“After I’d been there two or three days I got pretty well acquainted with my pardner. One day he asked me where I was from. I never said nothin’ to anybody ‘bout where I came from, or where I was goin’, or asked them any questions about themselves. I just worked steady at my job, and all I thought of was keepin’ still in hopes it would wear off in time, and I could start over new. I used to dream a good deal about her and the boy, and sometimes I’d think we was back there in Chicago all livin’ together and ever’thing goin’ all right. Then I would dream that I was out with the boys to a caucus, or goin’ ‘round the saloons campaignin’ with the alderman. Then I’d dream about fightin’ her and hittin’ her on the head with the poker, and it seemed as if I throwed her in Lake Michigan. Then I’d dream about the boy and my learnin’ him his letters, and his bein’ with me in the wagon when we was peddlin’ potatoes, and about the horse, the old one that died, and the last one I got at the renderin’-place. Then I’d kind of get down to the peddlin’, and go over the whole route in my sleep, hollerin’ out ‘po-ta-toes!’ all along the streets on the west side where I used to go, and the old Italian women and the Bohemian ladies and all the rest would be out tryin’ to get ‘em cheaper and tellin’ me how I’d charged too much. Then I seen the old lady that I give the half peck to, and could hear her ask all the saints to bless me. Then I stopped into the butcher-shop and got the steak, and ever’thing I ever done kep’ comin’ back to me, only not quite the same as it is in real life. You know how ‘tis in a dream; you want to go somewhere and somethin’ kind of holds your leg and you can’t go. Or you want to do somethin’ and no matter how hard you try somethin’ is always gettin’ in front of you and hinderin’ you and keepin’ you back. Well, that’s the way ‘twas with all my dreams; nothin’ turned out right and I always come back to where I killed her and throwed her in the lake, till I was almost ‘fraid to go to sleep, and then I was ‘fraid I’d holler or talk in my sleep. And my chum slep’ in the same room with me and I was ‘fraid mebbe he’d find it out, so I never dared to go to sleep until after he did, and then I was always ‘fraid I’d holler and say somethin’ and wake him up and that he’d find out ‘bout me and what I’d done.