"It's all so much What we have always wanted, I confess It's seeming bad for a moment makes it seem Even worse still, and so on down, down, down. It's nothing; it's their leaving us at dusk. I never bore it well when people went. The first night after guests have gone, the house Seems haunted or exposed. I always take A personal interest in the locking up At bedtime; but the strangeness soon wears off." He fetched a dingy lantern from behind A door. "There's that we didn't lose! And these!"-- Some matches he unpocketed. "For food-- The meals we've had no one can take from us. I wish that everything on earth were just As certain as the meals we've had. I wish The meals we haven't had were, anyway. What have you you know where to lay your hands on?" "The bread we bought in passing at the store. There's butter somewhere, too." "Let's rend the bread. I'll light the fire for company for you; You'll not have any other company Till Ed begins to get out on a Sunday To look us over and give us his idea Of what wants pruning, shingling, breaking up. He'll know what he would do if he were we, And all at once. He'll plan for us and plan To help us, but he'll take it out in planning. Well, you can set the table with the loaf. Let's see you find your loaf. I'll light the fire. I like chairs occupying other chairs Not offering a lady--" "There again, Joe! _You're tired._" "I'm drunk-nonsensical tired out; Don't mind a word I say. It's a day's work To empty one house of all household goods And fill another with 'em fifteen miles away, Although you do no more than dump them down." "Dumped down in paradise we are and happy." "It's all so much what I have always wanted, I can't believe it's what you wanted, too." "Shouldn't you like to know?" "I'd like to know If it is what you wanted, then how much You wanted it for me." "A troubled conscience! You don't want me to tell if _I_ don't know." "I don't want to find out what can't be known. But who first said the word to come?" "My dear, It's who first thought the thought. You're searching, Joe, For things that don't exist; I mean beginnings. Ends and beginnings--there are no such things. There are only middles." "What is this?" "This life? Our sitting here by lantern-light together Amid the wreckage of a former home? You won't deny the lantern isn't new. The stove is not, and you are not to me, Nor I to you." "Perhaps you never were?"