FOUR DREAMERS 81 



stick in his hand, and was brushing leaves 

 and other litter out of the path. Perhaps 

 he had married a model housekeeper in his 

 youth, and had gone mad over the spring 

 cleaning. He always saw me before I could 

 get within easy speaking range ; and he had 

 the true woodman's knack of making himself 

 suddenly invisible. Sometimes I was almost 

 ready to believe that he had dropped into 

 the ground. Evidently he did not mean to 

 be talked with. Perhaps he feared that I 

 should ask impertinent questions. More 

 likely he thought me crazy. If not, why 

 should I be wandering alone about the woods 

 to no purpose ? I had no path to keep in 

 order. 



And perhaps I am a little crazy. Medi- 

 cal men insist upon it that the milder forms 

 of insanity are much more nearly universal 

 than is commonly supposed. Perfectly sound 

 minds, I understand them to intimate, are 

 quite as rare as perfectly sound bodies. At 

 that rate there cannot be more than two or 

 three truly sane men in this small town ; 

 and the probabilities are that I am not one 

 of them. 



