come and stay with them a
day or two? It was with very genuine regret that I had mostly to
refuse. My vacation could not last forever. As it was, I packed it
full enough to last me for many summers. Of all sorts of things,
too. Shall I ever forget that ride on the stage up the shore-road
from Elsinore, which I made outside with the driver, a slow-going
farmer who had conscientious scruples, so it seemed, against
passing any vehicle on the road and preferred to take the dust of
them all, until we looked like a pair of dusty millers up there
on the box.
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