That fatal trip back to my old home was the cause of my undoing, and has robbed me of the fame that I had hoped to win. But I felt that I could not write the story unless I went back once more to visit the town of my childhood, and to see again the companions of my early life. But what a revelation came with this simple journey to the little valley where my father lived! I had looked at my face in the glass each day for many years, and never felt that it had changed; but when I went back to my old familiar haunts, and looked into the faces of the boys I once knew, I saw scarcely a line to call back their images to my mind. These bashful little boys were bent and gray and old, and had almost reached their journey’s end. And when I asked for familiar names, over and over again I was pointed to the white stones that now covered our old playground and were persistently crawling up the hill beyond the little rivulet that once marked the farthest limits of the yard. So many times was I referred to the graveyard for the answer to the name I called, that finally I did not dare to ask, “Where is John Cole?” or Thomas Clark, but instead of this I would break the news more gently to myself, and say, “Is John Cole living still?” or, “Is Thomas Clark yet dead?”

I am most disconsolate because I could not tell the story that I meant to write, and I can scarce forgive this weird fantastic troop that pushed themselves before my pencil and would not let me tell my tale. Yet, after all,—the everlasting “after all” that excuses all, and in some poor fashion decks even the most worthless life,—yet, after all, there was little that I could have told had I done my very best. Even now I might sum up my story in a few short words.

All my life I have been planning and hoping and thinking and dreaming and loitering and waiting. All my life I have been getting ready to begin to do something worth the while. I have been waiting for the summer and waiting for the fall; I have been waiting for the winter and waiting for the spring; waiting for the night and waiting for the morning; waiting and dawdling and dreaming, until the day is almost spent and the twilight close at hand.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

  1. Changed ‘it’ to ‘is’ on p. [170].
  2. Silently corrected typographical errors.
  3. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.