After some interchange concerning his father and younger sister, he said, “I want to write them an Easter greeting.” So we got a fresh roll of paper, and he wrote a brief but tender letter, which was sent to them that night.
“Which one of us will be best able to do this?” Mrs. Wylie asked.
“... The time will come when this sort of thing is unnecessary. We can talk without material aid.... We never know when the power is going to develop. It’s much like an electric current. You never know it’s there until you feel it—until your signal comes over the wire.... Try it out, all of you. We know no more about who can do it than you do, except in cases of extraordinary power.” Some time afterward, however, he warned them of the dangers of attempting to handle this force, intimating that great conservation of energy in other directions should accompany the endeavor.
His mother spoke of his being happy, and he returned: “Perfectly happy now, thank you. It’s the eternal thing, really started. I hate to have this party break up, but anyhow it isn’t for long. I’ve been away longer, when I lived there, than I shall be now, and we are all of us as sure of the next meeting, and the next good time, as we were then.”
“He knows it is ending, and we must go to our trains,” Mrs. Gaylord said.
“Not ending at all. Beginning! Hooray!”
On that triumphant note they took their departure, Mrs. Gaylord westward bound, the Wylies to New England; but, owing to a defective timepiece, both missed their trains. Within an hour, Mrs. Wylie telephoned me that her mother had caught—by the narrowest margin—a later train, hoping to secure sleeping-accommodation after leaving, a dubious venture in these days of diminished service and crowded trains. We arranged to dine and spend the evening together.
Afterward, it occurred to me that Frederick might prefer to be with his mother that night, and I asked Mary K. about it.
“Frederick has engaged his mother in (O) ...”
“What does that mean now?” I interrupted. “Bliss?”