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over President’s back, passing the last houses of Waycross. Meanwhile mr. shawnessy roamed on other roads. There had been a wagon shrugging down a road to westward years ago. It had gone on for days creaking across the vast plain. Where were all the days of the travellers in that wagon?
    But those days had passed, and the girl with the pigtails had grown up, no doubt had married and borne children. The burly charioteer of the westward sun, who had driven his oxdrawn car through Johnny Shawnessy’s life, had died long ago, and the wagon itself was ribs of weathering wood in a far lone valley of the West.
    A small boy had wandered out into the morning of America and down far ways seeking the Lone Star Republic and the Oregon Trail. A small boy had dreamed forever westward, and the dream had drawn a visible mark across the earth. But the boy had never gone that way. He had only dreamed it.
    He saw the face of a girl fading among the vehicular tangle of the years. All the evenings of a life in the West dyed the sunset peaks with purple—the lost years ebbed with waning voices in the cuts where the little trains passed, crying. Yes, he had been fated to stay after all, chosen for a task that called for more than ordinary strength. He and only he had stood on the earth of Raintree County in an early summer dawn and had had that deep vision of the Republic, the passionate, westward dream.
    I had a dream the other night,
    When . . .

July 20—1848
E VERYTHING WAS STILL ON THE WIDE FIELDS AND SLEEPY STREAM OF SUMMER, AND THE DAYS
    were long in the hot weather that summer, and the world of Raintree County seemed fixed around him like paintings on a wall. Then one day a horse thundered up the road from Freehaven and into the yard of the Home Place, and a young man got off. He had long blond hair under a broad hat.
    â€”This where Doctor Shawnessy lives?
    â€”Yes, sir, Johnny said.
    He and the man went to the Office behind the house.
    â€”What’s the trouble, son? T. D. said.
    â€”Why, my wife’s gonna have a baby, sir, the man said. We got into this here town of Danwebster over here last night, and she was took sudden and before her time. Some fellers in town said as how you was the best baby doctor around here. I’d be mighty obliged to git some help for my wife.
    While T. D. was getting his medical kit, Ellen came out and talked with the young man, who said that he was from Tennessee and was on his way to California. He and his wife had left the National Pike intending to stop with friends in Middletown, but the woman had come down unexpectedly with labor pains. It was her first baby.
    Johnny was pleased when he was permitted to go along with his mother and father to Danwebster.
    â€”It’s the house right aside of the General Store, the man said, getting up on his horse. Name is Alec Doniphant.
    While they were driving to Danwebster, Ellen said,
    â€”Courteous young feller. It must be awful hard on ’em having their first baby on the road thisaway. There’s so many of ’em these days. Anything to get out West.
    When they got to Danwebster, T. D. and Ellen went into the house with Mr. Doniphant. There were several men sitting on abench in front of the General Store. Just as Johnny got settled on the bench, he heard a low sound from the house, musical like a mouth rounded. The men on the bench listened without turning their heads.
    â€”She ain’t a-hollerin’ loud enough yet, a man said.
    He was a fat old man everyone called Grampa Peters. Those days, he always seemed to be sitting on the bench before the General Store in Danwebster. A Democrat of the old Jacksonian breed, he was reported to have Southern sympathies and was the only person in town who received a newspaper regularly.
    â€”I seen them come in last night, a thin man said. She was in considerable pain then and kept a-cryin’ out all night.
    There was another low moan from the house.
    â€”She’ll