And we shook on it.




CHAPTER VII

MAPS AND FAREWELLS


It was wonderful what a change our new plan wrought in our spirits.

Our melancholy was immediately dispersed, and its place taken by active
anticipations of our journey. The North wind in the trees, instead of
blustering dismissal, sounded to our ears like the fluttering of the
blue-peter at the masthead of our voyage. Strange heart of man! A day
back we were in tears at the thought of going. Now we are all smiles to
think of it, all impatience to be gone. We quote Whitman a dozen times
in the hour, and it is all "afoot and light-hearted" with us, and "the
open road."

But there were some farewells to make to people as well as to trees.
There were friends at Elim to bid adieu, and also there were maps to be
consulted, and knapsacks to be packed--exhilarating preparations.

Our friends looked at us, when we had unfolded our project, with a
mixture of surprise and pity. "Amiable lunatics" was the first comment of
their countenances, and--"There never was any telling what the artistic
temperament would do next!" Had we announced an air-ship voyage to the
moon, they would have regarded us as comparatively reasonable, but to