Yesterday afternoon, while Jack Huff and I were sitting in front of the fireplace at the top of Mt. Le Conte, a couple of weary strangers came around the corner of the lodge.

They asked for succor—for a night’s lodging and a spot of food and a touch of bandage for sore heels—and they got it, in good Smoky Mountain fashion.

They turned out to be two of the nicest strangers who ever came to a mountaintop. They were Cleveland business men, out on a vacation trip. One was John F. Wilson, white-haired general manager of the Equity Savings & Loan Co. The other was Carr Liggett, who has his own advertising agency.

A man who has just climbed a mountain feels a wonderful sense of accomplishment. He takes off his shoes and sprawls out with a feeling of honestly earned repose. The thin air and the great height and the unbridgeable gap in character between us and all those soft souls down below gives you a puffy pride, and you expand and expound at great length. We all did that.

The afternoon wore on into early mountain darkness, and after supper we felt like purring. Then Jack Huff came with more great logs. And we sat warm before the fireplace and under the hanging gasoline lantern and we all waxed, you might say, a little philosophic.

We finished the war (England won); we finished the election (we’re keeping the result secret); we wrapped up and shipped off the WPA; we scouted the Andes and climbed a bit around the Alps; we discussed the proper way to drive an automobile; we went through the entire curriculum of sectional dialects in America; we achieved a new definition of civilization as meaning the advance of human kindness, and decided civilization is going ahead despite everything; we told stories of bears and prodigious feats of walking; we decided how a fireplace should be built; we took up the Negro question and we talked of bank loans; we poured some steel and we figured out the best way to build an air force. It’s astounding what a half-dozen people can talk about in one evening on a mountaintop.

And then, as sort of dessert for our ruminations, Mr. Wilson carried us back to pioneer days, when our hardy ancestors first came to this country.

And so soothing were the bandages on Mr. Wilson’s feet, and so heady the wine of warmth upon Mr. Wilson’s brow, that he condemned all modern conveniences as a lot of nonsense. As for him, he’d take the pioneer way of cold bedrooms and candlelight and straw ticks. Those were the days, and those were the men, said Mr. Wilson.

And in climactic conclusion, Mr. Wilson declaimed that of all the abominations upon this earth the most despicable in his life was steam heat.

Whereupon we all retired to our cold bedrooms. If Mr. Wilson had got up this morning swearing he had slept like a baby, I think I would have kicked his sore heel. But he didn’t. He damn near froze to death, just as I did. Pioneers—Bah.

BREAKFAST EXCELLENT

But the morning sun can do much for a man. Today was clear, and our breakfast was excellent, and we faced the prospect of our seven-mile return hike almost with eagerness.

Since I like to walk alone, I started out ahead of my new friends. Twice during the first half of the downhill journey I stopped to rest. But after the second sitting, I never stopped again.

The truth is, I was afraid to stop. That rheumatic knee of mine got worse and worse. Every downward step plunged it into a kettle of hot agony. It creaked so loud I couldn’t hear the birds sing. It went back and forth through sheer force of habit, and I knew that if ever I interrupted its rhythmic routine to rest, I’d never get it started again.

So on and on I walked, through an eternity, and it was close to noon when suddenly the forest-roofed trail broke out into the open, and some cars were sitting around, and I knew here was the end of the rainbow. The Great Walker had made it home. He collapsed on a rock.

Now my Cleveland friends should have been no more than five minutes behind. But time passed. And more time. And they didn’t come. Finally I got to worrying, and thinking of bears or snakes or broken legs.

At last—three-quarters of an hour behind me—they came, limping and halt.

Mr. Wilson’s toes somehow had got all mixed up with each other, and wound up a mass of blood inside his boots. And Mr. Liggett discovered he had some muscles that hadn’t been used since he was marching down roads in France in 1918. We were, as they say in the South, a “sorry” trio.

It is with a breaking heart that I recount this, for I believe Mr. Wilson intends to tell some heroic story about it around Cleveland. But I say this is a democracy, and if my own frail knee must suffer the cruel scrutiny of the public spotlight, then Mr. Wilson’s torn toes shall not hide in privacy.

BID ADIEU

We bid each other a hikers’ adieu. My Cleveland friends started right home. Personally I’m not at all sure of them, even though Mr. Wilson is a rugged pioneer. If they do not return soon, I hope The Cleveland Press will send out an expedition.