.. the product to be something at least
individual and warm from the maker's personality.
I thought of Jusserand's _English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages_. If
the Canterbury Pilgrims, led by jolly Harry Bailey, their host, had
burst out from the woods, on horseback, singing and jesting, I should
not have considered their appearance an anachronism....
A tousle-headed girl-child in rompers which she was too big for, pointed
me Baxter's house, the largest in the community.
There seemed to be no one home when I dropped my suitcase on the front
porch....
I knocked vigorously. No one came. I waited a long while.
"A hell of a way to welcome me!" I meditated, my egotism hurt.
Again I knocked.
"Come in! do come in!" a gentle voice bade--it was Mrs. Baxter's.
I pushed the door open and stepped in. I set down my heavy suitcase with
a thump, on the bare, hardwood floor of the large room in which I found
myself--a room sparsely furnished, its walls lined with books. It had
one large window, under and along which was built in, a long, wide shelf
made into a sort of divan, promiscuous with cushions.
Propped up with a disordered heap of these cushions sat Mrs. Hildreth
Baxter, in blouse and bloomers; she was reading.
"Why, Johnnie Gregory!" she cried, swinging her graceful, slim legs
down, and rising, coming toward me, extending her hand in greeting.
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