As jubilant as young
Lochinvar, I came out of the West one summer dawn, and took train for
Heartsease. I had resolved to compass in a single week the innumerable
landmarks that dot mountain and desert and prairie--to leap as it were
from sea to sea, from the present to the past, from manhood to early
youth.
Is it any wonder that I forestalled the time, and was a day and a
night distant before inquiring friends discovered my flight? Is it any
wonder that the shrieking and swaying train seemed slow to me, for
already my spirit had folded its swift wings in the nest-like village
of Heartsease? I had, moreover, by this brilliant manoeuvre, left the
bitter cup of parting untasted--but nothing more serious than
this--and seemed to have won a whole day from the clutches of Time,
who deals them out so stingily to the expectant and impatient watcher.
San Francisco faces the sunrise, but there is a broad glittering bay
and a coast range with brawny bare shoulders between them: I sailed
over the flashing water, rode under the mountains and threaded three
tunnels before I began to realize that I was a fugitive from home. It
was midsummer; the car-windows were half open; whiffs of warm wind
blew in upon me scented with bay-leaves and sage. For a moment I
forgot Heartsease and the home of my youth, and turned tenderly to
take a last farewell of the beloved land of my adoption.
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