These drives. the fastest of which was made in somewhat
over four hours and the longest of which took me nearly
eleven--the rest of them averaging pretty well up between
the two extremes--soon became what made my life worth
living. I am naturally an outdoor creature--I have lived
for several years "on the tramp"--I love Nature more than
Man--I take to horses--horses take to me--so how could
it have been otherwise? Add to this that for various
reasons my work just then was not of the most pleasant
kind--I disliked the town, the town disliked me, the
school board was sluggish and unprogressive, there was
friction in the staff--and who can wonder that on Fridays,
at four o'clock, a real holiday started for me: two days
ahead with wife and child, and going and coming--the drive.
I made thirty-six of these trips: seventy-two drives in
all. I think I could still rehearse every smallest incident
of every single one of them. With all their weirdness,
with all their sometimes dangerous adventure--most of
them were made at night, and with hardly ever any regard
being paid to the weather or to the state of the roads--
they stand out in the vast array of memorable trifles
that constitute the story of my life as among the most
memorable ones.
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