It was the morning of the fourth day of vagrancy. I had slept in a barn on the outskirts of a small village. I rose and limped to the village, and sitting down in a tiny railroad station, took off my right boot, and nursed my poor foot in my lap. While I sat thus a kind-faced young chap came in and noticing me looked me over very deliberately. I must have looked very miserable and woe-begone. After a short scrutiny he went away, but returned in a few minutes and sat down near me. He smoked his pipe in silence for a while.
Then he said, “Sore foot?”
I nodded my head. He smoked two minutes, then turned again to me with, “Hungry?”
I was shocked. Had I really come to look hungry and like a creature in want already? Evidently I had. I admitted that I could eat. The kindly-looking young man was the station agent I learned later. He lived in the station with a young wife and one child. When he learned that I was hungry he went to that half of the building which was his home, and in a little while his child brought me nice bread and butter and a small jug of milk. This offering deeply touched me. The delicate thoughtfulness of the station agent is something I shall never forget. After I had eaten he appeared again and sat down smoking silently. He was a man of understanding, but not talkative.
“Been out on a spree?” he asked.
“Well,” I replied, “I suppose you could call it one kind of a spree.”
“Going home?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“Come from Montreal, I suppose,” he said.
“Yes,” I replied.