I thought of Jusserand's English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages. If the Canterbury Pilgrims, led by jolly Harry Bailey, their host, had burst out from the woods, on horseback, singing and jesting, I should not have considered their appearance an anachronism....
A tousle-headed girl-child in rompers which she was too big for, pointed me Baxter's house, the largest in the community.
There seemed to be no one home when I dropped my suitcase on the front porch....
I knocked vigorously. No one came. I waited a long while.
"A hell of a way to welcome me!" I meditated, my egotism hurt.
Again I knocked.
"Come in! do come in!" a gentle voice bade—it was Mrs. Baxter's.
I pushed the door open and stepped in. I set down my heavy suitcase with a thump, on the bare, hardwood floor of the large room in which I found myself—a room sparsely furnished, its walls lined with books. It had one large window, under and along which was built in, a long, wide shelf made into a sort of divan, promiscuous with cushions.
Propped up with a disordered heap of these cushions sat Mrs. Hildreth Baxter, in blouse and bloomers; she was reading.
"Why, Johnnie Gregory!" she cried, swinging her graceful, slim legs down, and rising, coming toward me, extending her hand in greeting....