"Then you shall go. My sister has a house, with room for many, and we have taken half, keeping one room for you. Come and take your week with us."
"But, Mr. Stoffs, I intended during that week to read so much to take long walks about the city—and Mrs. Stoffs—"
"My wife sent me; I would not of myself have such a blind man with me, to read, to study, to walk; how can you in the city now? You will be wild when you have been once with us. You will go to-day with me—I will be waiting for you at my place at five. Will you come?"
"Indeed—"
"You will come." And, in truth, Mr. Stoffs had previously said so much of that wonderful land in which he was now living that Dick could not resist his last appeal, and afraid and shy as he well might be, having never spent twenty-four hours in a home circle in his life, he gave his promise to be at the appointed place of meeting in good time for the train.
But when the magnetism of his friend's presence was taken from him, Dick's heart grew heavy in his breast. If it had been to go to another city, or on a matter of business, Dick's excitement would have been delightful; but "the country," of which he knew nothing, and of which he had such strange fancies, picked up he could not tell where, that was another thing. City boys always laughed at country people when they came to the city—they had such queer ways—and yet—and yet—he felt strange and shy about going among them. Perhaps he felt that the tables would be turned on him there, and that his ways would be as queer in their eyes as theirs had been in his; perhaps he felt the full force of the homely old saying that "a cock can crow best in his own farm-yard."
But, as the day wore on, Dick's spirits rose; he thought of all the stories he had read of fresh country life; a poem or two of cows and brooks came vaguely among his thoughts, and by the time he reached his little room, and began to pack his not abundant wardrobe, he was eager for the first glance at "the country."
"Then, may the Lord's blessing go with you," said his kind but very slovenly landlady. "I hope you'll come back as brown as a berry, sir. I was two year in the country once, and, though I won't say I'd like it for always, yet my heart do get to wishing these days for a sight o' the flowers and the fields. You'll mind the fruit, sir, and the dews o' night; there does be great dews fallin', and a deal of ague, I'm told. Good-by to you." And Dick said "good-by" to her with something like emotion; for it was his first "good-by" to any one, and the woman had been good to him, and if her hair was in a blouse, and her garments ill made and not clean, Dick was not startled, for he had never seen them otherwise.
Then he walked on to meet Mr. Stoffs, and found he was nearly an hour before the time. It seemed as if the moment of departure would never come; but it did, at last, and, as in a sort of dream, the dusty city youth was whirled by cottages nestling among proud, protecting trees, past the green hills, and through fields "all rich with ripening grain," until the panting train pulled up between a pile of stones and a little yellow station-house, with a narrow platform running beside it.