"Wa'l, you'd never guess it, but there's a valley down in between them two, with a sight of folks in it, and farms and everything." Another man said, "Why, old man Crittenden's got a brother lives there. Ain't that the Ashley valley? He runs an old-fashioned water-power mill there." Martin observed, "Yep, I've drawed many a load of logs to the old man's mill." Neale remembered the sharp-spoken old man who had visited Grandfather's mill one day when he was a little boy. He had said then, he would go up to Ashley some day and make Uncle Burton a visit. Well, if he were a crow or a hawk, he could do it now, in about half an hour. He sat dreaming, his eyes fixed on the two hazy blue lines of mountains which stood up so high and so close to each other that they entirely hid the valley between. It must be a quiet, sheltered spot, that valley. "Time to be movin' on," said old Martin, getting to his feet, and striding off into the woods, with his strong, unelastic, never-tiring gait. At the end of five weeks they were plodding back up the road to the Crittenden house, Neale not to be distinguished from the other men. The road seemed hard and narrow and foolish to them, the house and barn like toys, the world about them on so small a scale that their widened eyes could scarcely distinguish one thing from another. Neale had the distinct impression, when he stepped into the kitchen that if he stood up straight, he would put his head through the ceiling. And what a comical, trifling thing a chair was! He felt afraid to let his whole weight come down on it and expected it to go to pieces in his hand, it felt so flimsy. But his bed was good--oh, very good. He slept till noon the next day and was wakened by Grandfather coming up to see what the matter was. He scrambled up, half-awake, rubbing his eyes and staring, his pyjamas open upon his broad chest, his long arms bare. Grandfather stood looking at him for a moment before he went back downstairs. He did not say a word except, "You're going to eat breakfast and dinner together, I guess," but Neale knew that Grandfather was very well pleased with what he saw. Grandfather was a pretty good old scout, anyhow, he thought, as he washed gingerly in the white earthen-ware basin, which seemed appallingly breakable to him. CHAPTER XXIV And then it was time to go back to college. Sophomore year was _entirely different_. What a change from his cat-in-a-strange-garret sensation of a year ago! Now he was blatantly sure of every step in the elaborate and illogical ritual that makes up undergraduate life. He stood between College Hall and the Library all one happy afternoon, wringing the hands of Sophomores, as uplifted with their status as he. There Griswold the Assistant Manager hailed him and carried him off to the football house on 117th Street. He found the office on the first floor crowded with all the leaders and hangers-on of the football organization.