g speed so rapidly
that I did not dare jump off.

I took my seat again. Soon my tears dried.

The trees flapped by. The telegraph poles danced off in irregular lines.
I became acquainted with my fellow passengers. I was happy.

I made romance out of every red and green lamp in the railroad yards we
passed through, out of the dingy little restaurants in which I ate....

The mysterious swaying to and fro of the curtains in the sleeper
thrilled me, as I looked out from my narrow berth.

In the smoker I listened till late to the talk of the drummers who
clenched big black cigars between their teeth, or slender Pittsburgh
stogies, expertly flicking off the grey ash with their little fingers,
as they yarned.

I wore a tag on my coat lapel with my name and destination written on
it. My grandmother had put it there in a painful, scrawling hand.

* * * * *

The swing out over wide, salt-bitten marshes, the Jersey marshes grey
and smoky before dawn!... then, far off, on the horizon line, New York,
serrate, mountainous, going upward great and shining in the still dawn!

* * * * *

Beneath a high, vast, clamorous roof of glass....

As I stepped down to the platform my father met me.

I knew him instantly though it had been years since I had seen him.

* * * * *

My father whisked me once more across the long Jersey marshes. To
Haberford. There, on the edge of the town, composed of a multitude of
stone-built, separate, tin-roofed houses, stood the Composite Works. My
father was foreman of the drying department, in which the highly
inflammable sheets of composite were hung to dry....

My father rented a large, front room, with a closet for clothes, of a
commuting feed merchant named Jenkins ... whose house stood three or
four blocks distant from the works.

So we, my father and I, lived in that one room. But I had it to myself
most of the time, excepting at night, when we shared the big double bed.

* * * * *

Still only a child, I was affectionate toward him. And, till he
discouraged me, I kissed him good night every night, I liked the smell
of the cigars he smoked.

I wanted my father to be more affectionate to me, to notice me more. I
thought that a father should be something intuitively understanding and
sympathetic. And mine was offish ... of a different species.. wearing
his trousers