Mr. Pegg at once disappeared into a den where I have a deep-rooted suspicion some sort of card game was in progress, and he hardly reappeared again, except for food, during the remainder of the trip.
At any rate the lack of necessity for actively chaperoning my charge left me free to make notes upon that part of America which was foreign to me. Indeed, I was glad of the opportunity, for though I had been several times from Boston to Plymouth, and had once visited an aunt in Philadelphia, I felt there was yet much of my native land for me to see. And there was. Very much.
How very, very much I had really no conception in advance, nor can any language adequately describe it. To do so would be like reading the unabridged dictionary aloud. Indeed, the term "unabridged" is the only one which conveys any sense of the country one crosses. And it was so amazing to find it really existed. One had been told about Kansas plains and the northern Arizona deserts, but the statements made by travelers were somehow not convincing. Nobody's statements about travel ever are. But now I saw those, as I may call them, illimitable spaces and stupendous mountains. There were actually Indians! Upon my word of honor, though not nearly so realistic as the ones who used to sell worm medicine in Bigelo's drug store window on Bank Street. Still they were undoubtedly genuine, and even accepted a little money from me at Albuquerque. It was most thrilling.
I felt singularly small and incompetent and ignorant, whirling along through this infinite territory. It made me ashamed, curiously enough, to realize that I had ever thought that the original thirteen colonies were America; that I had actually once entertained the supposition that that portion of the country situated west of Buffalo was something to be vaguely apologetic for! It made Europe seem small and insignificant, with its toy railways and funny little huddled towns and neatly apportioned fields--even its terrible present situation; or rather made America seem enormously safe, sane and resourceful.
I had always been proud of being a New Englander, and now I began to be impressed with the stupendous fact of being an American. In one thing only was I disappointed.