wouldn't be. Say, that does sound mixed, don't it? But
it's straight. Now you tell yours."

"I think you've said it all," began Guy Peel. "It's queer, isn't it, how
twelve years of America will spoil one for afternoon tea, and yew trees,
and tapestries, and lace caps, and roses. The mater was glad to see me,
but she said I smelled woolly. They think a Navajo blanket is a thing
the Indians wear on the war path, and they don't know whether Texas is a
state, or a mineral water. It was slow--slow. About the time they were
taking afternoon tea, I'd be reckoning how the boys would be rounding up
the cattle for the night, and about the time we'd sit down to dinner
something seemed to whisk the dinner table, and the flowers, and the men
and women in evening clothes right out of sight, like magic, and I could
see the boys stretched out in front of the bunk house after their supper
of bacon, and beans, and biscuit, and coffee. They'd be smoking their
pipes that smelled to Heaven, and further, and Wing would be squealing
one of his creepy old Chink songs out in the kitchen, and the sky would
be--say, Miss Meron, did you ever see the night sky, out West? Purple,
you know, and soft as soap-suds, and so near that you want to reach up
and touch it with your hand. Toward the end my mother used to take me
off in a corner and tell me that I hadn't spoken a word to the little
girl that I had taken in to dinner, and that if I couldn't forget my
uncouth western ways for an hour or two, at least, perhaps I'd better not
try to mingle with civilized people. I discovered that home isn't always
the place where you were born and bred. Home is the place where your
everyday clothes are, and where somebody, or something needs you. They
didn't need me over there in England. Lord no! I was sick for the sight
of a Navajo blanket. My shack's glowing with them. And my books needed
me, and the boys, and the critters, and Kate."

"Kate?" repeated Miss Meron, quickly.

"Kate's my horse. I'm going back on the 5:25 to-night. This is my
regular trip, you know. I came around here to buy a paper, because it
has become a habit. And then, too, I sort of felt--well, something told
me that you----"

"You're a nice boy," said Miss Meron. "By the way, did I tell you that I
married the manager of the show the week after I got back? We go to
Bloomington to-night, and then we jump to St. Paul. I came around here
just as usual, because--well--