“Well, all animals turn their fighting end to any trouble. If those were horses, now, their rump would be to the rain.”
“I see,” I said. “They fight with their heels.”
“Like some soldiers,” said Franklin drily.
In another place we saw another great stretch of beech woods, silvery in the rain, and Franklin commented on the characteristic presence of these groves everywhere in Indiana. There was one near his home, he said, and there had been one in every town I had ever lived in in this state.
At dusk we reached Westfield, only six miles from his home, where the Quakers lived. This was one of those typical community towns, with standardized cottages of grey-white wood and rather stately trees in orderly rows. Because of a difficulty here with one of the lamps, which would not light, we had to stop a while, until it grew quite dark. A lost chicken ran crying out of a neighboring cornfield, and we shooed it back towards its supposed home, wondering whether the rain and wind or some night prowler would not kill it. It was very much excited, running and squeaking constantly—a fine call to any fox or weasel. Chickens are so stupid.
Presently we came into Carmel, in the night and rain, but there being few lights, I could not make out anything. The car turned into a yard somewhere and stopped at a side door, or porch. We got out and a little woman, grey and small, cheerful and affectionate, as became a doting mother, came out and greeted us, kissing Franklin.
“What kept you so long?” she asked, in a familiar motherly fashion. “We thought you were going to get here by noon.”
“So did we,” replied Franklin drily. “I wired you, though.”
“Yes, I know. Your father’s gone to bed. He stayed up as long as he could. Come right in here, please,” she said to me, leading the way, while Franklin stopped to search the car. I followed, damp and heavy, wondering if the house would be as cheerful as I hoped.
It was. It was the usual American small-town home, built with the number of rooms supposed to be appropriate for a given number of people or according to your station in life. A middle class family of some means, I believe, is supposed to have a house containing ten or twelve rooms, whether they need them or not. A veranda, as I could see, ran about two sides, and there was a lawn with trees. Within, the furnishings were substantial after their kind—good middle-west furniture. (Franklin’s studio, at the back, as I discovered later, was charmingly appointed.) There were some of his early drawings on the wall, which love had framed and preserved. They reminded me of my family’s interest in me. A tall, slim, dark girl, anæmic but with glistening black eyes, came in and greeted me. She was a sister, I understood—a milliner, by trade, taking her vacation here. As she came, she called to another girl who would not come—why I could not at first comprehend. This was a niece to whom Franklin more than once on the way out had referred as being superiorly endowed temperamentally, and as possessing what spiritualists or theosophists refer to as an “old soul,” she was so intelligent. He could not explain her natural wisdom save on the ground of her having lived before.