spring and away from the woods the path led across
overgrown pastures to another road, perhaps three
quarters of a mile away, and near this road was the
small farm which had been his former home. As
he walked slowly along, he was met again and again
by some reminder of his youthful days. He had
always liked to refer to his early life in New England
in his political addresses, and had spoken more than
once of going to find the cows at nightfall in the
autumn evenings, and being glad to warm his bare feet
in the places where the sleepy beasts had lain, before
he followed their slow steps homeward through bush
and brier. The Honorable Mr. Laneway had a touch
of true sentiment which added much to his really stirring
and effective campaign speeches. He had often
been called the “king of the platform”
in his adopted State. He had long ago grown used
to saying “Go” to one man, and “Come”
to another, like the ruler of old; but all his natural
power of leadership and habit of authority disappeared
at once as he trod the pasture slopes, calling back
the remembrance of his childhood. Here was the
place where two lads, older than himself, had killed
a terrible woodchuck at bay in the angle of a great
rock; and just beyond was the sunny spot where he
had picked a bunch of pink and white anemones under
a prickly barberry thicket, to give to Abby Harran
in morning school. She had put them into her desk,
and let them wilt there, but she was pleased when
she took them. Abby Harran, the little teacher’s
grandmother, was a year older than he, and had wakened
the earliest thought of love in his youthful breast.
It was almost time to catch the first sight of his
birthplace. From the knoll just ahead he had
often seen the light of his mother’s lamp, as
he came home from school on winter afternoons; but
when he reached the knoll the old house was gone,
and so was the great walnut-tree that grew beside
it, and a pang of disappointment shot through this
devout pilgrim’s heart. He never had doubted
that the old farm was somebody’s home still,
and had counted upon the pleasure of spending a night
there, and sleeping again in that room under the roof,
where the rain sounded loud, and the walnut branches
brushed to and fro when the wind blew, as if they
were the claws of tigers. He hurried across the
worn-out fields, long ago turned into sheep pastures,
where the last year’s tall grass and golden-rod
stood gray and winter-killed; tracing the old walls
and fences, and astonished to see how small the fields
had been. The prosperous owner of Western farming
lands could not help remembering those widespread
luxuriant acres, and the broad outlooks of his Western
home.