The night was warm and moonlit; a night in June. The street along which Wint’s route lay was shaded on either side by spreading trees, and lined with the attractive, comfortable homes of Hardiston folks who knew what homes should be. Wint met a few people: A young fellow with a flower in his buttonhole, in a great deal of a hurry; a boy and a girl with linked arms; a man, a woman here and there. At one corner, in the circle of radiance from a sputtering electric light, a dozen boys were playing “Throw the Stick.” Wint heard their cries while he was still a block or two away; he saw their shadowy figures scurrying in the dust, or crouching behind bushes and houses in the adjoining yards. As he passed the light, a woman came to the door of one of the houses and called shrilly: “Oh-h-h, Willie-e-e-e-e!” One of the boys answered, in reluctant and protesting tones; and the woman called: “Bedti-i-ime.” Wint heard the boy’s querulous complaint; heard his fellows jeer at him under their breath, so that his mother might not hear. The youngsters trained laggingly homeward; and the woman at the door, as Wint passed, said implacably to her son: “You go around to the pump and wash your feet before you come in the house, Willie.” The boy went, still complaining. And Wint grinned as he passed by. His own days of playing, barefoot, under the corner lights were still so short a time behind him that he could sympathize with Willie. Is there any sharper humiliation than to be forced to come home to bed while the other boys are still abroad? Is there any keener discomfort than to take your two dusty feet, with the bruises and the cuts and the scratches all crudely cauterized with grime, and stick them under a stream of cold water, and scrub them till they are raw, and wipe the damp dirt off on a towel?... Wint was half minded to turn back and join that game of “Throw the Stick.” The bewildering moonlight, the warm air of the night had somewhat turned his head. It required an effort of will to keep on his way. Agnes opened the door for him when he came to Caretall’s home. “Dad’ll be here in a minute or two,” she said. “Come right in.” Wint hesitated. “Oh, isn’t he home yet?” “No, but he will be.” She laughed at him, in a pretty, inviting way she had. “I won’t bite, you know.” “I guess not,” he agreed good-naturedly. “But it’s a shame to go in the house, a night like this.” She said: “Wait till I get a scarf. Sit down. The hammock, or the chairs. I’ll be right out.” So Wint sat down, where the moonlight struck through the vines about the porch and mottled the floor with silver. Agnes came out with something indescribably flimsy about her fair head; and Wint laughed and said: “I never could make out why girls think a thing like that keeps them warm.” “Oh, but it does,” she insisted. “You’ve no idea how much warmth there is in it.” He shook his head, laughing at her. “That wouldn’t keep a butterfly warm on the Sahara Desert.”