scream: "JOHN! COME BACK!" These were agonized cries, great shouts of incredible power, in a voice full of tortured sadness and terrible longing.

In the silence of the night in those years the crickets could be heard chirping and there were few cars to pass or make any noise. In the distance two blocks away I could plainly hear the boys calling out: "Eve-ning Herald Pa-per!" I put down my coloring and stepped out on the garden stair porch to listen to the great voice that cried out so terribly.

"JOHN! COME BACK!" The tremendous calls continued. The young man seemed to be calling back someone who had left his home half way up the high hill across the valley from me. He walked down the hill slowly, calling out all the way, his voice coming closer and closer, getting louder and louder and more hoarse all the time.

The (first) World War was just over then a short time we occasionally saw the wounded soldiers around. My father was sitting in the dining room with my mother over their after-dinner coffee. He was eating apple pie. I spoke in to him through the screen door.

"Do you hear that young man, Papa?"

"Yes," he said. "It must be a soldier boy who has lost his mind.-Poor Fellow. There are a lot of them like that. They come back from the war for a year or two, then they crack up and loose their minds thinking about it."

"Maybe he lost a friend in the war," I said. The great cries continued, roaring like a bull.

Mama came to the door and glanced out.

"Look at all the people opening their doors," she said. Up and down the valley lights appeared as people came out on porches to listen.

"It's a wonder he doesn't burst his lungs!" She shrugged and went in again.

The young man came down the hill and stopped for a while one block above the boulevard, crying out all the way. He was now only two blocks away from me, as the crow flies. I decided to run down to the boulevard as it seemed he was approaching it.

Our block was triangular so I had to go two blocks to get there. I was a little adventurous and I didn't bother my parents with where I was going, as I always went out to play in the evenings, often until 9 or 9:30. I went around the house, up the side steps to the front, ran down one block to the corner, and then back another block to the crossing where the drug store and the bakery and several other stores were. A few other children and some boys and a few older people hurried along, too, to see what was to be seen.

Across from the drugstore, a block from our home, again as the crow flies, lived four sisters: Mrs. Dantz, a widow, "The Pretty Miss Pymer," "The Old Miss Pymer," and another Miss Pymer that all the children called "The Dog Woman.' These four were about sixty years of age or over. The Dog Woman was eccentric. One rainy day she found a half-starved woebegone old yellow spaniel and took it home. I saw her find it. For years she took care of that dog like a human child, feeding it, dressing it in dog jackets or dog raincoats, washing it. As I saw her find it I became a friend of hers, and I was invited in to meet the whole family