The excitement of that first sortie out into the world is the most vivid thing which comes to me from my childhood. The Father drove me down the mountain-side to the county seat and so at last I saw a train at close quarters. Even when I had watched them through the Father’s campaign glasses I had not realized how large they were. He gave me in charge of the conductor, a man with an armless sleeve and drooping moustaches, who had been a corporal in his regiment. There was a rattle and jerk—we had no air-brakes on the Tennessee trains in those days—and the railroad station and the Father slipped out of sight. Such an amazing number of things went by the car window! I counted all the fields to the next station. There were thirty-seven. The conductor told me I was not to get off till the eighteenth stop. I started in valiantly to count them all, but my attention was distracted by the fact that things near the track went by so much faster than things far away. In "physics A" at college I learned an explanation of this phenomena which seemed all right on paper but even today it is entirely inadequate when I am in a train and actually watching the earth revolve about distant points in either horizon. Trying to find a reason for it on that first railroad trip put me to sleep. At last the conductor woke me up and handed me over to Mary. I can recall only vaguely the details of that delectable week, the strangeness of the entire experience is what sticks in my memory. There was the baby, so soft and round and contented. There was the German nurse, the first white servant I had ever seen. And there were the armchairs in the living-room, curved and comfortable and very different from the chairs in the parlor at home. After supper, instead of sending me off to bed, Mary read to me before the open fire, read me the wonderful stories of King Arthur. When at last I was sleepy, she came with me to my room. It embarrassed me to undress before her, but it was very sweet to have her tuck me in and kiss me "goodnight." Mary "spoiled" me, to use the Father’s expression, systematically, she let me eat between meals and gorged me with sweets. One night it made me sick. I have forgotten whether "dough-nuts" or "pop-overs" were to blame. When the doctor had gone away, laughing—for it was not serious—Mary took me into her own bed. I would gladly have suffered ten times the pain for the warm comfort of her arms about me.