"'Upon my word,' he says, still only half believin' in me. 'An' do you go there often?' he ask' me. 'An' I daresay the little smoke folk talk to you, now?' he says.
"'I go 'most every day,' I told him, 'but we don't say very much. I guess they talk an' I listen,' I says.
"An' then the funny part about his askin' Bill for a haunted wood come over me.
"'Bill!' I says. 'Did you actually ask Bill that?'
"Oh, an' how we laughed—how we laughed. Just the way the dream had been. It seemed—it seemed such a sort o' special comical," Calliope said, "an' not like a Sodality laugh. 'Seems though I'd always laughed at one set o' things all my life—my everyday life. An' this was a new recipe for Laugh, flavoured different, an' baked in a quick oven, an' et hot.
"Well, we walked down the road together, like it had always been that way. An' we talked—like you do when you're with them you'd rather be with than anybody else. An' he ask' me, grave as grave, about the little smoke folks.
"'Will They be home, do you think?' he says.
"An' I says: 'Oh, yes. I know They will. They're always home.'
"An' we both felt pleased, like when you're sure.
"We went to walk in the Depot Woods. I remember how much he made me talk—more than I'd ever talked before, excep' in the dream. I know I told him the little stories I'd read about noted people, an' I said over some o' the verses I'd learned an' liked the sound of—I remembered 'em all for him, an' he listened an' heard 'em all just the way I'd said 'em. That was it—he heard it all just the way I said it. An' I mentioned the sun on the leaves an' the way the clouds looked, right out—an' I knew he didn't think I was affected. An' I made up things an' said, too—things that was always comin' in my head an' that I was always wantin' to say. An' he'd laugh almost before I was through—oh, it was like heaven to have him laugh an' not just say, 'What on earth are you talkin', Calliope Marsh?' like I'd heard. An' he kep' sayin', 'I know, I know,' like he knew what I meant better than anything else in the world. Then he read to me out o' the book he had an' he told me—beautiful things. Some of 'em I remember—I've remembered always. Some of 'em I forgot till I come on 'em, now an' then, in books—long afterwards; an' then it was like somebody dead spoke up. I'm always thankful to get hold o' other people's books an' see if mebbe I won't find somethin' else he said. But a good many o' the things I s'pose I clear forgot, an' I won't know 'em again till in the next life. Like I forgot what we said in the dream, till they're both all mixed up an' shinin'.