Her feet had been charming, very small and highly
arched. Then he remembered that that evening
they had been to a concert in the town hall, and
that afterward they had partaken of an oyster stew
in a little restaurant. Then back his mind traveled
to the problem of his own existence, his food and
shelter and clothes. He dismissed the woman from
his thought. He was concerned now with the primal
conditions of life itself. How was he to eat when
his little stock of money was gone? He sat staring
at the brook; he chewed wintergreen leaves no
longer. Instead he drew from his pocket an old
pipe and a paper of tobacco. He filled his pipe
with care -- tobacco was precious; then he began to
smoke, but his face now looked old and brooding
through the rank blue vapor. Winter was coming,
and he had not a shelter. He had not money enough
to keep him long from starvation. He knew not
how to obtain employment. He thought vaguely of
wood-piles, of cutting winter fuel for people. His
mind traveled in a trite strain of reasoning. Some-
how wood-piles seemed the only available tasks for
men of his sort.
Presently he finished his filled pipe, and arose
with an air of decision. He went at a brisk pace
out of the wood and was upon the road again. He
progressed like a man with definite business in view
until he reached a house.
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