Amen." The weeks skipped, the days took wing, an hour was a flash of thought; so brimful of events was the interval before our departure.

And no one was more alive than I to the multiple significance of the daily drama.
My mother, full of grief at the parting from home and family and all things dear, anxious about the journey, uncertain about the future, but ready, as ever, to take up what new burdens awaited her; my sister, one with our mother in every hope and apprehension; my brother, rejoicing in his sudden release from heder; and the little sister, vaguely excited by mysteries afoot; the uncles and aunts and devoted neighbors, sad and solemn over their coming loss; and my father away over in Boston, eager and anxious about us in Polotzk,--an American citizen impatient to start his children on American careers,--I knew the minds of every one of these, and I lived their days and nights with them after an apish fashion of my own.
But at bottom I was aloof from them all.

What made me silent and big-eyed was the sense of being in the midst of a tremendous adventure.

From morning till night I was all attention.

I must credit myself with some pang of parting; I certainly felt the thrill of expectation; but keener than these was my delight in the progress of the great adventure.