It is strange, when one thinks of it, that I came to your house on a
wedding night, and here I live in a perpetual atmosphere of wedding
blisses.
In the morning I write. In the afternoon I do other things. The
weather is not cold--it is dry and sunshiny--windless. I take long
walks over the hills and far away. Some of it is desolate country
where the boxed pines have fallen, or where an area has been burned but
one comes now and then upon groves of shimmering and shining young
trees,--is there any tree as beautiful as a young pine with the
sunshine on it?
It is rare to find a grove of old pines, yet there are one or two
estates where for years no trees have been cut or burned, and beneath
these tall old singing monarchs I sit on the brown needles, and write
and write--to what end I know not.
I have not one finished story to show you, though the beginnings of
many. The pen is not my medium. My thoughts seem to dry up when I try
to put them on paper. It is when I talk that I grow most eloquent.
Oh, little friend, shall I ever make the world listen again?
I am going to tell you presently of those who have listened, down
here--such an audience--and in such an amphitheater!
My walks take me far afield. The roads are sandy, and I do not always
follow them, preferring, rather, the dunes which remind me so much of
those by the sea. Once upon a time this ground was the ocean's bed--I
have the feeling always that just beyond the low hills I shall glimpse
the blue.
Now and then I meet some darkey of the old school with his cheery
greeting; now and then on the highroad a schooner wagon sails by.
These wagons give one the queer feeling of being set back to pioneer
days,--do you remember the Pike's Peak picture at the Capitol with all
the eager faces turned toward the setting sun?
Now and then I run across a hunting party from one of the big hotels
which are getting to be plentiful in this healthy region, but these
people with their sporting clothes and their sophistication always seem
out of place among the pines.
And now, since you have written to me of life as a journey on the
highroad, I will tell you of my first adventure.
There's a schooner-man who comes from the sandhills on his way to the
nearest resort with his chickens and eggs. It is a three days'
journey, and he camps out at night, sleeping in his wagon, building his
fire in the open.