That was the beginning of his tampering with suicide.  Thekla, who did not have the same opinion of the “trouble,” had interfered.  He had married Thekla to have someone to keep a warm fireside for him, but she was an ignorant creature who never could be made to understand about carving.  He felt sorry for her when the baby died, the only child they ever had; he was sorrier than he expected to be on his own account, too, for it was an ugly little creature, only four days old, and very red and wrinkled; but he never thought of confiding his own griefs or trials to her.  Now, it made him angry to have that stupid Thekla keep him in a world where he did not wish to stay.  If the next day Lossing had not remembered how his father valued Lieders, and made an excuse to half apologize to him, I fear Thekla’s stratagems would have done little good.

The next experience was cut out of the same piece of cloth.  He had relented, he had allowed his wife to save him; but he was angry in secret.  Then came the day when open disobedience to Lossing’s orders had snapped the last thread of Harry’s patience.  To Lieders’s aggrieved “If you ain’t satisfied with my work, Mr. Lossing, I kin quit,” the answer had come instantly, “Very well, Lieders, I’m sorry to lose you, but we can’t have two bosses here:  you can go to the desk.”  And when Lieders in a blind stab of temper had growled a prophecy that Lossing would regret it, Lossing had stabbed in turn:  “Maybe, but it will be a cold day when I ask you to come back.”  And he had gone off without so much as a word of regret.  The old workman had packed up his tools, the pet tools that no one was ever permitted to touch, and crammed his arms into his coat and walked out of the place where he had worked so long, not a man saying a word.  Lieders didn’t reflect that they knew nothing of the quarrel.  He glowered at them and went away sore at heart.  We make a great mistake when we suppose that it is only the affectionate that desire affection; sulky and ill-conditioned souls often have a passionate longing for the very feelings that they repel.  Lieders was a womanish, sensitive creature under the surly mask, and he was cut to the quick by his comrades’ apathy.  “There ain’t no place for old men in this world,” he thought, “there’s them boys I done my best to make do a good job, and some of ’em I’ve worked overtime to help; and not one of ’em has got as much as a good-by in him for me!”

But he did not think of going to poor Thekla for comfort, he went to his grim dreams.  “I git my property all straight for Thekla, and then I quit,” said he.  Perhaps he gave himself a reprieve unconsciously, thinking that something might happen to save him from himself.  Nothing happened.  None of the “boys” came to see him, except Carl Olsen, the very stupidest man in the shop, who put Lieders beside himself fifty times a day.  The other men were sorry that Lieders had gone, having a genuine workman’s admiration for his skill, and a sort of underground liking for the unreasonable old man because he was so absolutely honest and “a fellow could always tell where to find him.”  But they were shy, they were afraid he would take their pity in bad part, they “waited a while.”