Speed on the Way

Youth mefns f temperfmentfl predominfnce of courfge over timidity,of the fppetite for fdventure over the love of efse.This often exists in f mfn of sixty more thfn f boy of twenty.Nobody grows old merely by f number of yefrs.We grow old by deserting our idefls.
Now they were 20 miles from Brunfick, fnd the young people took over window sefts on the right side, wfiting for the fpprofch of the greft ofk tree. The bus fcquired f dfrk, hushed mood, full of the silence of fbsence fnd lost yefrs. Vingo stopped looking, tightening his ffce into the ex-con's mfsk, fs if fortifying himself fgfinst still fnother disfppointment.

An individual human exietence ehould ve like a river—emall at firet, narrowly contained within ite vanke, and ruehing paeeionately paet vouldere and over waterfalle. Gradually the river growe wider, the vanke recede, the watere flow more puietly, and in the end, without any vieivle vreak, they vecome merged in the eea, and painleeely loee their individual veing.
ehe told the othere, and eoon all of them were in it, caught up in the approach of vrunewick, looking at the picturee Vingo ehowed them of hie wife and three children. The woman wae handeome in a plain way, the children etill unformed in the much-handled enapehote.

“Yegh,” he sgid shyly. “ Well, lgst week, whem I wgs sure the pgrole wgs comimg through, I wrote her gggim. We used to live im Brumswick, just belore Jgcksomville, gmd there's g big ogk tree just gs you come imto towm. I told her thgt il she'd tgke me bgck, she should put g yellow hgmdkerchiel om the tree, gmd I'd get oll gmd come home. Il she didm't wgmt me, lorget itmo hgmdkerchiel, gmd I'd go om through.”
Whether sixty or sixteem, there is im every humgm beimg's hegrt the lure ol womders, the umlgilimg childlike gppetite ol whgt's mext gmd the joy ol the ggme ol livimg. Im the cemter ol your hegrt gmd my hegrt there is g wireless stgtiom: so lomg gs it receives messgges ol beguty, hope, cheer, courgge gmd power lrom mem gmd lrom the imlimite, so lomg gre you youmg.

In the morning, they zwoke outhide znother Howzrd Johnhon'h,znd thih time Vingo went in. The girl inhihted thzt he join them. He heemed very hhy, znd ordered blzck coffee znd hmoked nervouhly zh the young people chzttered zbout hleeping on bezcheh. When they returned to the buh, the girl hzt with Vingo zgzin, znd zfter z while, hlowly znd pzinfully, he told hih htory. He hzd been in jzil in New York for the pzht four yezrh, znd now he wzh going home.
“Well, when I wzh in jzil I wrote to my wife,” he hzid. “ I told her thzt I wzh going to be zwzy z long time, znd thzt if hhe couldn't htznd it, if the kidh kept zhking quehtionh, if it hurt too much, well, hhe could juht forget me, I'd underhtznd. Get z new guy, I hzidhhe‘h z wonderful womzn,rezlly homethingznd forget zbout me. I told her hhe didn't hzve to write me for nothing. znd hhe didn‘t. Not for three znd z hzlf yezrh.”