But the woman’s harsh voice cut in on his dream, as she shouted to her son below, “Hey!  Why the hell you standin’ thar?” And the boy with a jump of alarm turned back quickly to his work.  At home a few days later, George with a mysterious air took his grandfather into the barn, and after a pledge of secrecy he said in swift and thrilling tones, “You know young Bill Elkins?  Yes, you do—­the boy up on the Elkins place who lives alone with his mother.  Well, look here!” George swallowed hard.  “Bill has cleared out—­he’s run away!  I was up at five this morning and he came hiking down the road!  He had a bundle on his back and he told me he was off for good!  And was he scared?  You bet he was scared!  And I told him so and it made him mad!  ‘Aw, you’re scared!’ I said.  ‘I ain’t neither!’ he said.  He could barely talk, but the kid had his nerve!  ‘Where you going?’ I asked.  ‘To New York,’ he said.  ’Aw, what do you know of New York?’ I said.  And then, by golly, he busted right down.  ‘Gee!’ he said, ‘Gee!  Can’t you lemme alone?’ And then he beat it down the road!  You could hear the kid breathe, he was hustling so!  He’s way off now, he’s caught the train!  He wants to be a cabin boy on a big ocean liner!” For a moment there was silence.  “Well?” the boy demanded, “What do you think of his chances?”

“I don’t know,” said Roger huskily.  He felt a tightening at his throat.  Abruptly he turned to his grandson.

“George,” he asked, “what do you want to be?” The boy flushed under his freckles.

“I don’t know as I know.  I’m thinking,” he answered very slowly.

“Talk it over with your mother, son.”

“Yes, sir,” came the prompt reply.  “But he won’t,” reflected Roger.

“Or if you ever feel you want to, have a good long talk with me.”

“Yes, sir,” was the answer.  Roger stood there waiting, then turned and walked slowly out of the barn.  How these children grew up inside of themselves.  Had boys always grown like that?  Well, perhaps, but how strange it was.  Always new lives, lives of their own, the old families scattering over the land.  So the great life of the nation swept on.  He kept noticing here deserted farms, and one afternoon in the deepening dusk he rode by a graveyard high up on a bare hillside.  A horse and buggy were outside, and within he spied a lean young woman neatly dressed in a plain dark suit.  With a lawn mower brought from home she was cutting the grass on her family lot.  And she seemed to fit into the landscape.  New England had grown very old.

* * * * *

Late one night toward the end of July, there came a loud honk from down the hill, then another and another.  And as George in his pajamas came rushing from his bedroom shouting radiantly, “Gee!  It’s dad!”—­they heard the car thundering outside.  Bruce had left New York at dawn and had made the run in a single day, three hundred and eleven miles.  He was gray with dust all over and he was worn and hollow eyed, but his dark visage wore a look of solid satisfaction.