tering back to his bedroom again.... I waited till he was
quiet and back to sleep--then I stole forth in the quiet moonlight near
dawn.

It gave me a pleasure to vanish like smoke. I thought of the time when I
had that job plowing in Southern California; that time I had driven the
horses to the further end of the field, and left them standing there
under the shade of a tree and then made off, wishing to shout and sing
for the sheer happiness of freedom from responsibility and regular work.

Each time I have made off that way, from a multitude of varying
employments, it has not been, surely, to the detriment of my successive
employers. I have always decamped with wages still owing me.

* * * * *

I swung a scythe for a week for another Yankee farmer, on a marsh where
the machine couldn't be driven in--which I was informed was King
Phillip's battle ground.

* * * * *

I visited the inn where Longfellow was supposed to have gotten his
inspiration for _Tales of a Wayside Inn_.

I must see all the literary landmarks, even those where I considered the
authors that had caused the places to be celebrated, as dull and third
rate....

* * * * *

With gathering power in me grew my desire to attend college. I would
tramp, as I was doing, through the country, and end up at some western
university for the fall term.

* * * * *

The art workers' community lay in my way at Eos.

I dropped off a freight, one morning, in the Eos yards....

The gladdest to see me again was the Buddhist, Pfeiler. He rushed up to
me, in the dining hall, that night, and took both my hands in his ...
thanking me for my kind thought of him in sending him my Ossian ...
avowing that he had made a mistake in his opinion of me and asking my
indulgence ... for he was old and a failure ... and I was young and
could still look forward to success.

My unexpected dropping-in at Eos created quite a stir.

Spalton welcomed me back, and stood, that evening, before the fire in
the sitting room, with his arm about my shoulder ... even as he did so I
remembered the picture taken of him and the celebrated poet L'Estrange,
together ... their arms about each other's shoulders ... and the current
Eos proverb, that Spalton always quarrelled not long after with anyone
about whose shoulder he first cast his arm.

* * *