e same as always.

* * * * *

There was no conceivable trouble of terrestrial origin that could touch
her--or would want to. And, as it turned out, I was right in that
respect.

I was right in another respect too. By finishing my thesis I became a
Ph.D. on schedule, and if I had abandoned all that and rushed to Sumac
the moment I received the telegram it could not have materially altered
the outcome of things. And Aunt Matilda, hanging on the wall of my
study, knitting things for the Red Cross, will attest to that.

You, of course, might argue about her being there. You might even insist
that I am hanging on her wall instead. And I would have to agree with
you, since it all depends on the point of view and as I sit here typing
I can look up and see myself hanging on her wall.

But perhaps I had better begin at the beginning when, with my thesis
behind me, I arrived on the 4:15 milk run, as they call the train that
stops on its way past Sumac.

I was in a very disturbed state of mind, as anyone who has ever turned
in a doctorate thesis can well imagine. For the life of me I couldn't be
sure whether I had used _symbol_ or _token_ on line 7, sheet 23, of my
thesis, and it was a bad habit of mine to unconsciously interchange them
unpredictably, and I knew that Dr. Walters could very well vote against
acceptance of my thesis on that ground alone. Also, I had thought of a
much better opening sentence to my thesis, and was having to use will
power to keep from rushing back to the university to ask permission to
change it.

I had practically no sleep during the fourteen-hour run, and what sleep
I did have had been interrupted by violent starts of awaking with a
conviction that this or that error in the initial draft of my thesis had
not been corrected by the final draft. And then, of course, I would have
to think the thing through and recall when I had made the correction,
before I could go back to sleep.

So I was a wreck, mentally, if not physically, when I stepped off the
train onto the wooden depot platform that had certainly been built in
the Pleistocene Era, with my oxblood two-suiter firmly clutched in my
left hand.

With snorts of steam and the loud clanking of loose drives, the train
got under way again, its whistle wailing mournfully as the last empty
coach car sped past me and retreated into the distance.

As I stood there, my brain tingling with weariness, and listened to t