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.

[34]

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.

[35]

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?

[36]

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-worn song made familiar to them by community sing-songs, still good 

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