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ROADS TO CHILDHOOD

I was a very little girl when the Cornish road fell in and my imagination feasted on the incident in all its dramatic possibilities. What had become of the road? Could it have fallen all the way through to China or did it stop falling somewhere between countries? What kind of people were riding over it and were they riding on ponies? Would the road ever rise again?

I firmly believed that the road would rise again and fervently prayed that I might be on hand to see it happen. Fortunately for me “Every Child” was still unborn and no volumes of complete pictured knowledge, no sterilized journeys through bookland, obscured those delightful pictures of my sunken road.

I had always loved the Cornish road for its woods and rushing brooks and, most of all, because it led straight on to the White Mountains. From its open stretches on a clear day I could see Mount Washington white with snow. Beyond the White Mountains lay the world, but I felt in no haste to explore it, I was too fearful of missing something vitally inter-

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