Page:A Thousand-Mile Walk To The Gulf.djvu/36

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Introduction

much surprised to see him. Mrs. Hodgson was in her garden and he recognized her, though the years had altered her appearance. Let us give his own account of the meeting: “I asked her if she knew me. No, I don’t,’ she said; ‘tell me your name.’ ‘Muir,’ I replied. ‘John Muir? My California John Muir?’ she almost screamed. I said, ‘Yes, John Muir; and you know I promised to return and visit you in about twenty-five years, and though I am a little late—six or seven years—I’ve done the best I could.’ The eldest boy and girl remembered the stories I told them, and when they read about the Muir Glacier they felt sure it must have been named for me. I stopped at Archer about four hours, and the way we talked over old times you may imagine.” From Savannah, on the same trip, he wrote: “Here is where I spent a hungry, weary, yet happy week camping in Bonaventure graveyard thirty-one years ago. Many changes, I am told, have been made in its graves and avenues of late, and how many in my life!”


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