His mother and father were down on the farm in Illinois where Mrs. Fay had lived as a little girl. She had never adjusted herself to town life; nor had her husband. They were best content in the country, where she could grow flowers in the front yard and he could fatten and butcher and salt down a couple of hogs for the winter.... Their only grievance was that their children found so little time to come and visit them. Ed usually came once a year, in the slack season, and Jim when he needed a rest; but Felix, it seemed, was always too busy.... “Why bother her about my going to Chicago?” Felix grumbled. “Why, Felix!” Alice reproached him. She could never understand why it was so hard for him to write to his mother. “I don’t want her worrying about me,” Felix explained uncomfortably. “She won’t worry about you,” Alice insisted. “She’ll be proud of you!” Felix wondered if people always had to lie to themselves about their prospects before they could do anything.... Perhaps he ought to lie to himself; but he preferred to face the facts as they were. He would have to embellish them a little, however, in writing to his mother.... When supper was cleared away, and Jim had gone out to sit on the front steps, and Ed and Alice were in the front room playing one of the newest records on the phonograph, Felix wrote briefly and shyly to his mother—explaining that he was fairly certain to get something to do in Chicago very quickly.... And then, by way of savouring in advance the grim realities of his adventure, he wrote a long letter to Helen Raymond in New York—a letter in which he made clear the wild recklessness of his plans. He felt that the woman who had befriended him when she was the librarian at Port Royal and he a queer boy who worked in a factory and wrote poetry, would understand this newest folly of his. But what a waste of time, writing letters, when he had only six days left in which to prepare for going to Chicago!... He determined to use those remaining days very carefully and sensibly. He bought a street map the next morning, and went home to study it. But it was hard to give it due attention at home. His sister-in-law was mending and pressing his clothes, and collecting and inspecting his shirts, and talking excitedly about his trip. “If you run short of money, Felix, you just write to us for it. Ed and I will see that you get it somehow.” Felix was fiercely resolved not to be a burden to them after he went to Chicago, and these offers made him uncomfortable. Why should Alice be so interested in this expedition of his anyway? She was as concerned about it as though it were she herself who was going. She wanted to know his plans; and when he did not seem to have any, she persisted in trying to make them for him.