When Lyman Gage set sail for France three years before, he left behind him a modest interest in a promising business enterprise, a girl who seemed to love him dearly, and a debt of several thousand dollars to her father, who had advised him to go into the enterprise and furnished the funds for his share in the capital. When he had returned from France three days before, he had been met with news that the business enterprise had gone to smash during the war, the girl had become engaged to a dashing young captain with a well-feathered nest, and the debt had become a galling yoke.
“Father says, tell you you need not worry about the money you owe him,” wrote the girl sweetly, concluding her[29] revelations. “You can pay it at your leisure when you get started again.”
Lyman Gage lost no time in gathering together every cent he could scrape up. This was more than he had at first hoped, because of the fact that he owned two houses in the big city in which he had landed; and these houses, though old and small, happened to be located in the vicinity of a great industrial plant that had sprung up since the end of the war, and houses were going at soaring prices. They were snapped up at once at a sum that was fabulous in comparison with their real value. This, with what he had brought home and the bonus he received on landing, exactly covered his indebtedness to the man who was to have been his father-in-law; and, when he turned away from the window where he had been telegraphing the money to his lawyer in a far State with instructions to pay the[30] loan at once, he had just forty-six cents left in his pocket.
Suddenly, as he reflected that he had done the last thing there was left that he now cared to do on earth, the noises of the great city got hold upon his nerve, and tore and racked it.
He was filled with a great desire to get out and away from it, he cared not where, only so that the piercing sounds and rumbling grind of the traffic of the city should not press upon the raw nerves and torture them.
With no thought of getting anything to eat or providing for a shelterless night that was fast coming on, he wandered out into the train-area of the great station, and idly read the names up over the train-gates. One caught his fancy, “Purling Brook.” It seemed as if it might be quiet there, and a fellow could think. He followed the impulse, and strode through the[31] gates just as they were about to be closed. Dropping into the last seat in the car as the train was about to start, he flung his head back, and closed his eyes wearily. He did not care whether he ever got anywhere or not. He was weary in heart and spirit. He wished that he might just sink away into nothingness. He was too tired to think, to bemoan his fate, to touch with torturing finger of memory all the little beautiful hopes that he had woven about the girl he thought he loved better than any one else on earth. Just passingly he had a wish that he had a living mother to whom he could go with his sick heart for healing. But she had been gone long years, and his father even longer. There was really no one to whom he cared to show his face, now that all he had counted dear on earth had been suddenly taken from him.
The conductor roused him from a[32] profound sleep, demanding a ticket, and he had the good fortune to remember the name he had seen over the gate: “Purling Brook. How much?”
“Fifty-six cents.”
Gage reached into his pocket, and displayed the coins on his palm with a wry smile.
“Guess you better put me off here, and I’ll walk,” he said, stumbling wearily to his feet.
“That’s all right, son. Sit down,” said the conductor half roughly. “You pay me when you come back sometime. I’ll make it good.” And he glanced at the uniform kindly.
Gage looked down at his shabby self helplessly. Yes, he was still a soldier, and people had not got over the habit of being kind to the uniform. He thanked the conductor, and sank into sleep again, to be roused by the same kindly hand a few minutes later at Purling[33] Brook. He stumbled off, and stood looking dazedly about him at the trig little village. The sleep was not yet gone from his eyes, nor the ache from his nerves; but the clear quiet of the little town seemed to wrap him about soothingly like salve, and the crisp air entered into his lungs, and gave him heart. He realized that he was hungry.
It seemed to have been a popular afternoon train that he had travelled upon. He looked beyond the groups of happy home-comers to where it hurried away gustily down the track, even then preparing to stop at the next near suburban station to deposit a few more home-comers. There on that train went the only friend he felt he had in the world at present, that grizzly conductor with his kindly eyes looking through great bifocals like a pleasant old grasshopper.
[34]Well, he could not remain here any longer. The air was biting, and the sun was going down. Across the road the little drug-store even then was twinkling out with lights behind its blue and green glass urns. Two boys and a girl were drinking something at the soda-fountain through straws, and laughing a great deal. It somehow turned him sick, he could not tell why. He had done things like that many a time himself.
There was a little stone church down the street, with a spire and bells. The sun touched the bells with burnished crimson till they looked like Christmas cards. A youthful rural football team went noisily across the road, discoursing about how they would come out that night if their mothers would let them; and the station cab came down the street full of passengers, and waited for a lady at the meat-market. He could[35] see the legs of a chicken sticking out of the basket as the driver helped her in.
He began to wonder why he hadn’t stayed in the city and spent his forty-six cents for something to eat. It would have bought a great many crackers, say, or even bananas. He passed the bakery, and a whiff of fresh-baked bread greeted his nostrils. He cast a wistful eye at the window. Of course he might go in and ask for a job in payment for his supper. There were his soldier’s clothes. But no. That was equivalent to begging. He could not quite do that. Here in town they would have all the help they wanted. Perhaps, farther out in the country—perhaps—he didn’t know what; only he couldn’t bring himself to ask for food, even with the offer to work. He didn’t care enough for that. What was hunger, anyway? A thing to be satisfied and come again. What[36] would happen if he didn’t satisfy it? Die, of course, but what did it matter? What was there to live for, anyway?
He passed a house all windows, where children were gathered about a piano with one clumsily playing an accompaniment. There was an open fire, and the long windows came down to the piazza floor. They were singing at the top of their lungs, the old, time............