hat
lost north our town lay with flags fluttering, picnic baskets getting
into trains and everybody out on their lawns and porches.

We didn't look at each other after that first glance--that Swede and I.
And we said the sunlight hurt our eyes.

Three months later I was sitting under the velvet-soft, star-sown night
sky of the Argentine cattle country. I had seen volcano-scarred
Martinique and had watched the beautiful island of Barbados rising like
a fairy dream out of a foamy sea.

I had marveled at the endless beauties of Rio lying so picturesquely in
its immense harbor and at the foot of its great, shaggy, sun-splashed,
smoke-wreathed mountains. I had tramped through unsanitary Santos and
loved it because it looked like Chicago in spite of its mountains and
banana trees. I had witnessed a wonderful fiesta in Buenos Aires and
had churned two hundred miles up the La Plata when it was bubbling with
rain. And I had had a tooth pulled in Paysandu, the second largest
city in Uruguay.

All that in three months! And there were still a million wonders to
see. I loved and shall always love these radiant, sun-drenched
uncrowded lands. But my heart was heavy as lead. For I was homesick.
My eyes were tired of alien starshine, of alien, unfamiliar things, and
my heart cried out for the little home towns of my own country.

But I could not go back for many, many months. So I learned Spanish
and hobnobbed with wonderfully wise and delightful Spanish
grandmothers. I grew to love some darling Indian babies. I
interviewed interesting South American cowboys and discussed war and
socialism with an Argentine navy officer. I exchanged calls and true
blue friendships with soft-voiced Englishwomen. And I took tea and
dinner aboard the ships of Welsh sea captains from Cardiff.

I had a wonderful time. I filled my notebook, took pictures and
collected souvenirs. I laughed and told stories. Folks down there
said I was good company.

But oh! In the hush of a rain-splashed night, when the fire in the
grate dozed and dreamed and a boat siren somewhere out on the inky La
Plata wailed and moaned through the black night, my heart flew back
over those gray-green waves to a little town that I knew in the U. S.
A. And to ease my longing I wrote Green Valley.

KATHARINE REYNOLDS.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I EAST AND WEST
II SPRING IN GREEN VALLEY
III THE LAST OF THE CHURCHILLS
IV A RAINY DAY