The coral islands and the palm groves in this great sea are not in the South Pacific; nor the ice floes north or south of a certain degree; nor the swift currents and dangerous rocks near some inhospitable shore, but at home; and the ships that pass are our companions.
And the ships of interest are the barks that sail as fancy whispers in the chart room or the tramp trader, at Sidney today, tomorrow at Malta, or the derelict. And who would not rather hear and know the story of such a vessel and voyage than smell the oil of the tanker or hear from daybreak to midnight the victrola, the piano and the chit-chat of the passenger liner.
And, strange to tell, most of us when on a most wonderful cruise with everything within reach, though out of sight, because we jab our eyes sightless wiping the tears away, bewail our luck, saying:
"See I a dog? There's ne'er a stone to throw!
Or stone? Tere's ne'er a dog to hit I trow!
Or if at once both stone and dog I view,
It is the King's dog! Damn! What can I do?"
Home again! John finds the boy two inches taller and Mary as fair to look upon as when first he married her. The house is just the same, except Mary has taken down the framed needle-work done by his mother which hung over the living-room door. He asks that it be replaced.
When John and you were boys, back in the eighties, on the wall of the living-room of many a Kentucky home, was found mother's handwriting on the wall, done in colored worsted or silk: "God Bless Our Home"; this her work went to the attic or the ash heap. These mothers are no longer of this earth.
After many months in "a far country," John understands as never before, the sort of home that mother made and what that sentence meant to her.
We have dug out the old brass candlesticks and the old tester bed; would we might find the old, framed needle-work and see again mother's handwriting on the wall.