Child and Country

We walked together down the long lane, and I did not seem able to reach our guide's heart, so we were silent, but Penelope came between us. He would have been strange, indeed, had she failed.... I look back now from where I sit--to that long lane. I love it very much for it led to the very edge of a willowed bluff--to the end of the land. Erie brimmed before us. It led to a new life, too.

I had always disliked Erie--as one who lived in the Lake Country and chose his own. I approved mildly of St. Claire; Michigan awed me from a little boy's summer; Huron was familiar from another summer, but Erie heretofore had meant only something to be crossed--somethin