"Why are you going home? Can't you find work?"
"Going to pray," said he. "I am going to my village to see my father's grave, and then to a monastery. I would finish my years in Russia and be buried in Russian ground."
"I suppose you didn't take root here; American life doesn't suit you? Didn't you like Americans?"
"Well, I lived with other fellows from our village, and we succeeded sufficiently well. Some seasons we gained a lot of money. But I never felt quite at home. We reckoned we would build a church after a while—a high wooden one that one could see from the wheat-fields when we were at work. But my friend turned evangelical; he became a sort of molokan, and one by one all the other fellows joined him and they went to meetings. I was the only one who remained orthodox. They reckoned I got drunk because I was orthodox; but I reckon I got drunk because they were evangelicals—because they had all deserted me, and I was lonely. It's hard on a man to be all alone."
"And why did you leave, uncle? What determined you to go?"
"I'll tell you. I had a strange dream. I saw my father, who is, as you know, dead long since and in his grave, and I saw a figure of St. Serge—St. Serge was his angel—and both lifted their arms and pointed to the East. I knew it was the East because there was a great red sunset behind them, and they pointed right away from it, in the other direction. When I wakened up I remembered this, and it made a great impression on me. I told Basil, my friend, who worked with me lumbering, and he laughed. 'But,' I said, 'that's not the thing to laugh at.' At last I decided to start for home. The idea that I might die in America and be buried there was always pricking me. I am not American. The American God won't take me when I die. Some of the fellows are going to take out their papers, because a Jew came round pestering them with books to learn English and prepare for examination, saying they ought to make themselves citizens; but that is not for me. I am Russian. Mother Russia! she is mine. They may keep you down and oppress you there, but the land is holy, and men are brothers.
"When I started home I was surprised that so many farmers said 'No,' when I wanted to sleep in their barns. I even got angry and shouted at them. But as I went further I got patient, and came to pray to God every day and often, to give me my bread and bring me safely to Russia. Then I got peace, and never was afraid or angry, reckoning that even if I did die in America I should be dying on the way home, and my face would be turned towards Russia. I reckon that if I die my soul will get there just the same."
"It's not often that in Russia, when a man is refused bread, he says, 'Glory be to God!'" said I, recalling how the tramp had crossed himself after the farmer's refusal.
"No; not often. I thought out that for myself. At first I was silent when people turned me away. I gave thanks only when they took me in. But after a while my silence seemed a sort of impatience and angriness. So I recollected God even then, and crossed myself. A tramp has no ikons, so he needs all sorts of things to remind him."
The poor exile had told his story, and looked at me with dim, affectionate eyes. He held my hand tightly in his as we said, "Good-bye"; he going eastward, I westward.