The boy gave me a long stare.
"Oh, you mean Mr. Spalton?"
"Yes."
"That's him ... there ... choppin' wood."
There was a young man and an older one, both chopping wood, in the back of a building, but in fairly open view.
I walked to where they worked with both inward and outward trepidation, for, to me, Spalton was one of the world's great men.
Just as I reached the spot, the younger of the two threw down his axe.
"So long, Dad! now I'll go into the shop and tend to those letters."
I stood in the presence of the great Roderick Spalton himself, the man who, in his Brief Visits to the Homes of Famous Folk, had written more meatily and wisely than any American author since Emerson ... the man whose magazine called The Dawn, had rendered him an object of almost religious veneration and worship to thousands of Americans whose spirits reached for something more than the mere piling of dollars one on the other....
I stood before him, visibly overwhelmed. It was evident that my silent hero-worship was sweet to him. He bespoke me gently and courteously.