"I better help you carry some of these home, hadn't I?" he suggested.
"Oh, yes, do," I replied eagerly, and somehow we managed to walk back to the house together.
I don't know through what streets we went, past what houses. I can scarcely recall of what we talked. "He's come home! He's come home! He's come home!" kept ringing in my ears over and over again, like jubilant chimes. "Dr. Maynard has come home!" And whenever I looked up and saw him smiling down at me—so naturally, so beautifully—it seemed as if I should have to make a pirouette or two, right there on the sidewalk. Every time he laughed I wanted to shout; every time he remarked upon a new building or a new house, and especially when he exclaimed, "Good heavens! What have we here?" at the sight of one of the taxicabs, I wanted to turn a handspring. When he first came in view of 240 Main Street and stood stock-still in his tracks, and gasped, "Where's the cupola, and the French roof, and the iron fountain, and the barn, and the apple orchard?" I wanted to throw my arms around him for joy. I must have felt like a dog at the sight of his beloved master whom he hasn't seen for months. It was so intoxicating to have Dr. Maynard beside me again that it seemed as if I must express my joy by jumping up on him, and half knocking him down. Which, of course, I didn't do. My voice broke a dozen times, my underlip trembled, my cheeks burned with excitement, but otherwise I walked along as sedately as if it were an everyday occurrence to run across a man I believed was hopelessly buried in a laboratory in Europe.
It was in the sunken garden that the most important part of our conversation took place. You remember, don't you, that in my letters to Dr. Maynard I had always been enthusiastic over the improvements Edith has made on old 240. So now it was with apparent pride that I led my old friend down the granolithic steps into the one-time apple orchard. I showed him the cement-lined pool in the centre, the Italian garden-seat, the rare shrubbery now bound up in yellow straw, with something like delight. I was so full of exultation at the mere sight of dear, kind, understanding Dr. Maynard that I could have rejoiced about anything. When I exclaimed, "And there's a squash-court connected with the garage, and a tennis-court as smooth as glass beside the stable; and where the old potato-patch used to be, there's a pergola!" my eyes fairly sparkled. "That sun-dial over there," I boasted, "was designed especially for Edith; and oh, there's the dearest, slimmest little stream of water that spouts out of the centre of the pool, in the summer. You ought to see it!" I was all enthusiasm. Edith wouldn't have recognised me. Ruth would have thought I had lost my reason. Even Dr. Maynard looked at me curiously.
"It certainly is all very fine, I've no doubt," he remarked.
"Yes, isn't it?" I exclaimed.
"But I must confess," he went on. "I never objected to the old apple orchard. Just about where the pool is now, there used to grow the best old Baldwins I ever tasted."
"Oh, my," I scoffed, "you ought to see the bouncing big Oregon apples Edith buys by the crate."
Dr. Maynard shook his head and smiled. Then he came over and sat down beside me on the Italian seat.
"Well, well," he sighed, "I suppose old Rip must get used to the changes that have taken place since he's been asleep—squash-courts and pergolas, great sweeping estates with granolithic drives and sunken gardens; new hotels; new postoffices; instead of the roomy, old-fashioned livery-stable hacks, taxicabs; instead of good old snappy New England Baldwins, apples imported from Oregon; and instead of a girl in a red Tam-o-Shanter and her father's old weather-beaten ulster, sitting behind the wheel of a little one-lunger automobile, running it, in all sorts of weather, like a young breeze—instead of that girl," said Dr. Maynard, looking me up and down closely, "a very correct and up-to-date young lady in kid gloves and a veil, a smart black and white checked suit, a very fashionable hat (I should call it), with a bunch of primroses, to cap it all, pinned jauntily at her waist."