How could that be possible!--and never a hint drifting through the hotels of any blue man! Yet the intimate life of old inhabitants is not paraded before the overrunning army of a season. I felt vaguely flattered that this exclusive resident had hitherto noticed me and condescended at last to reveal himself. The blue man had been here thirty-five years! He knew the childish joy of bruising the flesh of orange-colored toadstools and wading amid long pine-cones which strew the ground like fairy corncobs. The white birches were dear to him, and he trembled with eagerness at the first pipe sign, or at the discovery of blue gentians where the eastern forest stoops to the strand. And he knew the echo, shaking like gigantic organ music from one side of the world to the other. In solitary trysts with wilderness depths and caves which transient sight-seers know nothing about I had often pleased myself thinking the Mishi-ne-macki-naw-go were somewhere around me. If twigs crackled or a sudden awe fell causelessly, I laughed--“That family of Indian ghosts is near. I wish they would show themselves!” For if they ever show themselves, they bring you the gift of prophecy. The Chippewas left tobacco and gunpowder about for them. My offering was to cover with moss the picnic papers, tins, and broken bottles, with which man who is vile defiles every prospect. Discovering such a queer islander as the blue man was almost equal to seeing the Mishi-ne-macki-naw-go. Voices approached; and I watched his eyes come into his face as he leaned forward! From a blurr’ of lids they turned to beautiful clear balls shot through with yearning. Around the jut of rook appeared a bicycle girl, a golf girl, and a youth in knickers having his stockings laid in correct folds below the knee. They passed without noticing us. To see his looks dim and his eagerness relax was too painful. I watched the water ridging against the horizon like goldstone and changing swiftly to the blackest of greens. Distance folded into distance so that the remote drew near. He was certainly waiting for somebody, but it could not be that he had waited thirty-five years: thirty-five winters, whitening the ice-bound island; thirty-five summers, bringing all paradise except what he waited for. Just as I glanced at the blue man again his lips began to move, and the peculiar tingle ran down my back, though I felt ashamed of it in his sweet presence. “Madame, it will--it will comfort me if you permit me to talk to you.” “I shall be very glad, sir, to hear whatever you have to tell.” “I have--have waited here thirty-five years, and in all that time I have not spoken to any one!” He said this quite candidly, closing his lips before his voice ceased to sound. The cedar sapling against which his head rested was not more real than the sincerity of that blue man’s face. Some hermit soul, who had proved me by watching me seven years, was opening himself, and I felt the tears come in my eyes.