It is rare to find a grove of old pines, yet there are one or two estates where for years no trees have been cut or burned, and beneath these tall old singing monarchs I sit on the brown needles, and write and write—­to what end I know not.

I have not one finished story to show you, though the beginnings of many.  The pen is not my medium.  My thoughts seem to dry up when I try to put them on paper.  It is when I talk that I grow most eloquent.  Oh, little friend, shall I ever make the world listen again?

I am going to tell you presently of those who have listened, down here—­such an audience—­and in such an amphitheater!

My walks take me far afield.  The roads are sandy, and I do not always follow them, preferring, rather, the dunes which remind me so much of those by the sea.  Once upon a time this ground was the ocean’s bed—­I have the feeling always that just beyond the low hills I shall glimpse the blue.

Now and then I meet some darkey of the old school with his cheery greeting; now and then on the highroad a schooner wagon sails by.  These wagons give one the queer feeling of being set back to pioneer days,—­do you remember the Pike’s Peak picture at the Capitol with all the eager faces turned toward the setting sun?

Now and then I run across a hunting party from one of the big hotels which are getting to be plentiful in this healthy region, but these people with their sporting clothes and their sophistication always seem out of place among the pines.

And now, since you have written to me of life as a journey on the highroad, I will tell you of my first adventure.

There’s a schooner-man who comes from the sandhills on his way to the nearest resort with his chickens and eggs.  It is a three days’ journey, and he camps out at night, sleeping in his wagon, building his fire in the open.

One day he passed me as I sat tired by the wayside, and offered to give me a lift toward home.  I accepted, and rode beside him.  And thus began an acquaintance which interests me, and evidently pleases him.

He is tall and loosely put together, this knight of the Sandy Road, but with the ease of manner which seems to belong to his kind.  There’s good blood in these sand-hill people, and it shows in a lack of self-consciousness which makes one feel that they would meet a prince or an emperor without embarrassment.  Yet there’s nothing of forwardness, nothing of impertinence.  It is a drawing-room manner, preserved in spite of generations of illiteracy and degeneration.

He is not an unpicturesque object.  Given a plumed hat, a doublet and hose, and he would look the part, and his manner would fit in with it.  Given good English, his voice would never betray him for what he is.  For another thing that these people have preserved is a softness of voice and an inflection which is Elizabethan rather than twentieth century American.