After standing a moment, the listener in the shadows made ready to go on. When he turned to pick up his ax and bundle, he found his hat in his hands. When he had removed it he did not remember. Mechanically he placed it on his head and started on his way. The red and purple of the earlier evening showing through the trunks of the trees crowning the bluff was giving way now to the silvery green of the rising moon. With his ax over his shoulder the figure paused a moment for a last look upward and then moved on. But he did not feel the same. He had undergone some change. What was it? Within his breast the song had raised something intensely alive--something like hunger, fierce yet very tender; something like strange pain; something like wild joy; something like unsatisfied longing, together with unmeasured satisfaction. What was it? He did not know. Mysterious to him as was the singer, was now the effect of the singing. Yet out of the mingled sensation of unrest and satisfaction, suddenly stirred into life, there came to the youth thoughts of his mother. His mother had been a pilgrim on a journey. He had heard her say so many times. But the burden of her song had been "Earth is a desert drear." He had heard her sometimes try to sing. But she did not go shouting. She suffered on the way, endured, was patient, and at the last she reached a groping hand for something strong to hold her back from that country to which she believed she was going. It was with a twitching of his muscles and a quiver of the big strong mouth he thought of the passing on of his mother. But here was a pilgrim happy, shouting, even jubilant. Who was she? What manner of person could she be? His curiosity was aroused. As he strode on toward Turtle Ford the falling waters of the dam softened their roar into an indistinct murmur, and then like the voice of the singer and the tinkle of the bell, blended into the quiet, broken only by the call of a whip-poor-will or the whirr of a bat's wing. The moon rose above the lacey darkness of the timber-line. The railsplitter had had no supper. Once he stopped and gathered some berries. But he was not thinking of food. The eternal mystery of the awakening of one's other self had both breathed through and enfolded him. He was not hungry. He tossed the berries down by the roadside. His pace quickened as he neared the clearing. He did not understand, but for some reason he himself experienced a lifted-up sensation. It was as if the conquering confidence and joy of the unknown singer had been contagious. At the edge of the clearing he stopped. The shack and pig-pen and few rail-fences stood out in the moonlight like the skeleton of something to be clothed with a body. The dogs came out and barked, but crept back satisfied at sight of the tall figure. He stepped up to the door of the shack. The snoring of a man told him his approach had not disturbed the sleeping family.