"First you get all your things in one place. Then you brush them and fold them. Then you lay them away in the chests."
The Poor Boy, in shirt-sleeves, was soon busily employed, making in the centre of the living-room an enormous pile of winter furs and woolens—coonskin coats, Shetland socks, stockings, oily Norfolk coats and mackintoshes, sweaters, mittens, fur gloves, fur robes, steamer rugs, toques, and mackinaws.
The great pile finished, he sorted his things into smaller piles: a pile to be thrown away, a pile to be given away, a pile to be kept.
A doubtful garment was a mackinaw of dark gray splashed with blood-color and black. It had seen better days, on the one hand; on the other, it was sound, and he had always liked the coloring. He carried it to the light and looked it over carefully.
What was there about an old lumberman's coat to bring a look of bewildered wonder into the Poor Boy's eyes? And what particular memories did he associate with the last time of wearing it?
He closed his eyes, frowned, thought, remembered.
"I wore this," he said to himself, "the time I went down to the sea, and nearly died getting back. Then it was mislaid, when I wanted to wear it again. Then spring came.... When I got back from the sea I thought I saw Joy. I thought she ran, and that I ran after her. Then that she turned and caught me as I fell.... I was wearing this coat. I haven't worn it since."
With fingers that shook he unwound from the top button of the coat a long, entangled hair, the color of old Domingo mahogany, which is either more brown than red, or more red than brown. Nobody can swear which.
When Martha came to see how the Poor Boy was getting on with his packing she was amused to find that he had tired of it. That his things were all in a mess, nothing packed or protected from moths, and that he himself was standing at a window looking out into the dark torrents of rain. At his feet was an old mackinaw. Martha picked it up and folded it.
"Shall I resoom where you've left off?" she asked.