her of you," and these words I now took a stern pleasure in
upholding. Without a dollar of my own, I announced my intention to fare
forth into the world on the strength of my two hands, but my father, who
was in reality a most affectionate parent, offered me thirty dollars to
pay my carfare.

This I accepted, feeling that I had abundantly earned this money, and
after a sad parting with my mother and my little sister, set out one
September morning for Osage. At the moment I was oppressed with the
thought that this was the fork in the trail, that my family and I had
started on differing roads. I had become a man. With all the ways of the
world before me I suffered from a feeling of doubt. The open gate
allured me, but the homely scenes I was leaving suddenly put forth a
latent magic.

I knew every foot of this farm. I had traversed it scores of times in
every direction, following the plow, the harrow, or the seeder. With a
great lumber wagon at my side I had husked corn from every acre of it,
and now I was leaving it with no intention of returning. My action, like
that of my father, was final. As I looked back up the lane at the tall
Lombardy poplar trees bent like sabres in the warm western wind, the
landscape I was leaving seemed suddenly very beautiful, and the old home
very peaceful and very desirable. Nevertheless I went on.

Try as I may, I cannot bring back out of the darkness of that night any
memory of how I spent the time. I must have called upon some of my
classmates, but I cannot lay hold upon a single word or look or phrase
from any of them. Deeply as I felt my distinction in thus riding forth
into the world, all the tender incidents of farewell are lost to me.
Perhaps my boyish self-absorption prevented me from recording outside
impressions, for the idea of travelling, of crossing the State line,
profoundly engaged me. Up to this time, notwithstanding all my dreams of
conquest in far countries, I had never ridden in a railway coach! Can
you wonder therefore that I trembled with joyous excitement as I paced
the platform next morning waiting for the chariot of my romance? The
fact that it was a decayed little coach at the end of a "mixed
accommodation train" on a stub road did not matter. I was ecstatic.

However, I was well dressed, and my inexperience appeared only in a
certain tense watchfulness. I closely observed what went on around me
and was careful to do nothing which could be misconstrued as ignora