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clouds roll by until they were back. The
swimming pool turned out to be quite muddy, and after
the first year it was abandoned, so I never did get a chance to
use it.
I was slow recovering. We spent the following summer on the Cape
and whenever we went for a sail, Captain Jennings our boatman, had to
carry me from the house to the boat — a matter of no more than a
hundred yards. One day I went fishing with
my father and Captain Jennings off Cleveland's Ledge in Buzzards Bay. We
were rolling around at anchor and my father was smok-ing a cigarette. I
asked him if I might try one and he consented, expecting, no doubt that
I would become dizzy after a few puffs and learn my lesson. But not at
all. Having finished the first I asked for a second.
A few years later I got my bicycle. When Dr. Worcester came
to listen to me I was very apprehensive, as well I might have
been, but to my amazement he said yes. This made me feel much more like
a normal human being. When the weather was fair I could ride to
school, mostly downhill, but the homeward journey had to be made by
automobile, with the bicycle in the back seat.
Of course I could ride horseback all I wanted — the best tonic
in the world, my mother thought, and on weekends a group of
us would go on a riding picnic. Our farm in Sudbury was a
favorite spot. It was a unique piece of country in those days; the
cedars were small and the rolling pastureland well cropped by cows. From
the higher ground you looked down on the Sudbury Meadows, with now and
then a glimpse of the meandering river that kept within its banks all
summer. The meadows were dry enough for haying, and in the fall for
harvesting cranberries which we put in our
attic to ripen. Beyond the meadows was |
