How the sea flashes, and the blue, blue sky flashes, too. There’s a boat drifting this way. It looks like a white-winged gull afloat, a messenger of joy. How the waves sing, and their swelling song is all about a little girl in a white sunbonnet picking cherries in the lane. I remember that day, too, Bobby. It was a picnic. You climbed the tree and I caught up my dress to catch the big ripe cherries. When the picnic was over and we got home my gentle mother scolded over the ruined dress. She gave it to the washerwoman’s little girl. How the waves sing, and their shouting song is—Bobby’s _loved one_. _Afternoon._ The day’s mood has changed. A cold wind blows in from the sea. If mammy could see me out here on this deserted stretch of shore in the rain and the spray that dashes on me from the stormy, inrushing waves she’d say her prayers in thankfulness that she put the old storm coat and rubbers in, for I’ve got them on. How fierce the rush of the waves! Something as elementally savage as their assault of the shore stirs in me, writhes in its travail—is born. Bobby is _mine_. Dicky, light-hearted, laughing child who would pluck the flower of love as a baby gathers a posy, forgive me. When the day is hot and the road is long, and the flower of love droops, what then, Dicky? _Night._ I have wired Bobby that I will be in New York Wednesday. It will take me that long to finish the changes in the book. I wired him that my train gets in about five-thirty, and that if he likes I will take dinner with him. _April 30th._ Bobby’s wire reads: Sure, Mike, I’ll be on hand at 5:30 Wednesday to welcome you on your retreat from Bosting. And don’t bother yourself about the train getting in at six or later, for I’ll be on the job and I’ll be there when you get there. I have already ordered the lye hominy and turnip greens for dinner, and you’ll be properly looked after by the committee of one when you hit the town. Hoping these few lines will find you the same, I remain, Yours continuously, B. _May 1st._ Bobby wasn’t at the train. If he was, we missed each other. I wasn’t conscious of it on the train, but now I know I pictured him there at the station, standing just a little in advance of the mass of people; vaguely, I think my mind ran the gamut of earth’s meetings and thought of dim shores, not of earth, where that one who goes first must surely await the other. To the whir of the wheels as they ate up the miles that lie between Boston and New York my heart sang, Bobby’s loved one, Bobby’s _loved one_. I was in a maze of vague, happy thought—and he wasn’t there—he didn’t meet me.