His spirits ran over. He was like a
boy returning from his first college term. His very face wore the boy's
open, innocent, earnest look that used to attract men to him in his
first college year. His delight in the fields and woods, in the sweet
country air and the sunlight, was without bound. How often had we driven
this road together in the old days!
Every turn was familiar. The swamp where the tamaracks stood straight
and slim out of their beds of moss; the brule, as we used to call it,
where the pine-stumps, huge and blackened, were half-hidden by the new
growth of poplars and soft maples; the big hill, where we used to get
out and walk when the roads were bad; the orchards, where the harvest
apples were best and most accessible--all had their memories.
It was one of those perfect afternoons that so often come in the early
Canadian summer, before Nature grows weary with the heat. The white
gravel road was trimmed on either side with turf of living green, close
cropped by the sheep that wandered in flocks along its whole length.
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