LITTLE 

 JOURNEYS 



noticed that my visitor had hair of a light yellow like 

 a Swede from Hennepin County, Minnesota, and that 

 this hair was three shades lighter than his bronzed 

 tace e£w «£* 



" I can do any kind of work, you know, and if you will 

 just loan me that pick " — 

 And I handed him the pickaxe. 



Young Wallace remained with us for a week, asking 

 for nothing, doing everything, even to helping the girls 

 wash dishes. That he was the son of a great man, no 

 one would have ever learned from his own lips. In fact, 

 I am not sure that he was impressed with his father's 

 excellence, but I saw there was a tender bond between 

 them, for he haunted the village postoffice, morning, 

 noon and night, looking for a letter from his father. 

 "When it came he was as happy as a woodchuck. He 

 showed me the letter — it was nine finely written pages. 

 But to my disappointment not a word about marsupi- 

 als, siamang or syndactylse, just news about William, 

 John, Mary and Benjamin, with references to chickens 

 and cows, and a new greenhouse, with a little good 

 advice about keeping right hours and not overeating. 

 Q The young man had spent three years at Oxford, and 

 was an electrical engineer. He was intent on finding 

 out just as much about the secrets of American railroad 

 construction as he possibly could. As for intellect, I 

 did not discover any vast amount, perhaps he did n't 

 either. But we all enjoyed his visit, and when he went 

 away I presented him with a clean, second-hand flan- 

 nel shirt and my blessing. 

 94 



