He shook his head. "No. I'm going up to Albia, just north of here, I believe. I've had a farm wished on me. There seems to be no alternative but farming, if I care to eat." Aida looked at him a long moment in amazement. Black Hawk was a Paris in comparison with Albia. There is a type of man who can live upon that country, break it, plant it, make it fertile. But the boy before her was not like one of these. Those flat, unfertile acres, with their never-ending ridge of gray hills against the never-ending gray of sky would do something awful to him. Larry Mitchell gathered up the pieces of luggage, put his cap on and walked to the doorway. Then he stopped and looked back at the woman by the counter. "I wonder" -he said; she could see he was embarrassed, that what he had to say was not easy- "I wonder if you would let me have that." His eyes went back to the torn piece of paper on the wall. "I came from that place," he said, "that's home." Aida Sparks took a step toward him, then she stopped. Suddenly he stood before her quite as dim as the lines of that lavendar city. She mustn't cry; she was an idiot. Crying would only hurt him. She would give him the scrap of paper; she would give him anything he wanted, if it were in her power. She wanted now to tell him he mustn't go out into that wil-derness. It would destroy him, kill him; or perhaps it would only make him mad, for it did that to some men. He was so young to her, as he stood there, so weak, so unknowing. Of course he could have that picture. She started to take out the pins that held it; then she stopped. "No," she said; "You mustn't take it out there with you. It's like taking the picture of your sweetheart and knowing all the time that it's no use to go on hoping. Don't you see, you mustn't take it up to Albia with you? Just leave it here. It will be waiting for you." Larry bit his lip and squared his shoulders. "Perhaps you're right. I'll leave it." He stopped a moment. "Perhaps it means something to you too." Aida Sparks smiled again, a little wearily. "There was a time when I couldn't look at it either; but I can now." Again she smiled, "When you get to be my age you toughen." Larry Mitchell looked at her and smiled, "You're a bird," he said. "The Creator should have made more like you. I shouldn't be here now if He had." He stopped for a moment, then he blundered out of the doorway. "Good night," he said-and he was gone. After Aida had turned out the light in her own room that night, she slipped her hand under the pile of things in the drawer of her bureau, and her fingers touched the beautiful watch of platinum and the slender chain. He had been like that boy this evening, gay and slender and not very strong; and he had loved her. It had been very beautiful, but a very long time ago. The next time Aida saw Larry Mitchell was in August. It was hot that year, and reddish dust lay over everything. The grass for pasturing had dried up early. The wheat looked sore and rusty. It was a gloomy season for farmers-their margin of gain was small enough even in good times. Larry came into town one Saturday and wandered about like a man shorn of every purpose. Long moments he stood silent in front of store windows, his eyes taking inventory of the objects displayed for sale. Aida saw him through the rainstreaked windows as he passed the lunch room. She noticed that his color was gray, his cheeks were hollow and around his mouth and eyes had gathered the lines that come to a face that has suddenly become thin. She saw him just for a moment and then he was gone again. That night a dance was being conducted in Black Hawk. Larry strolled down to the Commercial House and looked in at the open window. The dance was in the dining room, where the tables and chairs had been pushed back against the walls. He stared in until some one saw him and called out, "Pay your twenty-five cents and come in yourself. This ain't no the-ater." Another dance was begun and finished, and still he stood there. He was faint with weariness, sick with loneliness. His head ached, and there were queer tremors that went up and down his spine. It seemed as though he could not move. He stepped forward and stopped to look in another window. It was the one nearest the door into the dining room, and just below it stood the table where the gatekeeper sat to collect the tickets and make the change. Sam Barlow, the treasurer, had deserted his post and was busy adjusting a lamp. Nobody noticed the table, by the door, on which the change money stood. It was no trick at all to put in one's hand through the open window. Aida Sparks, coming down the main street after the last customer had been fed at the lunch room, stumbled against a young man at the drug-store corner. With an exclamation she started back. Then she saw who it was she had bumped into. "You!" she cried. He looked at her a moment. "I don't know whether it is or not." There was a queer expression on his face, and his eyes were strange. "Larry-" she came close up to him again and lifted her hand to his cheek-"you're hot," she said. "You've got a fever." A second he crushed her hand against his face, moving it slowly across his eyes. Suddenly he threw back his head and straightened up. "Don't let me make a fool of myself. I've decided to do something. I've made up my mind." He turned away from her, but she caught him. "Larry, tell me," she pleaded. "Heaven knows I'm no angel. It's only mortal to blunder-and be forgiven. It's only human. Larry-" He wrenched himself away from her. "Let me go," he cried. "I'm a fool. I'm no use fussing over. I tell you it's no use. I'm sunk." In a panic he started on a run across the street to the courthouse square, where the farm wagons all were tied. She heard the sound of a horse struck into a gallop. After a while she could hear only faintly the sound of hoofs, and finally not at all. He was sick, she thought, maybe very sick. The next day was Sunday, and Aida's day off. She did not leave the house until eleven. No one in the lunch room saw her go, and no one in the village. It was the hour when everyone was either in the kitchen or at service. Aida walked briskly until she came to the Church. Tied to the fence rail at the side stood the shabby row of farm wagons. Aida's eyes found Olaf Swenson's. There was no one at all on the road. Cautiously she walked to the wagon and looked around. Through the open windows of the church she could hear the preacher thunder forth the end of the sermon. Then came the first explosive bellow of the organ. Aida knew this was the last hymn. She must act now. Quickly she climbed over the back wheel of the wagon and lay down flat upon the straw. Then she felt Olaf Swenson get into the wagon, grunt to his horses, and finally back them clumsily into the road. When the wagon slowed down to climb a hill, Aida jumped out. She had seen an adobe hut, standing as abrupt as a wart on a chin, and she knew that this was where Larry Mitchell cooked his food, lit his pipes and escaped in slumber from the misery of each day. On either side of the hut stretched the pasture, dry and blotched with tufted grass and thick leaves of burdock. Aida walked up the path to the doorway. It was a second before her eyes became adjusted to the darkness of the room. The floor was of boards laid on the earth. In one corner o stood a chair and table; in another a cook stove, rusty and with one leg broken; in another, underneath a tumbled heap of bedding, was a bed. Aida took a step into the room. She could see now the face that lay gaunt on the uncovered pillow, the eyes closed and the two red spots on the checks. She went out and got some cold water from the well behind the house. Back in the hovel again, she poured out a cupful of water and carried it to the bedside. "Larry."