One day in going around the house Kate was suddenly confronted by a thing she might have seen for three years, but had not noticed.  Leading from the path of bare, hard-beaten earth that ran around the house through the grass, was a small forking path not so wide and well defined, yet a path, leading to George’s window.  She stood staring at it a long time with a thoughtful expression on her face.

That night she did not go to bed when she went to her room.  Instead she slipped out into the night and sitting under a sheltering bush she watched that window.  It was only a short time until George crawled from it, went stealthily to the barn, and a few minutes later she saw him riding barebacked on one of the horses he had bridled, down the footpath beside the stream toward town.  She got up and crossing the barnyard shut the gate after him, and closed the barn door.  She went back to the house and closed his window and lighting a lamp set it on his dresser in front of his small clock.  His door was open in the morning when she passed it on her way to the kitchen, so she got breakfast instead of feeding the horses.  He came in slowly, furtively watching her.  She worked as usual, saying no unpleasant word.  At length he could endure it no longer.

“Kate,” he said, “I broke a bolt in the plow yesterday, and I never thought of it until just as I was getting into bed, so to save time I rode in to Walden and got another last night.  Ain’t I a great old economist, though?”

“You are a great something,” she said. “‘Economist’ would scarcely be my name for it.  Really, George, can’t you do better than that?”

“Better than what?” he demanded.

“Better than telling such palpable lies,” she said.  “Better than crawling out windows instead of using your doors like a man; better than being the most shiftless farmer of your neighbourhood in the daytime, because you have spend most of your nights, God and probably all Walden know how.  The flask and ready money I never could understand give me an inkling.”

“Anything else?” he asked, sneeringly.

“Nothing at present,” said Kate placidly.  “I probably could find plenty, if I spent even one night in Walden when you thought I was asleep.”

“Go if you like,” he said.  “If you think I’m going to stay here, working like a dog all day, year in and year out, to support a daughter of the richest man in the county and her kids, you fool yourself.  If you want more than you got, call on your rich folks for it.  If you want to go to town, either night or day, go for all I care.  Do what you damn please; that’s what I am going to do in the future and I’m glad you know it.  I’m tired climbing through windows and slinking like a dog.  I’ll come and go like other men after this.”

“I don’t know what other men you are referring to,” said Kate.  “You have a monopoly of your kind in this neighbourhood; there is none other like you.  You crawl and slink as ’to the manner born.’”