ad. I hadn't yet
stopped to figure out what the goal was but that it was worth while I
had no doubt for I was no longer stationary. I was a constructor. I
was in touch with a big enterprise of development.

I don't know that I've made myself clear. I wasn't very clear in my
own mind then but I know that I had a very conscious impression of the
sort which I've tried to put into words. And I know that it filled me
with a great big joy. I never woke up with any such feeling when with
the United Woollen. My only thought in the morning then was how much
time I must give myself to catch the six-thirty. When I reached the
office I hung up my hat and coat and sat down to the impersonal
figures like an automaton. There was nothing of me in the work; there
couldn't be. How petty it seemed now! I suppose the company, as an
industrial enterprise, was in the line of development, but that idea
never penetrated as far as the clerical department. We didn't feel it
any more than the adding machines do.

Ruth had a good breakfast for me and when I came into the kitchen she
was trying to brush the dried clay off my overalls.

"Good Heavens!" I said, "don't waste your strength doing that."

She looked up from her task with a smile.

"I'm not going to let you get slack down here" she said.

"But those things will look just as bad again five minutes after I've
gone down the ladder."

"But I don't intend they shall look like this on your way to the
ladder," she answered.

"All right," I said "then let me have them. I'll do it myself."

"Have you shaved?" she asked.

I rubbed my hand over my chin. It wasn't very bad and I'd made up my
mind I wouldn't shave every day now.

"No," I said. "But twice or three times a week--"

"Billy!" she broke in, "that will never do. You're going down to your
new business looking just as ship-shape as you went to the old. You
don't belong to that contractor; you belong to me."

In the meanwhile the boy came in with my heavy boots which he had
brushed clean and oiled. There was nothing left for me to do but to
shave and I'll admit I felt better for it.

"Do you want me to put on a high collar?" I asked.

"Didn't you find the things I laid out for you?"

I hadn't looked about. I'd put on the things I took off. She led me
back into the bed room, and over a chair I saw a clean change of
underclothing and a new grey flannel shirt.

"Where did you get this?" I asked.

"I bought it for a dollar,"