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Came the next day --- in the afternoon, when the weather grew warm and the glorious sun smiled down from the azure depths. The windows in the car were raised and the low croon of the electric fan was music to my ears. (I was traveling "first-class," now, and my wheel chair had the "Bridal Suit" back in the baggage car.) As we neared Warm Springs, the train veering to the left, there unfolded before my wondering eyes one of the roseate sunsets of Georgia. It was magnificent as flecks of gold turned crimson, turned purple and violet and faded into the opalescent blue of the evening sky. We rounded a sharp bend and I saw lights flickering in the distance. "Warm Springs!" called the conductor, and I had reached the end of my journey.

I was carried out of the car and down the steps while a kindly and inquisitive crowd of villagers drew nigh. We greeted each other and I noticed with what "delicious" ease these natives spoke the "English as she is spoken." There was no cacophony of clashing consonants with this style; nothing but euphony of sweet sound. I overheard low mention back in the crowd of my pathetic thinness, and one kind old lady said, "He's so pale he's like to die." But these good people soon realized that this was not the kind of proper greeting --- commencing as if I was already lying in state, and one good sport came up and told me how I would soon gain weight and in a few days "look like the tanned side of a buffalo hide." Another one told me that he "reckoned" a boll weevil or two in my soup would greatly aid and abet the fattening process.

I never will forget the fresh woody smell on the evening air. It had the exhilarating tinge of pine and I breathed it deep. Leaving the station we started for the resort Inn but a mile and a half distant. The road wound and dipped gracefully through the dark and silent woods. Once on a rather high elevation the driver slowed down and pointing down over the shadowy and undulating hills, told me that at the foot sprang the wonderful Warm Springs. My heart had given an extra bound within me as I anticipated my first dip into the pool in the morning.

We reached the Inn but it was not yet open for occupancy. (Remember I am now telling of Warm Springs under the old regime of things, back in the early spring of '25. Infantile paralysis was as yet a strange creature here and there was poor accomodation afforded). I was directed to a nearby cottage where preparations for my arrival had been made. Here I was warmly greeted by the house-keeper, Mrs. Bulloch. After laving face and hands and drying much of the Southern Railway on a virgin towel, I was wheeled out to the dining, room and placed at the head of a long table. A colored girl sat a large platter of "something" in front of me which I was smilingly told was "Country Captain." This is a typical southern dish (or is it from India?) and is composed as follows: chicken, rice, rasins, tomattoes, onions, thyme, currey and garlic. An artistic hand had delicatly frescoed it over --- fore and aft, so that now it reposed in front of me a truly beautiful study in brown and white. I ate it all up!

I had scarcely finished the meal when in walked the Manager and his wife, the delightful Mr. and Mrs. Tom Loyless. With them was a winsome lady, Mrs. Walty, wife of the Inn proprietor. I was then given a brief history of the place from the keen and eloquent (and now late) Mr. Loyless. I was told how up to this time it had only been recognized as an old-fashioned southern pleasure resort. The large public bathing pool had afforded an invigorating and delightful watering place the year round. The water had received a reputation for improving the condition and actually curing persons suffering from rheumatic and nerve disorders. Now, it had lately proven beneficial in the long sought cure for infantile. Was there not a potentiality here worthy of valiant endeavor? With an estimation of 125,000 persons suffering from the effects of this malady at the present time, was there not a just reason for prosecuting the find to the very limit? I simply listened as he went on, rising on the wings of his eloquence and in the sincerity of man's gratitude to man, hailed him as a god.

The low sighing in the pines and. the call of a night bird reached my ears as Mr. Loyless, wrapped in the intimacy of his golden thoughts, waxed silent for the moment. The rest of the party respected this silence and I was free to contemplate my own strange thrust into this Delightful Unknown. The air --- so fresh, and with the subtle hint of pine aroma in every breath, must have been filtered in the garden of Jove himself. Outside there was the steady whispering in the trees and the fireflies sparkling; within me the sudden sweep of a resplendent "thing" --- intangible, understood only in this that I wanted to throw out my arms in fond anticipation for the new and glad life I again hoped to make mine, and crush it to my breast. Truly, this feeling of hope and ecstasy was an echo from some phantom life blown straight from the isles of the sea. I could feel it.