Dave answered indifferently, without glancing up from the page.
“There’s probably a thousand fellows that look like me. I’m medium height and about every third person you see back in the States has gray eyes like mine, and just the ordinary every-day sort of features that I have.”
The Doctor made no answer. It never would have occurred to him to tell Dave in what way his face differed from the many others of his type. There was a certain kindliness of twinkle in the gray eyes at times, and always a straightforward honesty of gaze that made one instinctively trust him. There was strength of purpose in the resolute set of his mouth, and one could not imagine him being turned back on any road which he had made up his mind to travel to the end.
Several days after that when the Doctor was sitting up outside the tent, the resemblance to someone whom he could not recall, puzzled him again. Dave was whittling, his lips pursed up as he whistled softly in an absent-minded sort of way.
“Dave,” exclaimed the Doctor, “there’s something in the way you sit there, whittling and whistling that brings little old Provincetown right up before my eyes. I can see old Captain Ames sitting there on the wharf on a coil of rope, whittling just as you are doing, and joking with Sam and the crew as they pile into the boat to go out to the weirs. I can see the nets spread out to dry alongshore, and smell tar and codfish as plain as if it were here right under my nose. And down in Fishburn Court there’s the little house that was always a second home to me, with Uncle Darcy pottering around in the yard, singing his old sailors’ songs.”
The Doctor closed his eyes and drew in a long, slow breath.
“Um! There’s the most delicious smell coming out of that kitchen-- blueberry pies that Aunt Elspeth’s baking. What wouldn’t I give this minute for one of those good, juicy blueberry pies of hers, smoking hot. I can smell it clear over here in China. There never was anything in the world that tasted half so good. I was always tagging around after Uncle Darcy, as I called him. He was the Towncrier, and one of those staunch, honest souls who make you believe in the goodness of God and man no matter what happens to shake the foundations of your faith.”
The Doctor opened his eyes and looked up inquiringly, startled by the knocking over of the stool on which Dave had been sitting. He had risen abruptly and gone inside the tent.
“Go on,” he called back. “I can hear you.” He seemed to be looking for something, for he was striding up and down in its narrow space. The Doctor raised his voice a trifle.
“That’s all I had to say. I didn’t intend to bore you talking about people and places you never heard of. But it just came over me in a big wave--that feeling of homesickness that makes you feel you’ve got to get back or die. Did you ever have it?”