I
Now it had come, he was not quite sure that he wanted it. For a moment he longed to go back and join the men marching away to the shoe-shop. Inside those walls he had never had to think of what he should eat or drink, or wherewithal he should be clothed.
Over against the gray parapet echoed the buzzing of the electric cars, a strange sound to ears accustomed only to the tramp of marching feet, the harsh voices of wardens, and the clang of iron doors. Below him the harbor waves danced and sparkled, ferry-boats rushed from shore to shore, big ships moved slowly toward the distant islands and the still more distant sea, while near at hand the busy street flowed like a river, which he was compelled to swim but in which he already felt the millstone of his past dragging him down.
His heart sank as he asked himself what life could hold for him. How often, sitting on his prison bed with his head in his hands, he had pictured joyously the present moment! Now he felt like a child who has lost its parent's hand in the passing throng.
There had been a day, the year before, when his old mother's letter had not come, and, instead, only a line of stereotyped consolation from the country pastor to the village ne'er-do-well. No one had seen him choke over his bowl of soup and bread, or noticed the tears that trickled down upon the shoe-leather in his hand. She had been the only one who had ever written to him. There was nothing now to take him back to the little cluster of white cottages among the hills where he was born.
As he stood there alone facing the world, he yearned to throw himself once more upon his cot and weep against its iron bars—for three years the only arms outstretched to comfort him.