* * * * *

They reached Havana that evening and sold their canoe to a man who kept
boats to rent on the river shore. They ate a hot supper at the tavern and
got a ride with a farmer who was going ten miles in their direction. From
his cabin some two hours later they set out afoot in the darkness.

"I reckon it will be easier under the stars than under the hot sun," said
Abe. "Our legs have had a long rest anyhow."

They enjoyed the coolness and beauty of the summer night.

"Going home is the end of all journeys," said Abe as they tramped along.
"Did it ever occur to you that every living creature has its home? The
fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts of the field and
forest, the creepers in the grass, all go home. Most of them turn toward
it when the day wanes. The call of home is the one voice heard and
respected all the way down the line of life. And, ye know, the most
wonderful and mysterious thing in nature is the power that fool animals
have to go home through great distances, like the turtle that swam from
the Bay of Biscay to his home off Van Dieman's Land. Somehow coming over
in a ship he had blazed a trail through the pathless deep more than ten
thousand miles long. It's the one miraculous gift--the one call that's
irresistible. Don't you hear it now? I never lie down in the darkness
without thinking of home when I am away."

"And it's hard to change your home when you're wonted to it," said Harry.

"Yes, it's a little like dying when you pull up the roots and move. It's
been hard on your folks."

This remark brought them up to the greatest of mysteries. They tramped in
silence for a moment. Abe broke in upon it with these words:

"I reckon there must be another home somewhere to go to after we have
broke the last camp here and a kind of a bird's compass to help us find
it. I reckon we'll hear the call of it as we grow older."

He stopped and took off his hat and looked up at the stars and added:

"If it isn't so I don't see why the long procession of life keeps harping
on this subject of home. I think I see the point of the whole thing. It
isn't the place or the furniture that makes it home, but the love and
peace that's in it. By and by our home isn't here any more. It has moved.
Our minds begin to beat about in the undiscovered countries looking for
it. Somehow we get it located--each man for himself."

For another space they hurried along without spe