“None that I know of.”
“Then I must walk it. Will you direct me to his house?”
“Yes; you go——”
He gave me the directions, and they appeared so plain that I fancied I could find my uncle’s house with my eyes shut.
The moon was just up, the night was beautiful and pleasant, and the roads surpassingly muddy; and I had a walk that night that, I think, will never “slip my memory.” The land in this portion of Ohio is low and flat, the soil black, loose and soft—very fertile, too, so far as that is concerned; but a man isn’t particular about rich ground to walk on with a crutch—and the soundings were from three to thirty inches.
At the first cross-road, I went astray—took the wrong road, traveled half-a-mile on it, and, beginning to grow apprehensive, stopped by a gate, yelled, waked somebody’s neighbor, and asked if that was the road to William Smith’s?
“Did you come from the station?” was the response of the neighbor, who was in his night-dress.
“Yes.”
“Then you are on the wrong road. You should have kept on toward the south at the cross-roads. It is at the next cross-road after that. Then you turn to the——” I thought he said——“right.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Good-night.”