Footloose and Free; Illustrated (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1912 Excerpt: ... spirit of vagabondage was dancing in his heart. Of course, he reflected, he could have waited his turn and taken his vacation when it came due. That was what he had saved two hundred and forty-seven dollars for. And then he began to laugh inwardly. There was something so very absurd about a man putting aside a dollar or two every week for the annual vacation, which he would have to take when the slave-owners decreed. Then he would be permitted leave of absence to spend his savings in one or other of the places cut and dried for the business of absorbing vacation moneys. In the limited two weeks he might have time to take a run to Havana, turn three times around the Prado and come back to work with a coat of sudden tan or sea-raw. He might go to the mountains and breathe the balsams and loaf in a canoe and get back with a pleasant memory of lakes and forests, also a vague disappointed sense of "nothing-happened." If his vacation fell due in the sporting season, he might shoot a deer or land a rather large trout. He might--But the only certainty of a two-weeks' hunting trip--at least as Shackles had found it--is that just when you have shaken the city feeling and settled down to a genuine appreciation of the big silences, it is time to return, and you come back to the city in a state of rebellion more acute than when you started. No--no more of these for Shackles. He had decided that the only vacation is that which has the errant spirit at its foundation--the determination to put forth in search of what may turn up by the way, with a destination that is merely nominal and subject to change upon a whim, and with a time-limit that is fixed only by luck. "I don't know where I'm going," quoth Shackles, "but I'm on my way, and come wind or weather, I'm going to ma...