A thousand times I
had to repeat my promise, and the last thing he said before we slept was:
"Ken, you're going to ring me in next summer!"
II. THE MAN ON THE TRAIN
Travelling was a new experience to me, and on the first night after I left
home I lay awake until we reached Altoona. We rolled out of smoky Pittsburg
at dawn, and from then on the only bitter drop in my cup of bliss was that
the train went so fast I could not see everything out of my window.
Four days to ride! The great Mississippi to cross, the plains, the Rocky
Mountains, then the Arizona plateaus-a long, long journey with a wild pine
forest at the end! I wondered what more any young fellow could have wished.
With my face glued to the car window I watched the level country speed by.
There appeared to be one continuous procession of well-cultivated farms,
little hamlets, and prosperous towns. What interested me most, of course,
were the farms, for all of them had some kind of wood. We passed a zone of
maple forests which looked to be more carefully kept than the others. Then
I recognized that they were maple-sugar trees. The farmers had cleaned out
the other species, and this primitive method of forestry had produced the
finest maples it had ever been my good-fortune to see. Indiana was flatter
than Ohio, not so well watered, and therefore less heavily timbered.
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