After breakfast Charles went out into the street. It was a clear day, and the mountains in the distance, the near-by green hills, the blue sky, appealed to him. His morbid mood of the night before was gone. Life seemed to promise something to him that had not been within his reach since the hopeful days of his boyhood. He wondered if he was already becoming identified with a locality which he could regard as a permanent home. He smiled as he asked himself who would look for him here among these buried-alive people. How simple and quaint the farmers looked as they slowly moved about their produce-wagons in front of the stores of general merchandise! How amusing their drawling dialect as they priced their cotton, potatoes, chickens, and garden truck! The sign of Sandow & Lincoln's store hung across the sidewalk in front of him. He turned in there. A number of country women with their children stood along the counters on both sides of the narrow room, all being waited on by coatless clerks. A clerk approached Charles. "Something to-day, sir?" he asked. Charles told him what he wanted, and the clerk nodded. "Oh yes!" he said, "Miss Mary was talking about you just now. She said you might come in, but she wasn't at all sure. She is in the grocery department, next door. She said tell you to wait back in the rear, if you came. You will find a seat there. I'll tell her when she comes in. No, Mrs. Spriggs, we've quit handling nails." This to a gaunt young woman at his elbow, with a baby on her arm. "When the new hardware started up we agreed to go out of that line and sold 'em our stock. It is right across the street. You can't miss it." Charles went back to the rear of the long room and took one of the chairs. A country girl came with several pairs of shoes in her arms, and sat down near him to try them on. It amused him to note the way she pulled them on over her coarse stockings, and stood up on a piece of brown paper to prevent any scratching of the soles. Finally she made a selection, and went back with all the shoes in her arms. There was a long table holding suits of clothing against the wall, and a young farmer came back and began to pull out some of the coats and examine them. Catching Charles's glance, he smiled. "Most of 'em moth-eaten," he said, dryly. "They've had 'em in stock ever since the war--mildewed till they smell as musty as rotting hay in a damp stack. Show feller, eh?" "I was," Charles admitted. "I heard the clerk talking about you just now," the man went on. "That was a good show, if I'm any judge. The best clown I think I ever saw. How any mortal man can think up funny things and fire 'em back as quick, first shot out of the box, as that feller did in answering questions beats me." Charles explained that both the questions and replies had been in use a long time, and the farmer stared in wonder. "You don't mean it," he said. "That sorter spoils it, don't it? Well, every man to his own line, I reckon."