Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-05-01

of cooking. It was a plain meal l that the two men sat down to, but 1t was exceedingly palatabIe. l Neither spoke while eating, and the | maid who attended to their wants evidently considered herself decided ly above them, for she did not deign to address them with so much as a i single word. When they had finished they went out together.
 H'Say," said the hostier, as they halted in the center of the stable yard, ''how'd you like my job fer a couple O weeks? I want to go hop pioISin'." .r
 T think some of going myself" replied Rossiter. t.4~
 "Oh, you do, eh? Well, if you don't conclude to go, I'd be glad to have you come ere. You're a pritty tidy hand with hoss.'
 Thanks. Whats the job worthy"
 "Five week, with feed an lodgin'."
 EtWhen would you want to know?"
 "Any time to-day 'ud do."
 'EAIl right. I'll drop around to- night and tell you if I'll come. If you don't see me again, you'll have to find another chap" and Rossiter sought the street.
 Here's luck!' he ejaculated May be things are going to take turn at last" He strengthened himself and something of the reckless suIlenness left his face.
 'T must find quiet spot and think it out," he unused. IA
 He crossed the railway tracks, and struck into 8 narrow street which, he recalled, formerly led to the base ball grounds and the broad mead ows bordering the river. It was . squalid neighborhood in the old days, he remembered, and it did not appear to have changed materially during the years that had elapsed since he had last viewed it. Ragged children were rolling in the dirt by the road side, slatternly women even at that hour-nine o'clock had not yet struck were gossiping from window to window, and two or three men as unkempt as Rossiter himself were squirting tobacco juice over the di- 1apidated board sidewalk. Both wo- men and men eyed him furtively as he went by, and one of the former flung a coarse jibe after him.
 He found an open field where the fenced baseball grounds had been, and beyond this, as in the past, stretched a level meadow. sweeping away beyond the river to the base Of haze-wrapt hills. Quarter of a mile distant he noticed group of elms upon the bank of the stream, and towards these he directed his steps. When he reached them he cast him self upon the sward in the shade and set his back against one of the massive boles. Behind him was the city, slowly beginning to steam with heat under the pitiless sun; before him was the languid river, low from drought, lazing between it's irregular and freshet-washed banks. Far over- head in the lofty boughs was the faint twitter of birdsong.
 This was what Rossiter loved. The city meant nothing to him but miserable failures but the free air of the country carried with it oer- tain peace of spirit, and for the most part large forgetfulness. During the three years of his wanderings the virus of vagabondage had so per meated his every fiber that he rarely known. When he was candid with himself he admitted that it was an irreparable blot upon his manhood that he did not strive to rise from the slough into which his own weak ness had dragged him. At rare in tervals, when thoughts of re-entering the struggle came to him, there was always the old weakness to combat, the realization that not twice but thrice he had played fast and loose with his chances in the world, and so he allowed himself to drift. There was nothing inherently bad in Rossi- ter's mature; there was no dishonor to be laid at his door. If he had assum ed something of the uncouth manners and familiarized himself with the low language of the men with whom he frequently associated, these were surface matters, things which, if oc- casion demanded. would be sloughed IS a snake drops it's skin. Weak though he was, and reckless though i, Ae had been when fortune was his, back of all was a fineness that those who came into anything like inti- mate contact with him could but no- hce. The lack of a mothers love lnd guidance, and mistaken gener- psity and a subsequent obtuse in- sistence on the part of his father, accounted for much in the wreck nc had made of everything to which he had put his hand. Born with }. keen artistic sense, endowed with considerable real literary talent, his ikings had always been made light of at home, and when it came to the choice of a career he had that forced upon him for which he had a positive distaste.
 Then his father died; consider able amount of money fell to him; false friends fiattered and cajoled; and very soon he was penniless. His elder brother helped him to posi- ion, but though he did his best, his apparent indifference brought about I SA