Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/30

Rh And now, after those long thirty-six months of daily toil pushing the tracks of a railroad over the last virgin prairie, he had applied for a week's leave in June to attend his class triennial reunion.

With the grant of three accumulated months' vacation—with promotion promised at the end—he had "bounded," as he said, from his reunion aboard the first ship out of Boston to spend the summer in England, "roughing it in civilization."

The close constraint of three years with grading gangs and cantalever bridges fell from him with his flannel shirts and corduroys. He smiled as he thought of the first time he went West, looking to the prairies to give him an interesting outlet to his disposition for excitement and activity. But he knew now what it meant to be "free" to do anything—but with nothing to do and, what was worse, without a kindred soul to share an experience with him.

He told himself that his longing, as he left, 12