en miles across the wind-swept
prairie in the face of a winter storm.

It was midnight when we reached home, but I could not sleep until I had
told my mother all about it. I remember the hall was packed, and there
were many gaslights, and on the stage were a dozen men--all very great,
my father said. One man arose and spoke. He lifted his hands, raised his
voice, stamped his foot, and I thought he surely was a very great man.
He was just introducing the real speaker.

Then the Real Speaker walked slowly down to the front of the stage and
stood very still. And everybody was awful quiet--no one coughed, nor
shuffled his feet, nor whispered--I never knew a thousand folks could be
so still. I could hear my heart beat--I leaned over to listen and I
wondered what his first words would be, for I had promised to remember
them for my mother. And the words were these--"My dear friends: We have
met here tonight to talk about the Lost Arts."... That is just what he
said--I'll not deceive you--and it wasn't a speech at all--he just
talked to us. We were his dear friends--he said so, and a man with a
gentle, quiet voice like that would not call us his friends if he wasn't
our friend.

He had found out some wonderful things and he had just come to tell us
about them; about how thousands of years ago men worked in gold and
silver and ivory; how they dug canals, sailed strange seas, built
wonderful palaces, carved statues and wrote books on the skins of
animals. He just stood there and told us about these things--he stood
still, with one hand behind him, or resting on his hip, or at his side,
and the other hand motioned a little--that was all. We expected every
minute he would burst out and make a speech, but he didn't--he just
talked. There was a big, yellow pitcher and a tumbler on the table, but
he didn't drink once, because you see he didn't work very hard--he just
talked--he talked for two hours. I know it was two hours, because we
left home at six o'clock, got to the hall at eight, and reached home at
midnight. We came home as fast as we went, and if it took us two hours
to come home, and he began at eight, he must have been talking for two
hours. I didn't go to sleep--didn't nod once.

We hoped he would make a speech before he got through, but he didn't. He
just talked, and I understood it all. Father held my hand: we laughed a
little in places, at others we wanted to cry, but didn't--but most of
the time we just listened. We