The first motor rolled up to the door, Billy was called for, so he stuffed the letter into his pocket and hurried out. They were swept away through the crowded streets of Chicago, where spring was already showing in the green grass and blooming crocuses of the little squares. It was even more in evidence in Lincoln Park where the shrubs and trees were putting out their new leaves and flowers were blooming all along the way. It made one feel queer and restless, Billy thought, as though one wanted something very badly and did not quite know what it was. It seemed strange how hard it was to make up his mind just what he was going to do.
The lake was very blue there on their right hand as they drove along the Sheridan Road sweeping constantly through neat suburbs, some large, some small, but all alike in one thing: that every one in the world was busy planting a garden. They passed through bits of real country with fields and meadows and pasture lands, and stopped at last before a big iron gate that guarded an enclosure full of brick buildings, wide, smooth lawns and many winding roads.
“They won’t let us in on account of the war scare,” said one of the boys who had brought them, “but we have to turn back here so we might as well stop and look through the gate. It is the Great Lakes Naval Station, where they train the sailors for the warships. Oh, look, they’re drilling now!”
A squad of uniformed sailor boys came marching past, very neat with their blue coats, their small white hats, their brown legs all moving together. They swept by like a great perfect machine, minds and bodies all trained to act absolutely together for the better accomplishment of a common purpose. They moved back and forth across the green, wheeling, turning, marching and countermarching. How hard they must have worked, Billy thought, to learn to do it so well, how each one must be trying now to do his own part perfectly so that the whole might be perfect. It brought back to him a quick memory of the night he had witnessed the war game, of the early morning when he had watched the ships go by and had seen, if only for a moment, what the Navy really meant. From what port were those same ships sailing forth today, to play at the new war game; over what seas would they be scattered to guard America from a real and terrible foe?
Then, for some reason his mind swept back to the other subject upon which he had been thinking so deeply, to the camping trip for which he should, even now, be making plans. At this very moment Otto Bradford would probably be coming out of his cabin to take the horses down to water, the sun would be bright, the thin air very cold, and the mountains all scarlet and yellow and brown in the strange colors that only the Rocky Mountains can show. Perhaps it would be so clear that you could see the Highlands, that circle of tremendous peaks beyond the rough brown buttes that hemmed the valley in, the high sky line that often was not visible for weeks together but, on a brilliant day like this, would spring suddenly into being, a vast wall of glittering white, with jagged summits that seemed to touch the very sky. The wind would blow down from the snow fields sharp and chill, it would lift the manes of the horses as they snorted, kicked up their heels and went galloping off down the trail. It would be good to see it all again but—
The sailors were marching away across the wide green. Beyond them, between two buildings he could see the lake, rough and deep blue on this windy morning, darkened here and there by the passing shadows of flying clouds. A schooner came into view, beating into the wind, first in shadow, then in sunshine, cutting the blue water in a line of foam. She was doubtless some worn old tub of awkward lines and dingy sails, should you see her close; but here, with the stiff breeze to aid her, she sped along like a live thing, the bright sun changing her sails to silver. If fresh water was so blue as that, what would salt water be? If this wind could seem so sharp and bracing, if Lake Michigan could roll in such waves upon the beach, what would it be to feel the fresh sea breeze, and to hear the surf come thundering in on the shores of Appledore?
“What are you thinking about so hard, Billy?” one of his comrades asked suddenly, breaking sharply into his dream.
Billy drew a long breath, glanced up at the clock above the gateway and said,
“I was wondering how soon we can be getting back to the hotel. I have to make the noon train for Boston. I think I will go East instead of West for this vacation.”
Once he had started on his journey he began to realize how truly he had longed to go back. The miles seemed to crawl, he stood on the platform and counted the white posts and wondered why they did not go by faster. He seemed to have been travelling a week by the time they reached Albany; he was utterly worn out with impatience when at last they steamed into Boston.