Who cares for the burden, the night, and the rain,
And the long, steep, lonely road?
When out of the darkness a light shines plain,
And a voice calls hail and a friend draws rein
With a hand for the stubborn load?
He strolled across the road and stood with both hands on the rail which guarded the landslide, and looked into the distance. Below him, at the foot of the landslide and rolling to the river and lodged in the hollows were tin cans and burnt-out kettles and broken china; the Western city had dumped its refuse along this way. From below, untidy children screamed in an untidy garden. But he did not hear or see these things.
Back of him a woman ran down a path to the gate which he had left swinging, and latched it and stood a moment watching him. All his life he had looked into the distance, she considered. A smile came, for the woman loved him. She lingered, gazing at the tall figure with its air of distinction, its shabby clothes. A breeze lifted the loose hair, and she knew, though his back was turned, how a brown-gray lock had blown across the broad forehead—the forehead of a thinker, a dreamer. She sighed. The wife of an unsuccessful inventor is likely to sigh often. She turned to go back, but a little lad scrambled suddenly over the fence.
“Letter, Mrs. Ellsworth,” he exploded. “Mother says come s’afternoon. Mother says postman made mistake.” He was scrambling back in the same second, with consistent suddenness.
She looked at the letter, saw that it was addressed to her husband, glanced at him, and went with it into the house.
The man, unconscious, still stood with those glowing eyes miles off, where the river widened and lawns sloped to it and large houses overlooked it. He threw back his head and gazed high into the orange and rosy sky, and laughed.