Unpleasant, ill-natured, evil-tempered things they were to Quincy--freaks without form or beauty, uninspiring and meaningless. To any lad of vision, a brook with a bass sunning in its bed, a flower upon a ledge of rock, must mean immeasurably more. But for the vague impression of this truth, Quincy was upbraided. He could not buttress it with clarifying questions, such, for instance, as whether a man with three noses would be deemed worshipful or a woman ten feet high entrancing. And if not, then why these freaks styled geysers? Quincy knew deeply that he would be more comfortable and more inspired in a copse of saplings. But to a continent with no imagination, these miserable spurts of water and hot mud are a property of pride. So, of course, the boy riled his father and the gaping girls by his indifference, the few times they turned to sound him. And then, after the nightmare of dusty roads and advertised monstrosities which one was ordered to admire, as one is ordered to brush one’s teeth (and which seemed equally aside the point of living), came another scourge of trains. And between them, cities that deafened and terrified and bullied. And then, one blessed day, after the most abysmal and thundering of all the cities, there was Harriet at the end of the day’s journey! With a real sense of joy, Quincy took in the modest, crumbled-wood station, the box-like freight house on the siding. And when the platform slid in beneath his staring eyes that seemed glued to the car-window, and there, in a grey dress and a black shawl over her head, was mother, he could not restrain himself from a demonstration. Here at last was something got to by trains that he could rejoice in and wonder at! For there, despite the ceaseless purgatory he had been hurled or pushed through, stood the old bulwark, the old love--as serenely unchanged as if all of it had been an angry dream. And so perchance it had been! Yet, Quincy did not on that account elect to linger in it. Dream or actuality, it was to be got behind! And the one efficacious way of that was to storm from the train, to fling into the arms of the dear past--and to lie there, huddled, tearful, aglow, while the great iron monster with snort and scream pulled the horror--dream or actuality--forever after it, out of the station. So, it was needful that Quincy act. And so, he acted. Oblivious of hat or coat, he rushed frantic down the aisle of the lugubrious car--his hands out, his mouth open. A trainman guarded the door. He passed him, nor could the car platform hold him. Down he flew, and stumbled upon the whirling walk of the station. His mother picked him up, bruised but happy. He looked up at her. He had seen her first; he had reached her first. And now, here she was touching him, clasping his shoulders, smoothing his hair, brushing his coat. What mattered an abrasion on the knee or a burning on the forehead? He looked up, then, speechless, taking in his delight.