The lines he had drawn were curious. Paul said they reminded him of the marks left upon the surface of ice by an expert-fancy skater. Miss Winchester said she could use them for an embroidery pattern, the art of embroidery being one of her favorite occupations. The Doctor said they reminded him of a fly travelling over an orange to find out what it was like. Adele said they reminded her of exactly what they represented, only now she had a bird’s-eye view looking down on the whole thing. “I understand it now, but until I saw this drawing I did feel all twisted up.” Curious, indeed, was the association of ideas, each traveller finding suggested by the engineer’s drawing his own tastes, or the memory of some previous experience.
Still higher up, say between four and six thousand feet, the Americans felt really quite at home in the woods; no matter what part of the Middle or Northern States they might have come from there were glimpses to remind them of home; not unlike the loftier parts of the Alleghany range as seen from Blowing Rock, or Cloudland in the Land of the Sky (North and South Carolina), also glimpses suggesting the magnificent distant scenery of Colorado, and even of the Northwest Rockies; but in every case with much greater luxuriance of foliage, and a realizing sense that they were only on the foot-hills, the first steps leading to the Celestial region, still away up and beyond.
Adele searched in her pocket and brought forth her little Stars-and-Stripes badge, and pinned it on her left shoulder. It took very little to make Adele show her colors, and just here where the woods were full of oaks, hemlocks, maples and many other trees which reminded her of home, she concluded this was the proper time to bring out the pocket edition of Old Glory.
The Englishman wondered why she selected that particular time to do such a thing; it seemed such a superfluous proceeding. He would have scorned the idea if he had known that she associated oaks with America in particular. As it was he could not suppress his curiosity.
“May I ask why you show your colors?”
“Because here I feel quite at home.”
“Oh, you Americans think the States take in all creation, don’t you?”
“Well, pretty much; but this is the Queen’s Empire—we admire the Queen immensely, she’s a home-body; and personally I quite envy her.”
“No doubt she would appreciate your appreciation,” remarked the Englishman, again touching the facetious. “May I ask why you envy her?”
“We are going into the expansion business ourselves: the Queen knows all about it.”