Besides, the elms were old when the hero was a child. They marked the epoch of the village's birth, even as the maples marked that of the railroad's coming. Nothing in Old England is quite as old as New England. Not even the pyramids are as old as a New England elm. Europe may repair and renovate cathedrals; New England repairs and renovates elms. The Puritan Fathers planted trees on such broad main streets as that of Longfield, with stretches of green border of old turf now curving around the massive trunks that supported their stately plumes--a street which Phil saw in its age, its serenity and its spring freshness with the appreciation of one come from the Southwest, plus the call of old association which absence strengthens. To him the Berkshires were the hills of all hills; Longfield the village of villages; this street the street of streets; and the most majestic elm stood beside a path which led to the house of houses. Home-coming had kindled his sentiment. He had been long enough out of college not to be ashamed of a little of it, if he did not have to mention it to anybody. It was this mood in its desire to find all home pictures unchanged that had kept him from naming his train; and he had taken one arriving in the afternoon in the hope of witnessing the scene which was set for that hour in the routine of the Reverend Doctor and Mrs. Sanford, of Longfield. Their chairs in the accustomed places on the porch, the father was reading and the mother sewing in their conscious and unspoken companionship. What a delightful pair of sequestered old dears they were! How worldly he felt beside them! They had not heard his steps. He paused until his mother should see him, for he knew that she would be the first to look up. When she did, her little outcry, as she put her hand impulsively on the doctor's knee to draw the attention of an absent-minded husband, was also entirely in keeping with his anticipation and with the dependability of habit in Longfield, which was not the least of its charms. She was well on her way to meet him before his father had taken off his spectacles and placed the marker in his book. After Philip had embraced them they were silent, taking in the reality of him who had been so long absent and possibly a little awed at the presence of this sturdy, tanned only son--come to them late when they had almost given up ever having any children--who had been out battling with that world which was confusing and forbidding to them. He slipped his arm around his mother's waist. She took his hand in hers with a fluttering of mothering impulse, as he directed their steps by the side path which led to the garden, while the father, brought up the rear.