October Vagabonds | Page 6

life once more
with our fellows. Besides, we should be walking in the wake of the
Summer. She has only moved a little East as yet. We might catch her
up on her way to New York, and thus move with the moving season,
keeping in step with the Zodiac. Then, at last, ... how much more fitting
our entry into New York, not by way of some sordid and clangorous
depot, but through the spacious corridors of the Highlands and the
lordly gates of the Hudson!"
When I had thus attained my crescendo, Colin rose impressively, and
embraced me with true French effusion.
"Old man," he said, "that's just great. It's an inspiration from on high. It
makes me feel better already. Gee! but that's bully."
French as was his blood, it will be observed that Colin's expletives
were thoroughly American. Of course, he should have said sacré mille
cochons or nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu; but, though in appearance, so
to say, an embodied "sacré" he seemed to find the American vernacular

sufficiently expressive.
"Is it a go, then?" said I.
"It's a go," said Colin, once more in American.
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 walk--to walk--some four or five hundred miles in
America, of all countries, a country of palace cars and, lightning
limited expresses, not to mention homicidal touring automobiles,
seemed like--what shall I say?--well, as though one should start out for
New Zealand in a row-boat, or make the trip to St. Petersburg in a
sedan-chair.

But there were others--especially the women--who understood, felt as
we did, and longed to go with us. I have never met a woman yet whose
face did not light up at the thought of a walking tour, and in her heart
long to don Rosalind clothes and set forth in search of adventures. We
thus had the advantage, in planning our route, of several prettily coiffed
heads bending over our maps and guide-books with us.
"Four hundred and thirty miles," said one of these Rosalinds, whose
pretty head was full of pictures of romantic European travel. "Think
what one could do with four hundred and thirty miles in Europe. Let us
try, for the fun of it."
And turning to a map of Europe, and measuring out four hundred and
thirty miles by scale on a slip of paper, she tried it up and down the
map from point to point. "Look at funny little England!" she said.
"Why, you will practically be walking from one end of England to the
other. See," and she fitted her scale to the map, "it would bring you
easily from Portsmouth to Aberdeen.
"And now let us try France. Why, see again--you will be walking from
Calais to Marseilles--think of it! walking through France, all vineyards
and beautiful names. Now Italy--see! you will be walking from
Florence to Mount Etna--Florence, Rome, Naples, Palermo."
And so in imagination our fair friend sketched out fanciful pilgrimages
for us. "You could walk from Gibraltar to the Pyrenees," she went on.
"You could walk from Venice to Berlin; from Brussels to Copenhagen;
you could walk from Munich to Budapest; you could walk right across
Turkey, from Constantinople to the Adriatic Sea. And Greece--see! you
could walk from Sparta to the Danube. To think of the romantic use
you could make of your four-hundred-odd-miles, and how different it
sounds--Buffalo to New York!"
And again she repeated, luxuriating in the romantic sound of the words:
"Constantinople to the Adriatic! Sparta to the Danube!--Buffalo to New
York!"
There was not wanting to the party