Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

marshlands, and I strode along more rapidly. I noted that it was used as a bridle-path, tho it hardly seems probably it was made expressly for that purpose. It led to Transit Road, and on east. So [saturated] had I become with the wildeness of the barrens, than (sic) even the familiar prosaic Transit Road had a far-away strange appearance.; I continued eastward. Great areas of dappled white clouds had over-spread the southern half of the sky. Though they stopped shadow-casting sunlight, yet they were so brilliantly illuminated, that they cast a paler, false sunlight over the earth – the effect was strange and unearthly –; The raised strip extended as far as Aurora Road, thru more open country. At this road, I started southward. I hoped to find a telephone at William street so I could call Bertha who had suggested I walk as far as I wanted to go, and she would pick me up in the car. I was beginning to feel the dullness of fatigue. But there not only was no telephone at a cross-roads gas-station, but none in the neighborhood.; So I proceeded on south, towards Clinton street. How different the afternoon sunlight seemed. I was reminded of my boyhood’s Saturday rambles, of coming up the Painter road in mid-afternoon, dead-tired from a morning spent in the Bottoms. The fact that I now felt much the same way walking along suddenly brought me closer in my heart to this countryside.