“As for Molly and myself--well, you see it was somewhat strange to find ourselves suddenly man and wife but she has been a good wife to me. After the ceremony that night on the porch of the house and after the preacher went away we all stood for a little time together, saying nothing, then my mother started for our house across the field and I took my wife’s arm and followed. When we got to our house I took my Molly into my bedroom and we sat on the edge of the bed. There was a window that looked over across the field to the house where she had always lived and after a while the lights went out over there. My own mother kept moving about in our house and, although she made no noise, I knew she was crying. Was she crying because she was glad or sad? Had Molly and I married in the regular way I suppose there would have been rejoicing in both houses and I think there is no doubt we would inevitably have married. Anyway, my mother did things about the house she had already done once that night, opened the door to let out the cat that was already out, tried to wind the clock that was already wound. Then she went off upstairs and our house was dark and silent too. “We just sat like that, on the edge of the bed, Molly and me, I don’t know for how long. Then she did something. The doctor in town had sewed up the wound in my cheek and had covered the place with a soft cloth held in place by pieces of tape. What she did was to reach up and touch the end of the wound, timidly, with the tips of her fingers. She did it several times, and each time a soft little moan came from her lips. “She did that, as I say six or eight times and then we both lay down on the bed and took each other’s hands. We didn’t undress. What we did was to lie there, all night, just as I have described, with our clothes on and holding fast to each other’s hands.” BOOK IV NOTE I I WALKED about the city of New York looking at people. I was not too young any more and could not make myself over to fit a new city. No doubt certain characteristics of my own nature had become fixed. I was a man of the mid-western towns who had gone from his town to the mid-western cities and there had gone through the adventures common to such fellows as myself. Was there some salt in me? To the end of my life I would talk with the half slovenly drawl of the middle-westerner, would walk like such a middle-westerner, have the air of something between a laborer, a man of business, a gambler, a race horse owner, an actor. If I was, as I then fully intended, to spend the rest of my life trying to tell such tales as I could think and feel my way through, I would have to tell the tales of my own people. Would I gain new power and insight for the telling by having come East, by consorting with other story-tellers? Would I understand better my own people and what had made the tragedies, the comedies and the wonders of their lives?