He was approaching a poorer part of the city, where modest homes and small industries bound about the lives of simple folk, quite apart from the square, dignified old houses where the aristocrats lived. The houses seemed to press in upon him like the sorrows of the world. He thought of those who had gone out from them.
"My hand sent them out—the bright youth, North and South—to kill and to be killed. And my hand cannot bring them back. Had I the right to do it? How could I have thought that any good could come from such as I? I thought I saw clearly—I, sprung out of such darkness—having seen such sin. What right had I to think that I could lead? It was a crime!"
He came to a group of tiny two-story shops—cobblers' rooms, dingy groceries.
"Would it not be less a sin to end it all—to make way for some man who was not cursed before he was born? Surely it would not be a sin to lay it all down—no matter the way—to end it all—to make way—"
A little child, turning to go into one of the shops, brushed lightly against him, and he started. When he looked up his face was tragic. Through the daze came a recollection. Surely it was here, the fifth door from the corner, that he was going. It was a toy-shop he was looking for. Yes, that was the name—Schotz. For the son had said he wanted toys. The father entered the shop, though he saw but dimly. His mind was turned in on its own sorrows, and he went in, muttering to his own ears: "To end it all—to make way."
He had to wait for a moment while the mite who had ushered him in made a purchase. It was a girl child. She was too awe-struck by the glories laid before her to talk; but she managed to point with a fat forefinger to the penny doll she desired. The gesture with which she seized it brought—strangely enough—a smile to the deep-set eyes of the stranger who stood watching her. His face was quite different when he smiled. Lines which had seemed nothing but deep-graven channels for sorrow became paths for tenderness. Outside he heard her break into excited, high-voiced triumph, which was mingled with the chatter of her mates.
The little shop was a modest place. On one side was a counter where, safe under glass, were home-made candies and cakes, with a rosy-cheeked apple or two. But, lining the walls, tumbling over shelves, crowded into old-fashioned presses, were the toys. There were dolls, of course, patrician wax dolls with delicate eyebrows of real hair, hearty, wooden-jointed dolls that were a real comfort to little mothers. There were wheels of fortune where one could see a steeple-chase if he spun hard enough to make the horses vault the hurdles. There was a fascinating confusion of supplejacks, house furniture, houses of Oriental magnificence, little imported German toys—horses, trees, dogs. As the Man's melancholy eyes comprehended all that the place contained to minister to childish delight, something of the bitterness left them. In its place was a curious inertness. One would have said that the man's being was paralyzed with doubt.
The next instant he had seen something that brought grief back again—something that reminded him of his burden. For, marching valiantly over the shelves, storming wooden boxes flanked with cannon, were toy soldiers. There were, too, all the necessary trappings of combat—swords, guns, soldier suits, arrayed in which youthful generals could marshal their forces and sweep the enemy's army before them—while their fathers elsewhere learned the tragedy of war.
Behind the counter was a pretty, young-faced woman, who looked her fifty years only from the softness sometimes brought by the records of many days. She smiled at him in friendly fashion and, unhurried, waited his request. While she reached for the toys the son had asked for, the Man, bent over the counter, fingered the dolls left lying there from the last small purchaser with clumsy, gentle fingers.