hen you're sure.

"We went to walk in the Depot Woods. I remember how much he made me
talk--more than I'd ever talked before, excep' in the dream. I know I
told him the little stories I'd read about noted people, an' I said over
some o' the verses I'd learned an' liked the sound of--I remembered 'em
all for him, an' he listened an' heard 'em all just the way I'd said
'em. That was it--he heard it all just the way I said it. An' I
mentioned the sun on the leaves an' the way the clouds looked, right
out--an' I knew he didn't think I was affected. An' I made up things an'
said, too--things that was always comin' in my head an' that I was
always wantin' to say. An' he'd laugh almost before I was through--oh,
it was like heaven to have him laugh an' not just say, 'What on earth
_are_ you talkin', Calliope Marsh?' like I'd heard. An' he kep' sayin',
'I know, I know,' like he knew what I meant better than anything else in
the world. Then he read to me out o' the book he had an' he told
me--beautiful things. Some of 'em I remember--I've remembered always.
Some of 'em I forgot till I come on 'em, now an' then, in books--long
afterwards; an' then it was like somebody dead spoke up. I'm always
thankful to get hold o' other people's books an' see if mebbe I won't
find somethin' else he said. But a good many o' the things I s'pose I
clear forgot, an' I won't know 'em again till in the next life. Like I
forgot what we said in the dream, till they're both all mixed up an'
shinin'.

"We talked till 'most time for the 4.20 train. An' when it got towards
four o'clock, I told him about my dream. It seemed like he ought to
know, somehow. An' I told him how I dreamed I was him.

"'You don't look like the one I dreamed I was,' I told him, 'but, oh,
you talk the same--an' you pretend, an' you laugh, an' you seem the
same. An' your face looks different from folks here in Friendship, just
like his, an' it seems somehow like you saw things besides with your
eyes,' I told him, 'like the poet in my picture. So I know it's you--it
must be you,' I says.

"He looked at me so queer an' sudden an' long.

"'I'm a poet, too,' he said, 'if it comes to that. A very bad one, you
know--but a kind of poet.'

"An' then of course I was certain sure.

"When he understood all about it, I remember how he looked at me. An' he
says:--

"'Well, an' who knows? Who knows?'

"He sat a long time without sayin' anything. But I wasn't unhappy, even
when he seem