MORE and more I cut loose from the explanatory guiding strings of my sister and the family, even from the requested information of specialists, and wandered by myself in search of the widening daily acquaintance which alone could make life seem real again.

It was an easy world to wander in. The standard of general courtesy and intelligence of the officials, and of the average passer-by, was as much above what I remembered as the standard in Boston used to be above that of New York.

As most of the business was public business one could study and inquire freely. As much work as could be advantageously localized was so arranged, this saving in trans portation. The clothing industry, for in stance, instead of being carried on in swarming centers, and then distributed all over the country, formed part of the pleasant everyday work in each community and was mostly in the hands of women.

As a man I could appreciate little of the improved quality of fabrics, save as I noticed their beauty, and that my own clothes wore longer, and both looked and felt more agreeable. But women told me how satisfying it was to know that silk was silk, and wool, wool. This improvement in textile values, with the outgrowing of that long obsession called fashion, reduced the labor of clothes-making materially.

Women’s clothes, I found, as I strolled were very delicate and fine, and had a gracious dignity and sanity far removed from the frantic concoctions I remembered in the windows; — shredded patchwork of muslin and lace, necessarily frail and short-lived even as ornaments, never useful, and costing arduous labor in construction, with corresponding expense to the purchaser.

The robes and gowns were a joy to the eye. Some showed less taste than others, naturally, but nowhere was to be seen the shameless ugliness so common in my youth.

Beauty and peace, I found, care, leisure, quietness, plenty of gaiety, too, both in young and old. It struck me that the young (people, owing to their wider and sounder upbringing, were more serious, and that older people, owing to their safer, easier lives, were jollier. These sweet-faced, broad-minded young women did not show so much giggling inanity as once seemed necessary to them; and a young man, even a young man in college, did not, therefore, find pleasure in theft, cruelty, gross practical jokes and destruction of property.

As I noted this, I brought myself up with a start. It looked as if Nellie had written it. Surely, when I was in college — and there rose up within me a memory of the crass, wasteful follies that used to be called “pranks” in my time, and considered perfectly natural in young men. I had not minded them in those days. It gave me a queer feeling to see by my own words how my judgment was affected already.

I explored the city from end to end, and satisfied myself that there was no poverty in it, no street that was not clean, no house that was not fit for human habitation. That is, as far as I could judge from an outside view.

Aimong the masses of people, after their busy mornings, there were vast numbers who used the afternoons for learning, the easy, interesting, endless learning now carried on far and wide. The more they learned the more they wanted to know; and the best minds, free for research work, and upheld in it by the deepening attention of the world, constantly pushed on the boundaries of knowledge.

There were some hospitals yet, but as one to a hundred of what used to be, of higher quality, and fuller usefulness. There were some of what I should have called prisons, though the life inside was not only as comfortable as that without, but administered with a stricter care for the advantage of those within.

There were the moral sanitariums — healthful and beautiful, richly endowed with the world’s best methods of improvement, and managed by the world’s best people. It made me almost dizzy to try to take in this opposite pole of judgment on the criminal.

Out of town I found that the park-like roads, so generally in use, by no means interfered with the wide stretches of what I used to call “real country.” Intensive agriculture took less ground, rather more; and the wide use of food-bearing trees had restored the wooded aspect, so pleasant in every sense.

The small country towns were of special interest to me; I visited scores of them; each differing from the others, all beautiful and clean and busy. They were numerous too; replacing the areas of scattered lonely farmhouses, with these comfortable and pretty groups, each in its home park, with its standard of convenience as high as that in any town.

The smallest group had its power plant, supplying all the houses with heat, light and water, had its child gardens, its Town House and Club House, its workshops and foodshops as necessary as its postoffices.

The Socialized industries ensured employment to every citizen, and provided all the necessaries of life — larger order this than it used to be. Quite above this broad base of social control, the life of the people went on; far freer and more open to individual development than it had ever had a chance to be in the whole history of the world.

This I frankly conceded. I found I was making more concessions in my note-book than I had yet made to either Nellie or Owen. They encouraged me to travel about by myself. In fact, my sister was now about to resume her college position and Owen was going with her.

They both advised me not to settle upon any work for a full year.

“That’s little enough time in which to cover thirty,” Nellie said, patting my shoulder. “But you’re doing splendidly, John. We are proud of you. And there’s no hurry. You know there’s enough from our mine to enable you to join the leisure class’ — if you want to!”

I had no idea of doing this, as she well knew, but I did feel it necessary to get myself in some way grafted on to this new world before I took up regular employment. I found that there was not much call for ancient languages in the colleges, even if I had been in touch with the new methods; but there remained plenty of historical work, for which I had now a special fitness. Indeed some of my new scientific friends assured me I could be of the utmost service, with my unique experience.

So I was not worried about what to do, nor under any pressure about doing it. But the more I saw of all these new advantages, the more I was obliged to admit that they were advantages; the more I traveled and read and learned, the more lonesome and homesick I became.

It was a beautiful world, but it was not my world. It was like a beautiful dream, but seemed a dream nevertheless. I could no longer dispute that it was possible for people to be “healthy, wealthy and wise”; and happy, too — visibly happy — here they all were; working and playing and enjoying life as naturally as possible. But they were not the people I used to know; those, too, were like Frank Borderson and Morris Banks — changed so that they seemed more unreal than the others.

The beauty and peace and order of the whole thing wore on — me. I wanted to hear the roar of the elevated — to smell the foul air of the subway and see the people pile in, pushing and angry, as I still remembered in my visits to New York.

I wanted to see some neglected-looking land, some ragged suburbs, some far-away farmhouse alone under its big elms, with its own barns in odorous proximity, its own cows, boy-driven, running and stumbling home to be milked.

I wanted a newspaper which gave me the excitement of guessing what the truth was, I wanted to see some foolish, crazily dressed, giggling girls, and equally foolish boys, but better dressed and less giggling, given to cigarettes and uproarious “good times.”

I was homesick, desperately homesick. So without saying a word to anyone I betook myself to old Slide-face, to see Uncle Jake.

All the way down — and I went by rail — no air travel for this homecoming! — I felt an increasing pleasure in the familiar look of things. The outlines of the Alleghanies had not changed. I. would not get out at any town, the shining neatness of the railroad station was enough; but the sleeping cars were a disappointment. The beds were wide, soft, cool, the blankets of light clean wool, the air clear and fresh, the noise and jar almost gone. Oh, well, I couldn’t expect to have everything as it used to be, of course.

But when I struck out, on foot, from Paintertown, and began to climb the road that led to my old home, my heart was in my mouth. It was a better road, of course — but I hardly noticed that. All the outlying farms were better managed and the little village groups showed here and there — but I shut my eyes to these things.

The hills were the same — the hills I had grown up among. They couldn’t alter the face of the earth much — that was still recognizable. Our own house I did not visit — both father and mother were gone, and the little wooden building replaced by a concrete mining office. Nellie had told me about all this; it was one reason why I had not come back before.

But now I went past our place almost with my eyes shut; and kept on along the. road to Uncle Jake’s. He had been a rich man, as farmers went, owning the land for a mile or two on every side, owning Slide-face as a matter of fact; and as he made enough from the rich little upland valley where the house stood, to pay his taxes, he owned it still.

The moment I reached his boundary I knew it, unmistakably. A ragged, home-made sign, sagging from its nails, announced “Private Road. No trespassers allowed.” Evidently they heeded the warning, for the stony, washed-out roadbed was little traveled.

My heart quite leaped as I set foot on it. It was not “improved” in the least from what I remembered in my infrequent visits. My father and Uncle Jake had “a coldness” between them; which would have been a quarrel, I fancy, if father had not been a minister, §p I never saw much of these relations.

Drusilla I remembered well enough, though, a pretty, babyish thing, and Aunt Dorcas’s kind, patient, tired smile, and the fruit cakes she made.

Up and up, through the real woods, ragged and thick with dead boughs, fallen trunks and underbrush, not touched by any forester, and finally, around the shoulder of Slide-face, to the farm.

I stood still and drew in a long breath of utter satisfaction. Here was something that had not changed. There was an old negro plowing, the same negro I remembered, apparently not a day older. It is wonderful ( how little they do change with years. His wool showed white though, as he doffed his ragged cap and greeted me with cheerful cordiality as Mass’ John.

“We all been hearin’ about you, Mass’ John. We been powerful sorry ‘bout you long time, among de heathen,” he said. “You folks’ll be glad to see you!”

‘.‘Well, young man!” said Uncle Jake, with some show of cordiality; “better late than never. We wondered if you intended to look up your country relations.”

But Aunt Dorcas put her thin arms around my neck and kissed me, teary kisses with little pats and exclamations. “To think of it! Thirty years among savages! We heard about it from Nellie — she wrote us, of course. Nellie’s real good to Keep us posted.”

“She never comes to see us!” said my Uncle. “Nor those youngsters of hers. We’ve never had them here but once. They’re too ‘advanced’ for old-fashioned folks.”

Uncle Jake’s long upper lip set firmly; I remembered that look, as he used to sit in his wagon and talk with mother &t our gate, refusing to come in, little sunny-haired Drusilla looking shyly at me from under her sunbonnet the while.

Where was Drusilla? Surely not — that! A frail, weak, elderly, quiet, little woman stood there by Aunt Dorcas, her smooth fine, ash-brown............