ll of acutest sarcasm of humor at Cyrus Robinson, then
disappeared again into sugary depths, and resumed his scraping.

Jerome, on his homeward road, did not feel his spirit of defiance
abate. "Wonder how we're going to pay that interest money now? Wonder
how mother 'll take it?" he said; yet he would have fought 'Lisha
Robinson over again, knowing the same result. He had not yet grown
servile to his daily needs.

However, speeding along through the clear night, treading the snow
flashing back the full moonlight in his eyes like a silver mirror, he
dreaded more and more the meeting his mother and telling her the
news. He slackened his pace. Now and then he stood still and looked
up at the sky, where the great white moon rode through the hosts of
the stars. Without analyzing his thoughts, the boy felt the utter
irresponsiveness of all glory and all heights. Mocking shafts of
moonlight and starlight and frostlight seemed glancing off this one
little soul in the freezing solitude of creation, wherein each is
largely to himself alone. What was it to the moon and all those
shining swarms of stars, and that far star-dust in the Milky Way,
whether he, Jerome Edwards, had shoes to close or not? Whether he and
his mother starved or not, they would shine just the same. The
triviality--even ludicrousness--of the sorrow of man, as compared
with eternal things, was over the boy. He was maddened at the sting
and despite of his own littleness in the face of that greatness.
Suddenly a wild impulse of rebellion that was almost blasphemy seized
him. He clinched a puny fist at a great star. "Wish I could make you
stop shinin'," he cried out, in a loud, fierce voice; "wish I could
do somethin'!"

Suddenly Jerome was hemmed in by a cloud of witnesses. Eliphalet
Means, John Jennings, and Colonel Lamson had overtaken him as he
stood star-gazing. They were on their way to punch and cards at
Squire Merritt's. Jerome felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up
into John Jennings's long, melancholy countenance, instead of the
shining face of the star. He saw the eyes of the others surveying
him, half in astonishment, half in amusement, over the folds of their
camlet cloaks.

"Want to make the star stop shining?" queried John Jennings, in his
sweet drawl.

Jerome made no reply. His shoulder twitched under Mr. Jennings's
hand. He meditated pushing between these interlopers and running for
home. The New England constraint, to which he had been