But how was I
to get home?
The combined fares on that route, I remembered, had amounted to something
over nine dollars! So the question haunted me, not restlessly, but with a
vague, tranquil, melancholy interest, as pertaining to the history of
some one who had lived and died a few years before; so long indeed, it
seemed to me, since I had performed the journey to Wallencamp.
I had not written home as to the day of my probable arrival, in this
yielding passively to the force of habit, which had ever constrained me
to plan my returns as "surprises" to my family and friends.
But for myself, I had fixed the day of my departure from Wallencamp, and,
in spite of the discovery made in regard to the insufficient state of my
finances, looked forward to that event without any trepidation, so that,
I remember--it was actually the day before the one fixed on, and still no
hope had dawned on the financial horizon,--when Grandma Keeler embraced
me with some tender words premonitory of our parting, I kissed her
gratefully, musing at the same time in dreamy, untroubled fashion: "Yes,
I must be going home to-morrow."
It was on this same day that we drove to "Wallen Town," Grandma and
Madeline and Becky and I.
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