"Jim," I said, walking up to him and extending my hand, "if I have done anything to hurt your feelings, I'm sorry. If I had known you would have been put out by my not going with Ruby I would have let the mail wait." He took my hand mechanically, but he did not raise his eyes. The old look had returned to his face, as if he were afraid of some sudden blow. "I did all I could to make Ruby's visit a happy one--don't you know I did?" I continued. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his eyes still on the ground. There was something infinitely pathetic in the attitude. "Ye ain't done nothin' to me," he answered, slowly, "and ye ain't done nothin' to Ruby. I cottoned to ye fust time I see ye, and so did Ruby, and we still do. It ain't that." "Well, what is it, then? Why have you kept away from me?" He arose wearily until his whole length was erect, hooked his long arms behind his back, and began walking up and down the platform. He was no longer my comrade of the woods. The spring and buoyancy of his step had gone out of him. He seemed shrivelled and bent, as if some sudden weakness had overcome him. His face was white and drawn, and the eyelids drooped, as if he had not slept. At the second turn he stopped, gazed abstractedly at the boards under his feet, as a man sometimes does when his mind is on other things. Mechanically he stooped to pick up a small iron nut that had slipped from one of the bolts used in repairing the wheel, and in the same abstracted way, still ignoring me, raised it to his eye, looked through the hole for a moment, and then tossed it into the dam. The splash of the iron striking the water frightened a bird, which arose in the air, sang a clear, sweet note, and disappeared in the bushes on the opposite bank. Jim started, turned his head quickly, following the flight of the bird, and sank slowly back upon the bench, his face in his hands. "There it is again," he cried out. "Every way I turn it's the same thing. I can't even chuck nothin' overboard but I hear it." "Hear what?" The keen anguish expressed in his voice had alarmed me. "That song-sparrow--did ye hear it? I tell ye this thing'll drive me crazy. I tell ye I can't stand it--I can't stand it." And he turned his head and covered his face with his sleeve. The outburst and gesture only intensified my anxiety. Was Jim's mind giving away? I arose from my seat and bent over him, my hand on his arm. "Why, that's only a bird, Jim--I saw it--it's gone into the bushes."