But I was coming
back. And then there was one great reason for my eagerness that few
folk knew--that my son John was coming to meet me in Australia. I was
missing him sore already.
They came aboard the old tubby liner to see us off, friends by the
score. They kept me busy shaking hands.
"Good-by, Harry," they said. And "Good luck, Harry," they cried. And
just before the bugles sounded all ashore I heard a few of them
crooning an old Scots song:
"Will ye no come back again?"
"Aye, I'll come back again!" I told them when I heard them.
"Good, Harry, good!" they cried back to me. "It's a promise! We'll be
waiting for you--waiting to welcome you!"
And so we sailed from San Francisco and from America, out through the
Golden Gate, toward the sunset. Here was beauty for me, who loved it
new beauty, such as I had not seen before. They were quiet days,
happy days, peaceful days. I was tired after my long tour, and the
days at sea rested me, with good talk when I craved it, and time to
sleep, and no need to give thought to trains, or to think, when I
went to bed, that in the night they'd rouse me from my sleep by
switching my car and giving me a bump.
We came first to Hawaii, and I fell in love with the harbor of
Honolulu as we sailed in. Here, at last, I began to see the strange
sights and hear the strange sounds I had been looking forward to ever
since I left my wee hoose at Dunoon.
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