beside a basket of Miss Hooker’s sheep-nose apples. I have often eaten them, but she never gave me any before. I was ever so grateful. Her orchard is walled and guarded by a dog, and getting her apples is really difficult. We used to do it by dropping a packing-box over the dog and then adding bricks, to be sure that he’d stay, but that is another story. The gift of those apples really touched me, but they didn’t taste as good. I can understand how self-made men feel about their fortunes. It is perfectly natural to enjoy something that you steal under adverse circumstances. It sort of makes you feel clever, which feeling everyone enjoys. gave But to get on. I was to go to Doctor Crane’s for the night. His wife was a great friend of my mother’s, and has always written me more or less regularly, beside sending me things at Christmas-time. And, although it is hard for me to meet strangers, I really looked forward to going there. And it was lovely. I arrived in Baltimore at eight that night, and I was never so frightened. In the first place, I had never been in a large city before, and the crowd was dense. And then--I am used to being near people I know, and I hadn’t spoken a word to anyone beside the conductor all day. I began to feel terribly lonely. So, after I had got to the waiting-room with the help of a porter, I stood and waited, feeling intensely miserable. And--when I heard, “Miss Natalie Page?” in a nice man’s voice, I said, “Thank you ever so much, God----” (inside) for I was beginning to wonder what I should do if I wasn’t met. I didn’t feel as if I could go out and take a taxi as I had been told to. For I was sure I wouldn’t know a taxi from any other kind of a car, although Miss Hooker said they had flags on them. ever Well, it was Doctor Crane, and he has a real smile. “Yes,” he went on, “it is Miss Natalie Page, and some baggage,” and we both laughed. Then he got a porter, had my things put in his small car, and we started. and “I think Mrs. Crane has a little supper waiting,” he said very cheerfully (I am sure he somehow knew that I felt timid and a little alone), “for I heard her ordering patty-cases and French pastries this morning. I don’t suppose you like them?” like I said I was sure I would.
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