XX.—FROM BOB TO JACK.
Home Again.
DEAR JACK,—Well its all over. We got to Hoboken, yesterday and thinking we'd seen all the foreign lands we cared to for a little while we decided not to stay there and came right through to Yonkers. Yonkers isn't such a bad place after all, but its queer: you can stay there a year and see it all in a day while those foreign cities you can stay in only a day when you couldn't see 'em in a year. Things seem to be arranged very queerly in this world. The kitten has turned into a cat four times too large for any use and my corn in the garden has grown so high it reminds me of the trees at Versailles.
The trip home was pretty fine. We didn't find much to do at Genoa and with all due respect to Columbus's birthplace the only thing I particularly remember seeing there was a dead horse. The hotel was interesting. We had five rooms and one of 'em smelt like macaroni, another smelt like pie, the third smelt like cake, the fourth reminded me of the circus and we didn't keep the fifth. As for the house where Columbus lived we drove out to see it and that was the time I saw the dead horse. Columbus's house was a very poor sight, and between you and me I don't believe he ever lived there, because if he had he'd have gone into the business of selling cabbages the way everybody else in the neighborhood does instead of becoming a great discoverer, though I'll tell you one thing. If I'd had to live a week in that neighborhood I'd have wanted to be on the ocean for the rest of my natural life to get fresh air enough to carry me through. That's a queer thing about Italy. There's less fresh air to the square inch in Italy than there is anywhere else in the world. Pop says Italians most always sleep with their windows open and maybe that's the trouble. It is the closest country I ever was in.
We got on board the Werra Thursday morning and she's a great ship. Aunt Sarah says the only thing against her is the band that plays all through dinner, but Pop doesn't think so. He says the band is a good investment because it keeps people from eating and hasn't been known to blow a ship to pieces, which is a great thing considering the band. I liked the music. Why one night I was feeling pretty mean when the sausages were served, and I wanted to go up on deck and the band began to play the Washington Post March, and it settled my stomick right away. Besides the officers aren't so great but what they can notice kids. I got to know every officer on the boat from the deck steward down to the Captain, and when they weren't on duty they were fine; but on duty—my—you'd have thought the world depended on 'em. I tell you, Jack, I liked Chesterfield, and I liked the officers on the New York, but if a Werra man chose to throw me overboard I wouldn't care because I'd know he'd get me home safe and was looking after me whatever he did, whether the band played or not. You are ten and I'm nine but we can size up fellows just the same, and when it comes to sizing up, give me Captain Pohle and Captain Polack. They can have me for a cabin-boy or anything else. I'll get home safe as long as I'm with them and I won't have to wear rubbers either.
After leaving Genoa we sailed through a sea so blue that you could imagine the red and white and the stars and the stripes. It's called the Mediterranean and it reminds me more of America than any sea I've seen. It's pleasant. It sort of winks at you when the sun shines, but its as independent as if it was an ocean.
After we sailed about two days through this beautiful blue water we came to Gibraltar, and how it does stick up out of the water! A big insurance building is very noble in a city but Gibraltar beats everything I ever saw. It just sticks itself up and says look at me and whether you want to look at it or not you've got to. It's like Pop when he's nervous. You've got to do what he says and not say a word. Every time I've seen anything over here I've had something to say, but when I took in that bit of rock, I wanted to go off and sit in a chair and not move for five minutes. Aunt Sarah was the same way, and that's saying lots.
And if we hadn't gone ashore it would have been all right, but we did go ashore and then it seemed different. Pop took me to see a comic opera once, and Gibraltar reminded me of it. Everybody wore a costume and when we'd meet a man dressed up like an Arab we'd stop to see if maybe he wasn't going to sing a song. Nobody did though and everybody walked along as if they were going to market in Yonkers and didn't know they were at Gibraltar, which I think is awfully queer, but it has made me think that maybe when I think there's nothing to see in Yonkers its because I'm so used to it that I forget it all.
There were lots of boys selling matches and grapes and flowers at Gibraltar and Pop threw away a beautiful coin collection buying everything he could find. They take any kind of money there. But after it was all over and we were back on the Werra again and sailing towards home, I forgot all about everything except the rock and how it just made you hold your breath and wonder how on earth Spain ever let England have it.
And that's all about the trip. We're home and nothings happened. After seeing Gibraltar I'm not going to waste my ink describing Hoboken—but I will tell you one thing; when you've travelled all around the way we have and seen lots of beautiful places and beautiful things, and then come back home you're just as glad after all that you live home instead of abroad. The people on the streets at home look better and happier, and somehow or other the world doesn't seem quite so much in need of an airing as it does abroad.
Good-by for the present. Next time either of us goes anywhere I move we start up a correspondence again, for whether you've enjoyed this one or not I have.
Always yours Bob.
L. D. Waddell, r.f. F. H. Croker, 3.b.
R. A. Kinne, c.f. A. R. T. Hillebrand, p. A. Barnwell, Jun., sub.
I. J. French, s.s. J. Wentworth, l.f. R. M. Barton, Capt. and 1.b. A. S. Goodwin, c. F. L. Quinby, 2.b.
THE PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, BASEBALL TEAM.