he wanted it--in which to go where he liked, do what he liked. One might
do much worse, he reflected, than find some such spot as this and idle
to one's heart's content. There would be trout, as like as not, in that
stony brook back there; sunfish, probably, in that lazy stream crossing
the open meadow yonder. It would be jolly to try one's luck on a day
like this; jolly to lie back on the green bank with a rod beside one and
watch the big white clouds sail across the wide blue of the sky. It
would seem almost like being a boy again!

Presently, when, after passing through the sleepy village of Tottingham,
the road crossed a shallow stream, Wade bade the boy drive through it.

"Don't have to," replied unimaginative fourteen. "There's a bridge."

"I know there is," answered Wade, "but my doctor has forbidden bridges.
Drive through the water. I want to hear it gurgle against the wheels."

He closed his eyes, expectantly content, and so did not see the alarmed
look which the boy shot at him. The horse splashed gingerly into the
stream, the wheels grated musically over the little stones, and the
water lapped and gurgled about the spokes. Wade leaned back with closed
eyes and nodded approvingly. "Just the same," he murmured. "It might be
the ford below Major Dabney's. This is surely God's own country again."

Further on they rattled through the quiet streets of East Tottingham, a
typical New England village built around a square, elm-shaded common. It
was all as Ed had described it; the white church with its tall spire
lost behind the high branches, the Town Hall guarded by an ancient black
cannon, the white houses, the green blinds, the lilac hedges, the
toppling hitching-post before each gate. Tottingham Center succeeded