to the problem of his own existence, his
food and shelter and clothes. He dismissed the woman from his thought.
He was concerned now with the primal conditions of life itself. How was
he to eat when his little stock of money was gone? He sat staring at the
brook; he chewed wintergreen leaves no longer. Instead he drew from
his pocket an old pipe and a paper of tobacco. He filled his pipe with
care--tobacco was precious; then he began to smoke, but his face now
looked old and brooding through the rank blue vapor. Winter was coming,
and he had not a shelter. He had not money enough to keep him long from
starvation. He knew not how to obtain employment. He thought vaguely of
wood-piles, of cutting winter fuel for people. His mind traveled in a
trite strain of reasoning. 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. Immediately the taint of the prison became evident. He
had not cringed before the dog, but he did cringe before the man who
lived in that fine white house, and who had never known what it was to
be deprived of liberty. He hung his head, he mumbled. The house-owner,
who was older than he, was slightly deaf. He looked him over curtly.
The end of it was he was ordered off the premises, and went; but the dog
trailed, wagging at his heels, and had to be roughly called back. 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. As he went he suddenly reflected upon
his state