that sounds so _breezy_ and _stimulating_. And they've helped me
understand the immensity of the landscapes and the ideas out here, the
big, throbbing, rough young life, and under it all, as Whitman says, "a
meaning--Democracy, _American_ Democracy." Really it's been
interesting, _the jolliest time of my life,_ and it's got me all
unsettled. More than once in watching some scene typical of the region,
the plain, busy, earnest people, I've actually thrilled to think that
this was _my country_--felt that queer little tickling tingle that
locates your spine for you. I'm sure there's no _ennui_ here. Some one
said the other day, "_Ennui_ is a disease that comes from living on
other people's money." I said no, that I'd often had as fine an attack
as if I'd been left a billion, that _ennui_ is when you don't know what
to do next and wouldn't do it if you did. Well, here they always _do_
know what to do next, and as one of them told me, "_We always get up
early the day before to do it_."

Auntie, dear, the trip has made me _more restless and dissatisfied_
than ever. It makes me want to _do_ something--to _risk_ something, to
want to _want_ something more than I've ever learned to want.

That's one reason I'm acting badly. The other will interest you more.

It's no less a reason than _the athletic young Bayard_ who cheated
those cab-horses of their prey that night Fred didn't drink all the
Scotch whiskey in New York. Our meeting, and the mater's treatment of
him before she discovered who he was, are too delicious to write. I
must wait to tell you.

It is enough to say that now I heard his name it recalled nothing to
me, and I took him from his dress to be a _workingman_ in the mine we