That was the bridge
leading through the cottonwood gate to the grade past
the "hovel." I kept the watch in the mitt of my left hand.
Not for a moment did it occur to me to turn back. Way up
north there was a young woman preparing supper for me.
The fog might not be there--she would expect me--I could
not disappoint her. And then there was the little girl,
who usually would wake up and in her "nightie" come out
of bed and sleepily smile at me and climb on to my knee
and nod off again. I thought of them, to be sure, of the
hours and hours in wait for them, and a great tenderness
came over me, and gratitude for the belated home they
gave an aging man...
And slowly my mind reverted to the things at hand. And
this is what was the most striking feature about them:
I was shut in, closed off from the world around. Apart
from that cone of visibility in front of the headlight,
and another much smaller one from the bicycle lamp, there
was not a thing I could see. If the road was the right
one, I was passing now through some square miles of wild
land. Right and left there were poplar thickets, and
ahead there was that line of stately cottonwoods.
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