The day was a gorgeous one, the air bracing as a tonic, and my thirtieth birthday was not yet so far astern as to be lost in the fog.

After all, there were some consolations in being alive and in a state of health not "debilitated." I began to whistle.
A quarter of a mile from the junction of the Shore Lane, on the Lower Road, was a willow-shaded spot, where the brook which irrigated Elnathan Mullet's cranberry swamp ran under a small wooden bridge.

It was there that I first heard the horn and, turning, saw the automobile coming from behind me.

It was approaching at a speed of, I should say, thirty miles an hour, and I jumped to the rail of the bridge to let it pass.

Autos were not as common on the Cape then as they have become since.