At a window close by
improvident miners were drawing the wages of the day, while their
wives waited in the store with baskets unfilled. In front of the
commissary a crowd of negroes were talking, laughing, singing,
and playing pranks like children. Here two, with grinning faces,
were squared off, not to spar, but to knock at each other's tattered
hat; there two more, with legs and arms indistinguishable, were
wrestling; close by was the sound of a mouth-harp, a circle of
interested spectators, and, within, two dancers pitted against each
other, and shuffling with a zest that labor seemed never to affect.
Immediately after supper Clayton went to his room, lighted his
lamp, and sat down to a map he was tracing. His room was next
the ground, and a path ran near the open window. As he worked,
every passer-by would look curiously within. On the wall above
his head a pair of fencing-foils were crossed under masks. Below
these hung two pistols, such as courteous Claude Duval used for
side-arms. Opposite were two old rifles, and beneath them two
stone beer-mugs, and a German student's pipe absurdly long and
richly ornamented. A mantel close by was filled with curiosities,
and near it hung a banjo unstrung, a tennis-racket, and a blazer of
startling colors. Plainly they were relics of German student life,
and the odd contrast they made with the rough wall and ceiling
suggested a sharp change in the fortunes of the young worker
beneath.
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