nek, who had rented his homestead and come to town, was the
proprietor. In his saloon there were long tables where the Bohemian and
German farmers could eat the lunches they brought from home while they
drank their beer. Jelinek kept rye bread on hand and smoked fish and
strong imported cheeses to please the foreign palate. I liked to drop
into his bar-room and listen to the talk. But one day he overtook me on
the street and clapped me on the shoulder.

'Jim,' he said, 'I am good friends with you and I always like to see
you. But you know how the church people think about saloons. Your
grandpa has always treated me fine, and I don't like to have you come
into my place, because I know he don't like it, and it puts me in bad
with him.'

So I was shut out of that.

One could hang about the drugstore; and listen to the old men who sat
there every evening, talking politics and telling raw stories. One could
go to the cigar factory and chat with the old German who raised canaries
for sale, and look at his stuffed birds. But whatever you began with
him, the talk went back to taxidermy. There was the depot, of course; I
often went down to see the night train come in, and afterward sat
awhile with the disconsolate telegrapher who was always hoping to be
transferred to Omaha or Denver, 'where there was some life.' He was sure
to bring out his pictures of actresses and dancers. He got them with
cigarette coupons, and nearly smoked himself to death to possess these
desired forms and faces. For a change, one could talk to the station
agent; but he was another malcontent; spent all his spare time writing
letters to officials requesting a transfer. He wanted to get back to
Wyoming where he could go trout-fishing on Sundays. He used to say
'there was nothing in life for him but trout streams, ever since he'd
lost his twins.'

These were the distractions I had to choose from. There were no other
lights burning downtown after nine o'clock. On starlight nights I used
to pace up and down those long, cold streets, scowling at the little,
sleeping houses on either side, with their storm-windows and covered
back porches. They were flimsy shelters, most of them poorly built
of light wood, with spindle porch-posts horribly mutilated by the
turning-lathe. Yet for all their frailness, how much jealousy and envy
and unhappiness some of them managed to contain! The life that went on
in them seemed to me made up of evasions and negations; shifts