l employment. I hungered to join the
army or go to sea. But here again were the wife and boy. I felt like
going into the Northwest and preempting a homestead. That was a saner
idea, but it took capital and I didn't have enough. I was tied hand
and foot. It was like one of those nightmares where in the face of
danger you are suddenly struck dumb and immovable.

I was beginning to look wild-eyed. Ruth and I were living on bread,
without butter, and canned soup. I sneaked in town with a few books
and sold them for enough to keep the boy supplied with meat. My shoes
were worn out at the bottom and my clothes were getting decidedly
seedy. The men with whom I was in the habit of riding to town in the
morning gave me as wide a berth as though I had the leprosy. I guess
they were afraid my hard luck was catching. God pity them, many of
them were dangerously near the rim of this same hell themselves.

One morning my wife came to me reluctantly, but with her usual
courage, and said:

"Billy, the grocery man didn't bring our order last night." It was
like a sword-thrust. It made me desperate. But the worst of the
middle-class hell is that there is nothing to fight back at. There you
are. I couldn't say anything. There was no answer. My eyes must have
looked queer, for Ruth came nearer and whispered:

"Don't go in town to-day, Billy."

I had on my hat and had gathered up two or three more volumes in my
green bag. I looked at the trim little house that had been my home for
so long. The rent would be due next month. I looked at the other trim
little houses around me. Was it actually possible that a man could
starve in such a community? It seemed like a satanic joke. Why, every
year this country was absorbing immigrants by the thousand. They did
not go hungry. They waxed fat and prosperous. There was Pasquale, the
bootblack, who was earning nearly as much as I ever did.

We were standing on the porch. I took Ruth in my arms and kissed her.
She drew back with a modest protest that the neighbors might see. The
word neighbors goaded me. I shook my fist at their trim little houses
and voiced a passion that had slowly been gathering strength.

"Damn the neighbors!" I cried.

Ruth was startled. I don't often swear.

"Have they been talking about you?" she asked suddenly, her mouth
hardening.

"I don't know. I don't care. But they hold you in ransom like bloody
Moroccan pirates."

"How do they, Billy?"

"They won't let me wor