A Search for America / by Frederick Philip Grove, e-Ed.2000 -- BOOK III, CHAPTER IV.
BOOK THREE -- THE DEPTHS

CHAPTER IV.

I TRY TO FIND WORK FOR THE WINTER.

HE "company-farm" was easily found. Its gigantic barns showed from a great distance; I approached it about noon. The barns occupied the eastern third of the yard. To the north there stood a pleasant-looking, white-painted dwelling with a little lawn in front. To the west, a small, white house stood next to the road; behind it stretched a long, low building painted red, the purpose of which I could not make out but to which some men whom I overheard later referred as the "bunk-house."
I stopped at the gate and dropped my bundle.
A number of men, some of them coloured, but most of them white, came in from behind with heavy teams. They stopped at the barns, tied the lines up, and led the horses into the buildings. One team was a mule-team. I had never seen mules outside of the circus. I remember that I admired the careless way in which the driver handled the slick and elegant-looking little beasts; I had heard that mules kick. I had always loved horses, and though I had handled only drivers and saddle-mounts, I had no doubt but that I could easily catch on to the intricacies of any work-harness and establish a friendly relation between draft-horses and myself. I resolved to make that my "talking-point". I was going to offer myself as an experienced teamster. I noticed that, after a while, every man who had entered the stables came out again and, crossing the yard, entered the little house on the west side, close to the road.
Then I saw a heavily built, tall man leaving the dwelling in the background and crossing the yard to the barns. He had an air of authority about him and spoke to several

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men whom he met, apparently giving orders or receiving reports.

I entered the yard.
The man disappeared behind one of the buildings; but in a short while he appeared again in the door of the southernmost barn. He was talking to an undersized fellow who looked strangely dwarfed by his side. Then he nodded and started back towards the house from which he had come. He saw me lingering in the centre of the yard and changed his direction. When he approached, he looked at me with a questioning glance.
"Are you the superintendent?" I asked.
"I am," he replied, briefly but not unpleasantly.
"I heard you are in need of help?"
He laughed and looked me over. No," he said. "I have more hands now than I can keep busy. Harvest is over. I'm thinking of laying off rather than of hiring. Had your dinner?"
"No."
"Well, there's the cook-house. Better take a bite before you go on. I'll send word over. New in this country?"
"Yes," I said.
"Tell you," he went on; "better hit the town. Some factory or so. No more work on farms this winter -- unless you find one where they keep stock." He nodded. "Go in with the men," he repeated. "Have your dinner."
And he walked off, calling to another man to let the cook know he had sent me.
This other man fell into step at my side.
"Did he hire you?" he asked when we reached the cook-house.
"No," I replied monosyllabically. I was thinking of my "talking-point" which I had not even had an opportunity to use. But I did not feel depressed by my lack of success. Against my expectations I had been treated courteously.
We entered a large room with two long tables. On both sides of the tables a miscEllaneous crowd was seated

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on benches. Never, not even in my days as a waiter, had I seen a number of men so completely given over to the task or the sensuous pleasure of eating. "Pass the taters," "Soup, please," and similar exclamations were the only words I heard.

My companion and I found seats. He, too, devoted himself immediately body and soul to the task in hand. Everybody seemed to be in a hurry. Though several of the men looked at me, they did not speak. When a "flunkey" passed, my companion gave him the message of the superintendent.
The food was good; there was plenty of it. Soup, sweet corn and cabbage in large dishes, potatoes, meat, and pie: it was the first "square" meal I had seen since I had left New York in summer. I could not resist the temptation. Though I ate sparingly at first, towards the end I began to "fill up". Most of the men drifted out again, some lighting their corncob pipes; the smell of the burning tobacco was sweet to my nostrils.
When I, too, got up, I felt drowsy.
Outside, north of the building, lay a huge pile of sawed wood. An axe was leaning against the pile; and with the impulse to pay for the meal I had had I crossed over, picked it up, and started to split the sticks.
Suddenly I felt faint; the world seemed to turn; a cramp convulsed my stomach. I had to rush behind the house; I could no longer retain decent food.
But I returned to the woodpile.
Shortly after, I saw the superintendent in the yard again. He, too, saw me and came over.
"Don't waste your time," he said. "Move on."
"I thought . . ."
"Yes, I know," he interrupted. "Never mind. That's nothing. Where we feed a hundred, we can feed a hundred and one. You can't afford to stop where they've no work for you. Get to the next place."
"Thanks," I said, dropped the axe, and walked off, though I could not see any call for hurry.

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That evening, I am afraid, I succumbed to self-pity. I looked at my thin arms and shook my head. The worst of it was the realization that in my present condition I had no right to ask for work. I feared that my digestive powers were permanently impaired; that, to put it technically, I had lost the power to saponify fats.
I had delayed too long. It was too late, too late! Just when I had begun to see light, when I wanted to live again because there was a life's work to be done somewhere! What that lifework was I did not know; but it was there, somewhere, waiting for me; I should find it; once found, it would put me entirely beyond all troubles of an economic nature. I had been sorely in need of this tramp. I felt forcibly that, as I was at the time, it constituted the most important part in my education. Nor was it ended; I felt sure of that, too. My education was proceeding apace. But I had to interrupt it for the time being; life seemed precious again, and I could not winter on the trail.
I had delayed too long; and yet I delayed still longer. There were two reasons for that. Firstly, the advice received from the superintendent of the farm kept me from visiting other farms -- it withdrew the open country as a field for my endeavours; the city which I was nearing now I did not want to try. Remained the small town; and the small town was terra incognita to me. I did not know how to approach it. The second reason was that I fell in with a man who was moving to Indiana. He moved in a large, flat-bottomed boat in which he offered me a ride provided I would act as pilot. I accepted readily, for thus I could avoid Cincinnati. Of this boat-trip I remember little, except the river-view of the city and comfortable nights in the open. The first few days' tramp below Vevay, where my companion landed, is also a blank in my memory. But, if going "out west" could help me, this ride surely furthered my plans.
Now, one chilly night, I had built a large fire on the beach-shelf of the river. I remember well how inky black

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the night was. I had been busy to the last, gathering a pile of dry drift to feed my fire with overnight.

At last I sat down and toasted myself in the radiating heat. I had not been sitting very long when, out of the surrounding darkness, a man stepped into the dome of light thrown up by my fire. I was startled; I had not heard him approach.
"Good evening," he said.
He was medium-sized, middle-aged, in decent work-day clothes; a mechanic, I judged, or a blacksmith.
I returned the greeting.
"Camping?" he asked.
"Looks that way, doesn't it?"
"Mind if I sit down?"
"Not at all. Travelling?"
"No," he said. "I live here; up in the house on the bank, this side the town. I saw your fire and wondered."
"Is there a town close by?" I was none too well pleased.
"Yes," he said. "Quite a little town, too. Have a mill there." He stated what kind of a mill it was; but I have forgotten.
"Getting to be pretty chilly for that sort of thing," he went on, "isn't it?"
"Yes," I said, rather peeved at his obvious curiosity.
But he was not to be rebutted. "Just out for pleasure?"
"No," I replied, "looking for work."
"That so? What kind of work?"
I had a sharp rejoinder on the tip of my tongue and looked up. The expression in his face reminded me of Bennett, the first man who had spoken to me in a friendly tone on American soil.
I withheld my rejoinder and said, "Any kind. Anything I can do."
He looked at me for a while. Then, "You don't look like an ordinary tramp. Don't talk like one, either. Sounds as if you had seen better days."
"The days are good enough right now," I said in order to evade the question implied. "It's the nights I mind."

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He laughed. "Guess you're right."
Again we sat in silence for some time.
"Ever worked in an office?"
"No," I replied, "not exactly. Been a salesman, though, out on the road."
"Well, how did you ever . . ."
"Never mind," I interrupted him, not bad-naturedly, "that is a long story."
"Good at figures?"
I grinned.
He became eager. "I knew it. You've had an education." He pronounced it "eddication". "I've never had much schooling myself. Had to go out and earn my living when I was twelve. But I can tell."
"Well," I sighed, "education be hanged! You're better off than I am."
"That's so," he agreed, "but if I had had an education, I shouldn't be where I am."
"Maybe not. You might be on the tramp."
"Yes," he laughed. "I guess I should be satisfied as it is." After a while he added, "We've got a mill in town. I work there. The boss needs a man for the office. Must be good at figures, he says. You might suit him. He's a funny fellow, kind of. But if you know how to take him, he's easy enough to get along with. I've been working for him going on fifteen years now."
"Well," I said, "I might try."
"Sure, do," he said; "if you don't hit it off with him, there's Heini, the miller. He runs a coal-yard. Can you handle horses?"
"I suppose so."
"Well, he's looking for a fellow to deliver coal."
And so the talk drifted on a while longer.
At last my caller got up. He hesitated.
"Say," he said, "makes me feel kinda bad to lie down in a warm house and think of you out here. Wish I could do something."
"Oh, I'm used to it."

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"I can't take ye into the house," he mused, "the old woman is awful perticular. Ye wouldn't like it yerself."
"Don't bother."
"I've got a stable," he persisted, "with no horse or cow in it. There's a hayloft upstairs. It's clean, you know."
"Well . . ." I hesitated.
"You can just slip out in the morning," he urged.
"All right, I said, getting up. "I won't need to bother about the fire."
"No, that's right, too," he agreed, evidently pleased.
I threw sand on the coals of the glowing wood and scattered them about. When I followed him through the brush of the bank, we came to a building.
"That's the stable," he whispered while he quietly opened the door. "Wait. Don't make any noise. I'll get a lantern from the kitchen."
He disappeared in the direction of the house.
Soon after, he returned with a burning lantern. He chuckled. "She was setting in the kitchen," he whispered, half choked with subdued laughter. "Sound asleep. I took the lantern away right under her nose."
I smiled.
He showed me the ladder into the loft and another door through which I was to leave in the morning.
"And say," he added; "if you've no luck and are still around to-morrow night, I'll leave the lantern here by the door. Come back. I'll look some time in the evening. If it's not there, I'll know you're upstairs."
"All right," I whispered. "And thanks."
Before long I heard the door once more, and I held my breath. But it was the man again. His head appeared in the opening.
"Still sound asleep," he chuckled. "Thought you might like a bite. I can tell her I had the snack myself."
He put a plate on the floor of the hayloft.
"Well . . . thanks awfully," I said while he retreated.
The plate held the leg of a chicken and a few buns.

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I thought of the couple in the house while I ate one of the buns and chewed just one single bite of the chicken. Some men, I thought, have the instincts of mothers; their wives are like dragoons! I fairly saw a large-bosomed, big-boned woman sitting on a straight-backed chair, arms folded, spectacles pushed up on her forehead, very erect and sound asleep.
Next morning I was late, and I had a headache -- from sleeping in the hay, I judged. A cat or rat had carried off the remainder of the chicken-leg; I ate another bun and slipped out.
I went down to the river. There was a thin shelf of ice along the beach, the first ice I had seen on the water. If I had needed a reminder, here it was!
I shaved carefully that morning, and I spent an hour cleaning my coat and shoes.
Then I hid my bundles in the willows and went to town. For ever so long I had not been in the streets of a town, and things looked strange to me. The houses seemed so small and so crowded.
There was a business square, and the stores -- one of them called itself a Department-Store -- looked quaint in their provincialism. I felt greatly out of place. More than by anything else this feeling of awkwardness was caused by the fact that my hair had grown so long as to be conspicuous; it curled in locks behind my ear. It in characteristic for the gregarian nature of our civilization that such a trifle should put a man out.
I dug about in my pockets for the two or three small coins which I still retained; there were seventeen cents altogether. Then I found a barber-shop, a tiny box of a house with the traditional badge in front.
When I slipped in, I found it empty of customers, much to my relief. The barber proved willing to cut my hair for fifteen cents; and I indulged in the luxury. But I paid him many times fifteen cents if I charge him for the trouble it cost me to evade his many questions as to my aim in life, origin, and present purpose. He was as itching

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with curiosity as an income-tax report-form. When he finished with me, I looked at myself in the mirror. My cheeks were thin; I was tanned to an astonishing depth; but my clothes had stood up under my mode of life in the most wonderful way. I looked quite civilized now that my hair was cut. I did not realize how unmistakably foreign my breeches made me appear; it took the war to make the average American accept breeches as sensible leg-wear.

I enquired for the road to the factory. Was I going to work there? No, but I could find the superintendent there, could I not? The superintendent? No, indeedy! Not this time of the day! He'd be at the office. And where might the office be? He gasped, as if to say, Truly, I did not seem to know anything at all! The office was down the street, a block or so; a little red building; I could not miss it.
Well then, I went. The office was found, and I entered. There was a front-room, with a young lady and a young man standing at high desks in a grilled-off space to the right. Beyond, a door with frosted glass panels marked "private" led into another room.
"Good morning," I said jauntily. And, pointing to the glass door, I raised my voice to a questioning inflection, "The superintendent?"
The young lady nodded.
I knocked.
"Come."
I entered and found, sitting in a back-tilted swivelchair at a desk and smoking a cigar, a man of medium size, with a grey moustache and a puzzled, dissatisfied look on his face.
"Name's Branden," I said cheerfully. "I hear you are looking for somebody who is good at figures?
"Mebbe," he replied in an absent-minded, preoccupied way, busying himself with papers on his desk.
"I am," I said confidently.
"You're what?" He looked up.

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"Good at figures," I smiled.
"Where'd you come from?"
"Down the river."
He drew his brows up, so that the skin of his forehead was pushed together into innumerable folds.
I thought it was time to be serious. I gave him a brief talk about myself. I had recently come into the country; had tried to find work; had not been able to find anything congenial; had started out west, on foot, since I had no money; I had had what is commonly called a good education and felt able and was willing to do any work that might have to be done around an office; as for remuneration, I was prepared to start, at any figure that would pay my board. It was quite a good little talk.
He listened patiently enough. He even seemed still to be listening when I had finished. Then he sighed and settled back.
"Know a time-sheet?" he asked.
"No," I said, very earnestly now; "but I feel sure it will not take me very long to find my way through it."
He looked up again. "Feel pretty sure of yourself, don't you?"
"Not at all, sir," I said. "But I do feel sure that there can be no great mysteries about the routine of an office. I am willing to work hard. All I ask is to be given a chance. Let me try for a day or so. If I find out that I cannot do your work, I shall be the first to tell you so, and I shall not ask you for a cent."
"Let you try right now," he said with a smirk, cigar in mouth. He picked up a sheet of paper which lay on his desk and flipped it over to me. "I've been puzzling about a problem in 'rithmetic," he said. "Sit down. Solve it."
I sat down and read it over. I remember the problem, though not the figures involved. It was this:
"A pole 98 feet high breaks off, and the top strikes the ground 84 feet from the centre of the pole. Where did the pole break?"

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I reached for a pencil and wrote as follows:
"Let a be the distance from the ground.
Then
(98-a)2 =a2+842
9604-196a+a2 = a2+7056
196a =2548
a = 2548/196 = 13
The pole broke 13 feet from the ground."
This solution I pushed back to him across the desk.
He looked it over in a careless way, glancing at it sideways, past his up-tilted cigar.
"Hm," he snorted. "That's algebra! I want 'rithmetic."
"Pardon me, sir," I said. "The problem, as it stands cannot be solved in a purely arithmetical way. It is a problem in elementary algebra."
He frowned. "What?"
I repeated. "The problem cannot be solved without the use of an equation."
He laughed. "We've got a principal in our school here," he said, "who is a mathematical expert. He gave this problem to my boy as an exercise in 'rithmetic. The boy has never had any algebra. Do you mean to tell me that you know more mathematics than our principal of the school?" He had spoken with a strongly rising inflection in his voice.
I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't mean to say anything except what I said."
The man was on his feet now; both his hands came down on the desk with a thump; the veins on his temples seemed to swell to the bursting point; his voice was a roar.
"You know everything," he shouted, "don't you? You know everything better than anybody else? You tramp! Get out!"
I stood and laughed in his face. Then, with another shrug of my shoulders, I turned and left him.
In the grilled-off space of the front-room the young man and the young lady were looking at each other, smiling furtively. I saw that they had heard.

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When I closed the door of the private office, they craned their necks to look at me. Both smiled when I nodded across to them.
"Good morning," I said.
"Good morning," both replied and ducked guiltily down into their books.
I went back to the river. The river was a great friend of mine those days. The river did not call me a tramp. It did not bellow at me. It bore with me patiently.
A tramp! Jesus had been a tramp! There was nothing in the word to cause pain. If somebody had called me a swindler or a crook with as much truth as this man had called me a tramp, it would have hurt. But a tramp? What, then, was the discouraging thing about it? It was the intention behind the word. The word was used with intent to hurt. Where did that intention come from?
I sat on the riverbank, head between knees.
Was this man "no good"? I could not say that. He might be a good citizen, a good husband. I even had some ground for the assumption that he was a good father. My friend of the night before had called him a funny fellow; but he had added that he was easy enough to get along with. I must have antagonized him. I had antagonized people before. What in me was it that did it? I came to the conclusion that it was the fact of my recent immigration.
What did it come to? America had worried along without me. There seemed no reason why I should press myself upon her. My life-work! How could I ask these people to help me in order that I might be preserved for some purpose which certainly would not benefit them? It was easier to give in.
Jesus -- Abraham Lincoln! What nonsense to search! The Lincolns were living all about me, of course; there were thousands of them, hundreds of thousands, millions! If there were not, what with graft, "con", politics, and bossdom the country would long since have collapsed!

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The very disease of the bodies politic and social proved their fundamental health. Who was I to think that anybody in this country needed me? And unless I was needed, I did not want to stay. I was not a parasite!

And yet I felt sure that, if I could only find them, the Lincolns in this great commonwealth, the small ones and great ones, would gladly stretch forth a helping hand; they would point out some nook, some hidden valley maybe, where I, too, might help in fighting back disease, be it on ever so small a scale. They would not call me a tramp, with intent to hurt.
And gradually, by the time the sun had reached the middle of the western sky, I reasoned myself back into a different frame of mind. I laughed at this manufacturer who was a victim of his own dyspepsia. How easy it would have been to answer yes instead of no when he asked me about the time-sheet! Such an answer might have given the whole interview a different turn. What did it amount to? There could not be any great mystery about such a thing. That pleasant young lady would have been glad to point out its meaning to me; and the young man, too.
I determined to make another attempt, to go uptown once more, to see Heini, the miller.
I found the flourmill and entered the little office. A counter separated the front from the realm beyond. Again there was a little box of a private office partitioned off to the left; a second door, behind the counter, apparently led into the mill.
It was through this second door that the miller entered.
He was a small, round little ball of a man, with a greying beard and shoe-button eyes, a man of quick, soft movements, apologetic in manner, pleasant-faced, pleasant spoken -- a German-American. I do not remember his name; for simplicity's sake I shall call him Mr. Miller.
"How do you do, Mr. Miller," I greeted him with a smile.
"No, no, no," he said with exaggerated energy, raising both his hands. "I don't want anything. I no can use

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anything. Nothing at all! Business is bad. I don't know what we are coming to! Chust look out. Look out through the window. The coal-yard there. Full of good coal. Best coal money can buy. Go into town. Chust go into town and ask the peoples. Ask them, I tell you. Do they want the coal? Do they? I tell you, they do. Sure they do. I've got the coal. They've got the money. They want the coal, I want the money. But how? Can I get the coal into their cEllars? Can I, I ask you? Can I? I cannot. For why? I no can put the coal in a paper-bag and tell them, There, take it. I've got to send it to them, on a wagon. Have I got the wagon? I have. I have the mules to pull it. Nice little mules, slick little beasts! Oh, they are beauties! Oh, they are pretty! They are birdies! Well, then, you say. Well then, why not? Because! Chust sit down. Sit down, sir, and let me explain. No driver, no help! Here I am with a mill. Capacity five hundred barrels. Do I grind the five hundred barrels. Do I? Perhaps you think, I do? I don't. For why? Help, I tell you. I no can get help. The farmers bring their corn. They want it ground. Take it home, my friends, I tell them, take it home. I no can do it. I no can. They've got the corn; I've got the mill. No good. No good these days. I tell you, in Chermany. . . . But what's the use? Peoples owe me money. Peoples buy flour. Here they come. Charge it, they say. Charge it, Mr. Miller. We'll pay on the first. No, I have to say no. For why? Do I trust them? Do I? I do. Why? Have I not known them all along? Don't they always pay when they've got the money? Don't they? They do. Well, you say, well then, why not? I'm coming to that; chust wait a moment; don't be impatient, sir, don't. Charge it, they say. No, I say. I no can. For why? I've got the flour. They've got the money. Maybe not now. Well, then, next month. So far, so good. But a bookkeeper! Have I a bookkeeper? Have I? Well, sir, I have not. And there you are!"

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"Mr. Miller," I said when I contrived to get a word in, "that is just what I want to talk about."
"That? What?" he asked, completely at a loss. "What? What, I ask you."
"Help," I said succinctly.
"Help?" he repeated and gasped.
"Yes," I replied. "You took me for a salesman. Well, Mr. Miller, I am. But I sell help."
"Whose?" he asked.
"My own," I replied. "To put it briefly, I want to go to work for you."
He sat down as if a strong fist had hit him. "A chob, you mean? You vant a chob?"
"Exactly."
"Vell," he said; and again, "Vell?" as if taken unawares.
"Look here, Mr. Miller," I said. "You've got the work. I want the work. You've got the coal. I'll deliver it for you. You've got an engine. I'll start her up for you. You've got the books. I'll keep them for you."
"Vat?" he shouted, for he was getting excited. "Can you drive mules?"
"Sure," I smiled.
"Vell," he said; moving restlessly about on his stool. "Vat do you think about that? You can drive mules? You can?"
"That's what I said."
"Lissen," he went on, "lissen. They're ugly . . .
"You said they were pretty," I objected.
He laughed uproariously. "So they are! So they are! But they kick!"
"No mule has ever kicked me," I replied truthfully.
"You must be Dutch," he exclaimed. "A Dutchman and a mule always get along together."
"Perhaps," I agreed. "In all my dealings with mules I have never given them a chance to kick me." Which was perfectly true. I had never been near one.
Again he laughed. "Say," he said, "Mr.

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"Branden's my name," I said, "make it Phil, for short." "Vell," he shouted, "you said something, Phil. That's vat you vant to do. That's it. Don't give them a chance. You give them a chance, they kick. You don't, they don't. And there you are."
True enough, there I was. It seemed too good to be reality. "And in the morning," I hastened to say in order to hammer the iron while it was hot, "before I go out with the mules, I'll start your engine. You show me how. At night I'll keep your books."
Again he laughed. "Three in one," he said, "three in one. But you no can do it all."
"Sure," I asserted. "I'm a devil for work. I just eat it up. If I can get a place around the mill to sleep in, I won't even bother about a room."
"Vait," he shrieked. And he jumped up and ran to the window. "Look," he said. "See?"
"The house?" I asked; for in the far corner of the well-kept yard stood a miniature house.
"Yes," he nodded. "Sure, the cottach! I built it. For the hired man. It's yours."
"Fine," I said. "I could bach it there."
"Sure!" He was full of enthusiasm. "Sure. Bach it. That's it. No cost much."
He paused, suddenly pensive, stroking and rubbing his bewhiskered chin. And a note of suspicion creeping into his voice. "Vat do you vant?"
"Want?"
"Yes. Vages. How much?"
"Oh," I replied. "that's up to you. Enough to live on. Whatever you say, till I have delivered your coal. After that, if I give satisfaction, we'll see."
"Vell," he went on dryly, "four dollars a veek. How about it?"
"All right," I said, "I'm willing to work for four dollars a week."
"Start right avay?"
"The sooner the better."

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"All right," he said in an absent-minded way. "Maybe I hire you; maybe not."
"Not?" I echoed.
"Yes," he said. "I like you. I like you fine. You chust suit me. But I've a partner."
"A partner?"
"Yes," he said. "My vife. A fine voman. A very fine voman. Ven ve married, she had the mill, I vas a miller, and there you are."
"Well," I said, disappointed at not getting immediate action, "if you mean to say that you have to consult her."
"Consult her? Sure, I've got to consult her."
"Certainly," I agreed, "if she is your partner. But the sooner you do so, the better it will suit me."
"Right avay," he said, "right avay."
He went to the door, opened it, and peered out.
"Villie," he shouted to a little boy across the road. "Villie, come here!"
The boy came running across the driveway.
"Villie, you run up-street, to my house. Tell my vife, Mrs. Miller. I'd like to see her, you tell her. Can she come?"
The boy ran off.
"Well," I said, "if you have the time, you could show me the mules meanwhile. If Mrs. Miller agrees, I'll start right in."
"Yes," he replied, still absent-mindedly, "sure. Come along."
He led the way through the door behind the counter, into the mill, where he took a flour-dusted cap from a nail, and down four or five steps into the yard. When we came to the stable, he pushed the door aside.
"There," he said. "There they are." He pointed to a team of as ugly and mean-looking beasts as you care to imagine.
The floor of the stable was choked with manure.
"Need a brushing," I said, looking at the mules.
"Yes," he agreed. "Sure. I no can do everything.

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I got the mules. I got the vagon. I no got the driver. Nice beasts. Chentle as lambs." He approached the near mule. "Ho boy," he said and patted him on the rump. "Chentle, you see." But the mule gave a vicious kick without hitting him, for he was clearly afraid and did not go near.

I laughed. "You can't hurt the air, boy," I said to the mule.
Mr. Miller laughed loud and long. "No," he exclaimed, "he can't hurt the air."
"It's all in keeping out of the way of his feet," I said and quickly stepped between the two brutes, although my heart was pounding like an engine. "Hold on," I said to the same mule and hit his nose with my fist; for he turned around, teeth bare, ready to bite. "Pretty set of teeth you've got!"
"Dat's the vay," praised Mr. Miller, his enthusiasm reviving since I was less afraid than he. "Dat's the vay to handle them. I can see. You know them. They won't bite you!"
At this moment the boy joined us in the stable.
"Vell, Villie," asked the miller, "vat did she say?"
"She's coming," answered the boy.
Mr. Miller was in a great hurry to get back to his office. There was no mistaking his nervousness. I was expectant and just a little afraid.
"Where you come from?" asked Mr. Miller when we reentered the office.
"Down the river," I said. "I heard from a man at the other end of the town that you were in need of help."
Mr. Miller did not reply but gave himself over to impatient waiting.
We did not have to wait long.
Mrs. Miller appeared in the door; the moment I saw her, I might have returned to my friend, the river.
She was a tall, bony woman, slender, skinny, who in walking held her hands stiffly in a tiny worn-out muff, a smooth, flat stole of the same, cat's-eye yellow fur on her

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shoulders. She held herself erect and seemed to try hard to avoid giving one the impression as if she had legs; she glided along. Her mouth was closed in a straight line. A pair of horn-rimmed spectacles rested on the bridge of her nose. Her small hat bore an upright, aigrette of short plumes which looked as if they had been pulled through a rat-trap.

I rose and greeted her with a pleasant, "How do you do, madam."
But she ignored the greeting. For a moment she stood by the door and swept her eye over me from head to toe. Swept, I say, for it felt as if somebody were sweeping me down with a single, rough stroke of a coarse broom. And I stood bared of every pretence at respectability.
Then she slid past, with an air of injured dignity which brought a rueful smile to my face.
Mr. Miller had hurriedly preceded her into the private office, the door of which remained ajar.
The beginning of the conversation escaped me; but soon the woman's voice cut out like an icy knife.
"No," she said with great precision. "Not under any circumstances. It is the worst element, the scum of the country, which comes down the river."
A few muttered words.
Then again, "No. Not under any circumstances. I should consider myself criminally negligent. Reflect for a moment. Think. Suppose a house was broken into! Worse maybe! A murder! Who would be to blame?"
A few muttered words again.
Mr. Miller appeared. He was the picture of dejection; he was all apology.
"I'm sorry," he said; "the river; it's the river!"
I was mad clean through. "No," I said, "Mr. Miller, it's you! Do you mean to tell me that, because that skate . . ."
"Sh!" Mr. Miller hissed warningly. "Sh! A fine voman, I tell you; a very fine voman!"

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"All right," I said and reached for my cap. "Suit yourself. Don't blame me if your coal remains undelivered. Good-by."
I went back to the river as if I might miss a train.

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