“Where are you going?” asked Sylvia again.

“Down street,” replied Henry.

“Whereabouts down street?”

Henry said again, with a meek doggedness, “Down street.”

“Come here,” said Sylvia.

Henry walked slowly towards her, between the rows of box.  He was about three feet away when she spoke again.  “Where are you going?” said she.

“Down street.”

Sylvia looked at Henry, and he trembled inwardly.  Had she any suspicion?  When she spoke an immense relief overspread him.  “I wish you’d go into the drug store and get me a quarter of a pound of peppermints,” said she.

Then Henry knew that he had the best of it.  Sylvia possessed what she considered an almost guilty weakness for peppermints.  She never bought them herself, or asked him to buy them, without feeling humiliated.  Her austere and dictatorial manner vanished at the moment she preferred the request for peppermints.

“Of course I’ll get them,” said Henry, with enthusiasm.  He mentally resolved upon a pound instead of a quarter.

“I don’t feel quite right in my stomach, and I think they’re good for me,” said Sylvia, still abjectly.  Then she turned and went into the house.  Henry started afresh.  He felt renewed compunction at his deceit as he went on.  It seemed hard to go against the wishes of that poor, little, narrow-chested woman who had had so little in life that a quarter of a pound of peppermints seemed too much for her to desire.

But Henry realized that he had not the courage to tell her.  He went on.  He had just about time to reach the shop before the whistle blew.  As he neared the shop he became one of a stream of toilers pressing towards the same goal.  Most of them were younger than he, and it was safe to assume none were going to work with the same enthusiasm.  There were many weary, rebellious faces.  They had not yet come to Henry’s pass.  Toil had not yet gotten the better of their freedom of spirit.  They considered that they could think and live to better purpose without it.  Henry had become its slave.  He was his true self only when under the conditions of his slavery.  He had toiled a few years longer than he should have done, to attain the ability to keep his head above the waters of life without toil.  The mechanical motion of his hands at their task of years was absolutely necessary to him.  He had become, in fact, as a machine, which rusts and is good for nothing if left long inactive.  Henry was at once pitiable and terrible when he came in sight of the many-windowed building which was his goal.  The whistles blew, and he heard as an old war-horse hears the summons to battle.  But in his case the battle was all for naught and there was no victory to be won.  But the man was happier than he had been for months.  His happiness was a pity and a shame to him, but it was happiness, and sweet in his soul.  It was the only happiness which he had not become too callous to feel.  If only he could have lived in the beautiful old home, and spent the rest of his life in prideful wrestling with the soil for goodly crops, in tasting the peace of life which is the right of those who have worked long!