Curious idea, is it not? Imagine a murder committed in the lonely woods,
a snowstorm that covers the tracks of the flying man before the avenger
of blood has buried the body, and then, a week later, the withdrawal of
the traitorous snow, revealing step by step the path Cain took--the
six-inch dee-trail of his snow-shoes--each step a dark disk on the
white till the very end.

There is so much, so very much to write, if it were worth while, about
that queer little town by the railway station, with its life running, to
all outward seeming, as smoothly as the hack-coupés on their sleigh
mounting, and within disturbed by the hatreds and troubles and
jealousies that vex the minds of all but the gods. For instance--no, it
is better to remember the lesson Monadnock, and Emerson has said, 'Zeus
hates busy-bodies and people who do too much.'

That there are such folk, a long nasal drawl across Main Street attests.
A farmer is unhitching his horses from a post opposite a store. He
stands with the tie-rope in his hand and gives his opinion to his
neighbour and the world generally--'But them there Andersons, they ain't
got no notion of etikwette!'




ACROSS A CONTINENT


It is not easy to escape from a big city. An entire continent was
waiting to be traversed, and, for that reason, we lingered in New York
till the city felt so homelike that it seemed wrong to leave it. And