and, so withered and small, with the gray in his hair, and his coat so
much too long for him--back to the poor brown house, which no tender love
had ever hallowed, or merry waiting laugh made bright for him; and I
wondered, along his life's way which looked so sad and desolate, what
hidden wild flowers God had strewed for him, that he seemed always so
humbly cheerful and content, and brought his best of offerings with a
smile to bless the happier lot of others.

For the rest of the way, the wild untenanted stretch was unbroken by any
incident; yet I remember no tedium by the way; and I believe that a trip
taken with Grandma and Grandpa Keeler through the most trackless desert
would inevitably have been made to teem with diversion. Those blessed
souls! I smile, looking back, but through tears, and with a reverence
and tenderness far deeper than the smile.

By the time we reached the West Wallen depot the sky had clouded over.

"A little shower comin' up," Grandma said, but Grandpa shook his head and
prophesied "a long, stiddy spell o' weather."

I persuaded my friends not to wait with me for the arrival of the train
which, owing to some discrepancy in the matter of time between Wallencamp
and West Wallen, would not be due for an hour or more.

I watched them out of sight, the last of my Wallencamp! How deeply, how
utterly it had grown into my life, so that now, in spite of the secret,
glad exultation I felt at the thought of going home, my heart went
running out after that quaint, receding vehicle, and aching sensibly.

On board the train at last, I began to experience something of the
sensation of one who awakens from a long sleep to the half-forgotten ways
of men and life with a vague, untroubled wonder as to the latest styles
in dress; or, like a traveller from a strange country, weary, and
way-worn, and out of date, who yet can smile, hugging in his breast the
happy secret of boundless wealth in the gold-mine he has discovered far
away.

I had neither umbrella, portmanteau, nor shawl-strap; such ordinary
paraphernalia of travel I remembered once to have possessed, and tried in
vain to recall the particular occasions on which they had been wrecked in
Wallencamp. I bore with me my bouquet, my basket of boxberries, some
small cedar trees for transplanting, and half of the largest clam-shell
the shores of Cape Cod had ever produced; this last a parting gift from
Lovell Barlow.

I was far from being troubled with