Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to the patients at the clinic. One evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful-looking man. He's hardly taller than my eight-year-old son. "Good evening. I've come to see if you've a room. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there's no bus till morning." He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon but with no success. "I guess it's my face...I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments..." For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: "I could sleep in this chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning." I told him we would find him a bed. When I had finished the dishes, I talked with him. He told me he fished for a living to support his five children, and his wife, who was hopelessly crippled   from a back injury. He didn't tell it by way of complaint. Next morning, just before he left, as if asking a great favor, he said, "Could I come back and stay the next time?" He added, "Your children made me feel at home." On his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and the largest oysters   I had ever seen. I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us. In the years he came to stay overnight with us and there was never a time that he did not bring us vegetables from his garden. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned how to accept the bad without complaint when facing the misfortune. How long would it take the man to travel from his home to Baltimore by bus?
About 1 hour. About 2 hours. About 3 hours. About 4 hours.