She looked around at me curiously, questioningly.
"And friends," I said, "should know something about each other.
You see I am a farmer from the country. I used to live in a city myself, a good many years ago, but I got tired and sick and hopeless. There was so much that was wrong about it. I tried to keep the pace and could not. I wish I could tell you what the country has done for me."
We were walking along slowly, side by side, the girl perfectly passive but glancing around at me from time to time with a wondering look. I don't know in the least now what prompted me to do it, but I began telling in a quiet, low voice--for, after all, she was only a child--I began telling her about our chickens at the farm and how Harriet had named them all, and one was Frances E. Willard, and one, a speckled one, was Martha Washington, and I told her of the curious antics of Martha Washington and of the number of eggs she laid, and of the sweet new milk we had to drink, and the honey right out of our own hives, and of the things growing in the garden.
Once she smiled a little, and once she looked around at me with a curious, timid, half-wistful expression in her eyes.
"Maggie," I said, "I wish you could go to the country."
"I wish to God I could," she replied.
We walked for a moment in silence. My head was whirling with thoughts: again I had that feeling of helplessness, of inadequacy, which I had felt so sharply on the previous evening.
What could I do?
When we reached the corner, I said:
"Maggie, I will see you safely home."
She laughed--a hard, bitter laugh.
"Oh, I don't need any one to show me around these streets!"
"I will see you home," I said.
So we walked quickly along the street together.
"Here it is," she said finally, pointing to a dark, mean-looking, one-story house, set in a dingy, barren areaway.
"Well, good night, Maggie," I said, "and good luck to you."
"Good night," she said faintly.
When I had walked to the corner, I stopped and looked back. She was standing stock-still just where I had left her--a figure I shall never forget.
I have hesitated about telling of a further strange thing that happened to me that night--but have decided at last to put it in.
I did not accept Mr. Vedder's invitation: I could not; but I returned to the room in the tenement where I had spent the previous night with Bill Hahn the Socialist. It was a small, dark, noisy room, but I was so weary that I fell almost immediately into a heavy sleep. An hour or more later I don't know how long indeed--I was suddenly awakened and found myself sitting bolt upright in bed. It was close and dark and warm there in the room, and from without came the muffled sounds of the city. For an instant I waited, rigid with expectancy. And then I heard as clearly and plainly as ever I heard anything:
"David! David!" in my sister Harriet's voice.
It was exactly the voice in which she has called me a thousand times. Without an instant's hesitation, I stepped out of bed and called out:
"I'm coming, Harriet! I'm coming!"
"What's the matter?" inquired Bill Hahn sleepily.
"Nothing," I replied, and crept back into bed.
It may have been the result of the strain and excitement of the previous two days. I don't explain it--I can only tell what happened.
Before I went to sleep again I determined to start straight for home in the morning: and having decided, I turned over, drew a long, comfortable breath and did not stir again, I think, until long after the morning sun shone in at the window.
