; and then he would lie and not stir until morning and
suck; and after few or many days people would find you, dead in the
woods--a victim of fog and mist...

A rumbling sound made me sit up at last. We were crossing over the
"twelve-mile bridge." In spite of my dreaming I was keeping my eyes on
the look-out for any sign of a landmark, but this was the only one I
had known so far, and it came through the ear, not the eye. I promptly
looked back and up, to where the cottonwoods must be; but no sign of
high, weeping trees, no rustling of fall-dry leaves, not even a deeper
black in the black betrayed their presence. Well, never before had I
failed to see some light, to hear some sound around the house of the
"moneyed" type or those of the "half way farms." Surely, somehow I
should be aware of their presence when I got there! Some sign, some
landmark would tell me how far I had gone!... The horses were trotting
along, steaming, through the brewing fog. I had become all ear. Even
though my buggy was silent and though the road was coated with a thin
film of soft clay-mud, I could distinctly hear by the muffled thud of
the horses' hoofs on the ground that they were running over a grade.
That confirmed my bearings. I had no longer a moment's doubt or anxiety
over my drive.

The grade was left behind, the rut-road started again, was passed
and outrun. So now I was close to the three-farm cluster. I listened
intently for the horses' thump. Yes, there was that muffled hoof-beat
again--I was on the last grade that led to the angling road across the
corner of the marsh.

Truly, this was very much like lying down in the sleeping-car of an
overland train. You recline and act as if nothing unusual were going on;
and meanwhile a force that has something irresistible about it and is
indeed largely beyond your control, wafts you over mile after mile of
fabled distance; now and then the rumble of car on rail will stop, the
quiet awakens you, lights flash their piercing darts, a voice calls out;
it is a well known stop on your journey and then the rumbling resumes,
you doze again, to be awakened again, and so on. And when you get up
in the morning--there she lies, the goal of your dreams-the resplendent
city...

My goal was my "home," and mildly startling, at least one such
mid-nightly awakening came. I had kept peering about for a landmark,
a light. Somewhere here in those farmhouses which I saw with my mind's
eye, people were sitting