Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

“ They lived together afterward in the little house in the woods, and were happy with a strange crystallized happiness at which they would have mocked in their youth, but which they now recognized as the essential of all happiness upon earth. And always the woman knew what she knew about her husband, and the man knew about his wife, and each recognized the other as old lover and sweetheart come together at last, but always each kept the knowledge from the other with an infinite tenderness of delicacy which was as a perfumed garment veiling the innermost sacredness of love. ”

“ Before he began his work he went to the farmer's and returned in triumph, driven in the farm-wagon, with his cackling hens and quite a load of household furniture, besides some bread and pies. The farmer's wife was one of those who are able to give, and make receiving greater than giving. She had looked at David, who was older than she, with the eyes of a mother, and his pride had melted away, and he had held out his hands for her benefits, like a child who has no compunctions about receiving gifts because he knows that they are his right of childhood. ”

“ At such times he almost swaggered, he became fairly insolent with his new sense of freedom. He felt himself the equal if not the peer of all creation. Whenever a carriage or a motor-car passed him on the country road he assumed, with the skill of an actor, the air of a business man hastening to an important engagement. However, always his mind was working over a hard problem. He knew that his store of money was scanty, that it would not last long even with the strictest economy; he had no friends; a prison record is sure to leak out when a man seeks a job. ”

“ The poor human snail had found his shell; he had a habitation, a roof of shelter. The little dim place immediately assumed an aspect of home. The rain came down in torrents, the thunder crashed, the place was filled with blinding blue lights. Stebbins filled his pipe more lavishly this time, tilted his chair against the wall, smoked, and gazed about him with pitiful content. It was really so little, but to him it was so much. He nodded with satisfaction at the discovery of a fireplace and a rusty cooking-stove. ”

“ Somehow wood-piles seemed the only available tasks for men of his sort.
Presently he finished his filled pipe, and arose with an air of decision. He went at a brisk pace out of the wood and was upon the road again. He progressed like a man with definite business in view until he reached a house. It was a large white farm-house with many outbuildings. It looked most promising. He approached the side door, and a dog sprang from around a corner and barked, but he spoke, and the dog's tail became eloquent. He was patting the dog, when the door opened and a man stood looking at him. ”

“ This terror of him seemed the hardest thing to bear in a hard life. He returned to his green nook beside the brook and sat down again. He thought for the moment no more of wood-piles, of his life. He thought about those two young girls who had been afraid of him. He had never had an impulse to harm any living thing. A curious hatred toward these living things who had accused him of such an impulse came over him. ”

“ He would never beat the old man, even if he were able, oftener than once out of three evenings. He made coffee on these convivial occasions. He made very good coffee, and they sipped as they moved the men and kings, and the old man chuckled, and David beamed with peaceful happiness.
But the next spring, when he began to realize that he had mended for a while all the umbrellas in the vicinity and that his trade was flagging, he set his precious little home in order, barricaded door and windows, and set forth for farther fields. ”

“ He ate another wintergreen leaf, and thought of the woman he had expected to marry when he was arrested and imprisoned. She did not go back to his childish memories. He had met her when first youth had passed, and yet, somehow, the savor of the wintergreen leaves brought her face before him. It is strange how the excitement of one sense will sometimes act as stimulant for the awakening of another. ”

“ The thought of the dog comforted Stebbins as he went on his way. He had always liked animals. It was something, now he was past a hand-shake, to have the friendly wag of a dog's tail.
The next house was an ornate little cottage with bay-windows, through which could be seen the flower patterns of lace draperies; the Virginia creeper which grew over the house walls was turning crimson in places. Stebbins went around to the back door and knocked, but nobody came. He waited a long time, for he had spied a great pile of uncut wood. Finally he slunk around to the front door. ”

“ Night always found him at home, warm, well fed, content, and at peace. Sometimes the old farmer on whose land he lived dropped in of an evening and they had a game of checkers. The old man was a checker expert. He played with unusual skill, but David made for himself a little code of honor. ”

“ A man had squatted in this little shack for years, and had raised his own garden-truck. He had died only a few weeks ago, and his furniture had been pre-empted with the exception of the stove, the chair, a tilting lounge in the small room, and a few old iron pots and frying-pans. Stebbins gathered corn, dug potatoes, and put them on the stove to cook, then he hurried out to the village store and bought a few slices of bacon, half a dozen eggs, a quarter of a pound of cheap tea, and some salt. ”

“ There's a garden. It's in the woods. Not much passing nor going on.”
The woman was looking at him with incredulous, pitiful eyes like a dog's. “I hate much goin' on,” she whispered.
“Suppose,” said David, “you take those berries home and pack up your things. Got much?” ”

“ There's nine hens and a rooster. They lay pretty well. I ain't no use for 'em. I've got all the hens of my own I want to bother with.”
“All right,” said David. He looked blissful.
The farmer stared past him into the house. He spied the solitary umbrella. He grew facetious. “Guess the umbrellas was all mended up where you come from if you've got down to one,” said he.
David nodded. It was tragically true, that guess.
“Well, our umbrella got turned last week,” said the farmer. “I'll give you a job to start on. You can stay here as long as you want if you're careful about your matches.” ”

“ There are days which, to imaginative minds, at least, possess strangely human qualities. Their atmospheres predispose people to crime or virtue, to the calm of good will, to sneaking vice, or fierce, unprovoked aggression. ”

“ A beast, or a human being in whose veins coursed undisciplined blood, might, as involuntarily as the boughs of trees lash before storms, perform wild and wicked deeds after inhaling that hot air, evil with the sweat of sin-evoked toil, with nitrogen stored from festering sores of nature and the loathsome emanations of suffering life. ”

“ Got any money?”
“A little.”
“I don't want any pay for things, and my wife won't; didn't mean that; was wonderin' whether ye had anything to buy vittles with.”
“Reckon I can manage till I get some work,” replied David, a trifle stiffly. He was a man who had never lived at another than the state's expense.
“Don't want ye to be too short, that's all,” said the other, a little apologetically.
“I shall be all right. There are corn and potatoes in the garden, anyway.”
“So there be, and one of them hens had better be eat. She don't lay. She'll need a good deal of b'ilin'. ”

“ He was careful, he was.”
“I'll be real careful,” said David, humbly and anxiously.
“I dun'no' as I have any objections to your staying, then,” said the farmer. “Somebody has always squat here. A man built this shack about twenty year ago, and he lived here till he died. ”