He thrust his hands into his pockets and strolled down the back path to the chicken-yard. He peered through the wire at the strutting fowls. His hair was tousled, there were red rims about his eyes—and he had never felt so alive.

The chicken-yard was close to the back fence; on the other side of the fence were chicken-yards that belonged to the houses at the rear.

They were very common people in the houses at the rear. And the houses themselves, facing on the parallel street, were unsightly and small. Richard had taken pains to have no relations with the houses in the rear. He had an instinctive sense that it might lead to complications.

A man was at work in the yard across the fence, digging a post-hole. Richard’s eye fell on him. He came nearer to the fence and leaned on it and looked over. The man looked up.

Richard nodded. “Fine morning!” he called.

The man nodded a reply, and shifted his pipe in his teeth and thrust his shovel into the ground. His back was very broad, Richard noticed. There was something mighty in the swing of the great shoulders as they flung up the earth out of the hole.

Richard watched a minute in silence. The man paused and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He spit casually on his palms and took up the shovel.

Richard’s voice halted him and he put down the shovel and came over to the fence. Richard smiled a little awkwardly.

“I didn’t mean to stop your work. I was wondering what you were going to put there.” He indicated the hole.

The man’s face was broad, and a little stupid. It stared at Richard. Then it looked at the hole.

“It’s a new run I’m making for the hens. The old one’s dusty.”

“I see!... You’ve got a fine lot of birds!” Richard waved a hand.

“Pretty good!” The man eyed them with slow pride. “Got nine eggs yesterday,” he said.

“It’s a great morning!” responded Richard.

The man’s gaze lifted itself to the clear, fresh-washed sky, and came back and rested on the oak-tree across the lot. “You’ve got a pretty place—nice tree over there!”

Richard wheeled and faced it. “I bought that tree last spring—needed more room—for the children—to play.” He spoke with offhand fatherhood.

“You got children?” said the man. His voice was astonished and a little pleased.

“One,” said Richard. “A little girl.”

The man nodded pleasantly. “I never saw her playing round,” he said simply.

“No—well... She was born this morning!” Richard laughed out.

The man smiled at him a slow, deep smile.... And all his face changed in the light.

“Say, that’s great!” he exclaimed.

“You’re a man now!” he added after a minute. The rough face grew quiet and strong. And Richard had a sense of something human that stirred in him. This man digging a post-hole had known!

They stood a minute in silence, looking about them at the morning and the free space of sky and watching the sun that had come over the roofs of the shabby houses.

It shone full in Richard’s eyes. He turned abruptly.

“I must go in for breakfast.”

The man spat absently on the ground and went back to his shovelling.

In the chicken-yard the hens scuttled about, picking up chaff and bits of grain out of the dust. Over in the corner of Richard More’s yard stood the great oak-tree spreading its branches wide; and in the lot at the rear the stolid, unkempt man lifted his shovel and thrust it into the ground and threw out a handful of earth....

As Richard went up the path, he glanced at the house—The blinds of the upper window to the east were being drawn carefully together.... She was lying there in the shaded room. She would be sleeping now.... And suddenly he saw her in the blue coat, as if she lay wrapped in its folds—in her slumber. He had a sense of loss—that he had not given it to her.... Perhaps he should never be able to give it to her now.

He glanced at the oak-tree, standing majestic in the lot across the lawn with its great gnarled roots protruding from the ground. And as he went up the path he had a sudden blind sense, almost of anger, at the oak-tree and its strength.

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