Howard Pyle, a chronicle by Charles D. Abbott, with an introduction by N. C. Wyeth and many illustrations from Howard Pyle's works.

HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE
to Lancaster tonight, as I said, for dear only knows what
the German bed may be....
"And now for my absolute news. I find the natives here
as hard to open as an oyster without a knife. Your mother
was quite right. They do not expand with the geniality
one might expect from the bucolic German. On the contrary
they shut withthe most persistent tenacity. I landed in
Ephrata feeling--metaphorically speaking--like the Vizier's
son in the Arabian Nights, when he was suddenly transported into the desert with almost nothing on, so ill at ease
was I. Mr. Bare had given me a letter to John (not Jacob)
Pfautz, whom he represented as a man of great intelligence
and knowledge of the German Baptists. I found at home
a pleasant-faced German woman and a man with a long
beard and a pendulous wen on his cheek. John was in the
workhouse; she rang the bell and he came. He turned the
letter over and over in his hands with a vague look on his
face that gradually broke with some intelligence as he said
that he remembered Dan Bare. He maundered on about
his having books and things, but happened to forget what
was in them. I confess I felt rather helpless when I considered this as a sample of extra-intelligence, but the pleasant-faced woman (his daughter) explained that the old
man was getting childish-which made the old man mad.
"I had to give it up, so I walked up the road a piece
to where one of the Bishops of the church lives, but he was
not in. His wife informed me that 'he'll generally be here
till (at) ten o'clock. I don't think as he'll be gone till very
long.' I waited an hour for him but no signs of his approach appeared-still, his wife every now and then dropped
in to tell me that 'he's generally here till ten o'clock or a
[82]