Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/191

 beck, turning as if he had forgotten something, and offering his stout, once sinewy palm.

John gave it a grip that shook the huge frame of Elder Burbeck, and made him feel, as he seldom felt about any man, that here was a personality and a physical force at least as vigorous as his own.

"Good-by, Brother Burbeck," John responded, with an open smile; and then while the two men took themselves down the street in the direction of the car line, the book-agent went back and sat contemplatively in the park.

It was a marvelously pleasant day. A few fleecy clouds were drifting overhead, revealing patches of the unrivaled blue of California's sky above them. The sun shone warmly when the clouds were not in the way, and when they were, the lazy breeze made its breath seem cooler and more bracing, as if to compensate for the absence. Down the street two or three blocks Hampstead could see the Bay waters dancing in the sunlight. The cottages on both sides of the park were embowered with vines, roses mostly, white roses and red, with here and there a giant bougainvillea, some of its lavender, clusterlike flowers abloom, and some of them still sealed in their transparent pods that looked like envelopes of isinglass.

High in the blue an occasional pigeon circled; off to the left a kite appeared, sailing high, and bounding vigorously when the upper air currents freshened.

On John's own level, the world was faring onward very happily.

About every cottage there was an air of nature's cheer and a suggestion of blooming activity. Only the little church looked hopeless and abandoned of men, the letters of its name staring out big-eyed and lonely from above the glass transom, while the plank of the status quo, nailed rudely across its front, was a brutal advertisement of its dishonored state.