"Oh," I says, "don't you think I'm the way I seemed back there on the road. I'm different; but I'm the only one that knows that. I like nice things. I'd like to act nice. I'd like to be the way I could be. But there ain't enough of me to be that way. And I don't know what to do." He took both my hands. "And I don't know what you're to do," he said. "That is the part you must find for yourself. It's like dying--yet a while, till they get us going." We stood still for a minute. And then I saw what I hadn't seen before--what a grand face he had. He wasn't like the handsome men on calendars or on cigar boxes, or on the signs. He was like somebody else I hadn't ever seen before. His face wasn't young at all, but it looked glad, and that made it seem young. "I wish you wouldn't ever go way," I says. "I ought to be miles from here at this moment," he says. "Now see here ... I want to give you these." He took two cards out of his pocket, and wrote on them. "This one is mine," he says. "If you do come to the city, you are surely to let me know that you are there. And if you take this other card to this address here, this gentleman may be able to give you work. Now good-by. I'm going to cut through the meadow, and I suppose you'll be going back." He put out his hand. "Don't go," I says. "Don't go. I shan't ever find anybody to talk to again." "That's part of your job, you know," he says. "Remember you _have_ a job. Good-by, child." He went off down the slope. At the foot of it he stopped. "Cosma!" he shouts, "don't ever let them call you anything else, you know!" "I won't," I says. "Honest, I won't, Mr. Ember." I watched him just as far as I could see him. On the road he turned and waved his hand. When he was out of sight I started to go back home. But when I see things again, I'll never forget the lonesomeness. Things was like a sucked-out sack. I laid down in the grass--I haven't cried since the last time Pa whipped me, six years ago, but I thought I was going to cry now. Then I happened to think that was the way I'd have done before I met him; but it wasn't the way I must do now. Instead, I got up on to my feet and I started for home on the run. It was like something was starting somewheres, and I _had_ to hurry. CHAPTER III Mother was scrubbing the well-house. "Cossy Wakely," she says, "where you been?" "Walking," I says. "Walking!" says she; "with all I got to do. I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself. My land, what you got on your best clothes for?" "Mother," I says, "you call me 'Cosma' after this, will you?" She stared at me. "Such airs," she says. "And callin' me 'Mother.' Who you been with? What you rigged out like that for?" "I didn't dress up for anybody," I says, "only because I wanted to." "Such a young one as you've turned out," says she. "What's to become of you I don't know. Wait till your Pa comes in--I'll tell him."