d green by
Indians and, by inferior brutes, adorned with advertisements of "bile
beans." We had reached The Dalles--the centre of a great sheep and wool
district, and the head of navigation.

When an American arrives at a new town it is his bounden duty to "take
it in." California swung his coat over his shoulder with the gesture of
a man used to long tramps, and together, at eight in the evening, we
explored The Dalles. The sun had not yet set, and it would be light for
at least another hour. All the inhabitants seemed to own a little villa
and one church apiece. The young men were out walking with the young
maidens, the old folks were sitting on the front steps,--not the ones
that led to the religiously shuttered best drawing-room, but the
side-front-steps,--and the husbands and wives were tying back pear trees
or gathering cherries. A scent of hay reached me, and in the stillness
we could hear the cattle bells as the cows came home across the
lava-sprinkled fields. California swung down the wooden pavements,
audibly criticising the housewives' hollyhocks and the more perfect ways
of pear-grafting, and, as the young men and maidens passed, giving
quaint stories of his youth. I felt that I knew all the people
aforetime, I was so interested in them and their life. A woman hung over
a gate talking to another woman, and as I passed I heard her say,
"skirts," and again, "skirts," and "I'll send you over the pattern"; and
I knew they were talking dress. We stumbled upon a young couple saying
good-by in the twilight, and "When shall I see you again?" quoth he; and
I understood that to the doubting heart the tiny little town we paraded
in twenty minutes might be as large as all London and as impassable as
an armed camp. I gave them both my blessing, because "When shall I see
you again?" is a question that lies very near to hearts of all the
world. The last garden gate shut with a click that travelled far down
the street, and the lights of the comfortable families began to shine in
the confidingly uncurtained windows.

"Say, Johnny Bull, doesn't all this make you feel lonesome?" said
California. "Have you got any folks at home? So've I--a wife and five
children--and I'm only on a holiday."

"And I'm only on a holiday," I said, and we went back to the
Spittoon-wood Hotel. Alas! for the peace and purity of the little town
that I had babbled about. At the back of a shop, and discreetly
curtained, was a room where the young men