The Reign of Law

cross the fields on his way home: it

e dormitory entrance, the same stage that had conveyed him thither. Throwing up his window he had looked out at the curling white breath of the horses a

ce he entered college-a small, cheap trunk, containing a few garments and the priceless books. These things the driver stored in the boot of the stage, bespattered with mud now frozen. Then, running back once more, the lad seized his coat and hat, cast one troubled gla

laces: of the bookstore where he had bought the masterpieces of his masters; of the little Italian apple-man-who would never again have so simple a customer for his slightly damaged fruit; of several tall, proud, well-frosted church spires now turning rosy in the sunrise; of a big, handsome house standin

ther apart as farm-houses set back from the highroad; the street had become a turnp

From this place a mud road wound across the country to his neighborhood; and at a point some two

e promise that he would return for them, the lad str

. The sky was overcrowded with low, ragged clouds, without discernible order or direction. Nowhere a yellow sunbeam glinting on any object, but vast jets of mi

nter woods and fields. Having been away from them for the first time a

erent comment of their sentinel, perched on the silver-gray twig of a sycamore. In another field the startled flutter of field larks from pale-yellow bushes of ground-apple. Some boys out rabbit-hunting in the holidays, with red cheeks and gay woollen comforters around their hot necks and

ding distinct amid the reigning stillness-felled for cord wood. And in one field-right there before him!-the c

s of it, how little! He could see all around it, except where the woods hid the division fence on one side. And the house, standing in the still air of the winter afternoon, with its rotting roof and low red chimneys partly obscured by scraggy cedars-how s

iscovered one of the sheep, the rest being on the farther side. The cows by and by filed slowly around from behind the barn and entered the doorless milking stalls. Suddenly his dog emerged from one of those stalls, trotting cautiously, the

them? How would they ever understand? If he could only say to his father: "I have sinned and I have broken your heart: but forgive me." But he could not say this: he did no

they had lived happily together! Their pride in him! their self-d

knit, she never mended. But his father would be mending-leather perhaps, and sewing, as he liked to sew, with hog bristles-the beeswax and the awls lying in the bottom of a chair drawn to his side. There would be no noises in the room otherwise: he could hear the stewing of

e house and his dog appeared in full view, looking up that way, motionless. Then h

called with a

had any articulate speech nor needed it. As soon as he was released, the dog, after several leaps toward his face, was

he door itself, he stopped, gazing foolishly at those fagots, at the little gray lichens on them: he could not knock, he c

y!" she cried.

itting and threw h

father, with a glad proud voic

ook at his face. "Ah! the poor fellow's sick! Come in, come in. And this is why we had n

l-have you been unwell

ad with ghastly pallor; he

one to the other with forlorn, remorseful affection. They had drawn a chair

health. Then the trouble was something else, more terrible. The mother took refuge in

matter? Wha

f horrible silen

How can I e

you ever

distrust and fear in those w

her hands, and bursting into tears. She ros

his father, also rising a

; but the look which returned suddenly

is father, dazed by th

as soon as possible-I suppo

-why do you

ds chok

! o

er, d

t is

t out of college and ex

fire-the clocks-the blows of an axe at the

R W

nd dead. It summed up a lifetime of failure and

R W

ble any longer. I do not

on't d

ssed quickly and sat beside her husband, holdi

rs of self-denial, the insult to all this poverty. For the t

lence, the fath

YOU COME B

ng across to his son, struck

NEW THERE WAS N

kick of