n, don't you ever be afraid of acting up to the very best thoughts
you have in your heart."

He said nothing for a moment, and then: "Gee! I'm sorry you're goin'
away!"

"Gee!" I responded, "I'm sorry, too!"

With that we both laughed, but when I reached the top of the hill, and
looked back, I saw him still standing there bare-footed in the road
looking after me. I waved my hand and he waved his: and I saw him no
more.

No country, after all, produces any better crop than its inhabitants.
And as I travelled onward I liked to think of these brave, temperate,
industrious, God-friendly American people. I have no fear of the country
while so many of them are still to be found upon the farms and in the
towns of this land.

So I tramped onward full of cheerfulness. The rain had ceased, but all
the world was moist and very green and still. I walked for more than
two hours with the greatest pleasure. About ten o'clock in the morning I
stopped near a brook to drink and rest, for I was warm and tired. And it
was then that I bethought me of the little tin pipe in my knapsack, and
straightway I got it out, and, sitting down at the foot of a tree near
the brook, I put it to my lips and felt for the stops with unaccustomed
fingers. At first I made the saddest sort of work of it, and was not a
little disappointed, indeed, with the sound of the whistle itself. It
was nothing to my memory of it! It seemed thin and tinny.

However, I persevered at it, and soon produced a recognizable imitation
of Tom Madison's "Old Dan Tucker." My success quite pleased me, and
I became so absorbed that I quite lost account of the time and place.
There was no one to hear me save a bluejay which for an hour or more
kept me company. He sat on a twig just across the brook, cocking his
head at me, and saucily wagging his tail. Occasionally he would dart off
among the trees crying shrilly; but his curiosity would always get the
better of him and back he would come again to try to solve the mystery
of this rival whistling, which I'm sure was as shrill and as harsh as
his own.

Presently, quite to my astonishment, I saw a man standing near the
brookside not a dozen paces away from me. How long he had been there
I don't know, for I had heard nothing of his coming. Beyond him in the
town road I could see the head of his horse and the top of his buggy. I
said not a word, but continued with my practising. Why shouldn't I? But
it gave me quite a thrill for t