She set down the bucket with a big sigh of relaxation. She pushed back the sunbonnet to get a better look. The old man addressed her in an authoritative and confident way, as though she were a mere adjunct, a part of his hospitality. “Daugh-ter, here is a good young man--he Looks like a good young man, I think a stew-dent. You see he has books in his pock-et. He wants a night’s lodging. Now, if he _is_ a good young man, I think we can give him the bed in the spare room, and if he is a bad young man, I think there is enough rope in the barn to hang him before daylight.” “Yes, you can stay,” she said brightly. “Have you had supper?” It is one of the obligations of the road to tell the whole truth. But in this case I lied. The woman was working too late. “Oh yes, I’ve had supper,” I said. And she carried the milk into the darkness. In the city, among people having the status indicated by the big red barn and the enormous wind-mill and a most substantial fence, this gleaming woman would have languished in shelter. She would have played at many philanthropies, or gone to many study clubs or have had many lovers. She would have been variously adventurous according to her corner of the town. Here her paramour was WORK. He still caressed her, but would some day break her on the wheel. The old man sent me toward the front porch alone. There was a rolling back of the low gray clouds just then, and the coming of the moon. The moon’s moods are so many. To-night she took the forlornness out of the restless sky. She looked domestic as the lantern. III YOU OUGHT TO BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF I was on the porch, scraping an acquaintance with the grandmother. She held a baby in her lap. They sat in the crossing of the moonlight and the lamplight. There was no one to explain me. I explained myself. She eyed me angrily. She did not want me to shake hands with the baby. She asked concerning her daughter-in-law. “And did she say you could stay?” “She did.” The grandmother brought a hard fist down on the arm of the chair: “I’d like to break her neck. She’s no more backbone than a rabbit.” I do not distinctly remember any bitter old man I have met in my travels. She was the third bitter old woman. Probably with the same general experiences as her husband, she had digested them differently. She was on the shelf, but made for efficiency and she was not run down. In her youth her hair was probably red. Though she was plainly an old woman, it was the brown of middle age with only a few streaks of gray. Under her roughness there were touches of a truly cultured accent and manner. I would have said that in youth she had had what they call opportunities. I asked: “Isn’t the moon fine to-night?” She replied: “Why don’t you go to work?” I answered: “I asked for work in the big city till I was worn to a thread. And you are the first person who has urged it on me since I took to tramping. I wonder why no one ever thought of it before.” She smiled grudgingly.