when not making
spasmodic excursions in search of work, he dreamed and brooded. He
wondered why men came into the feverish, uncertain life of great cities,
anyhow. He thought of the peace of the country, where he was born; of
the hollyhocks and humming-birds, of the brightness and freedom from
care which was the lot of human beings there. They had few luxuries or
keen enjoyments, but as a reward for labor--the labor always at
hand--they had at least a certainty of food and shelter. There came upon
him a great craving to get into the world of nature and out of all that
was cankering about him, but with the longing came also the remembrance
that even in the blessed home of his youth there was no place now for
him.

One day, after what seemed ages of this kind of life, a wild fancy took
hold of George Henry's mind. Out of the wreckage of all his unprofitable
investments one thing remained to him. He was still a landed proprietor,
and he laughed somewhat bitterly at the thought. He was the owner of a
large tract of gaunt poplar forest, sixteen hundred acres, in a desolate
region of Michigan, his possessions stretching along the shores of the
lake. An uncle had bought the land for fifty cents an acre, and had
turned it over to George Henry in settlement of a loan made in his
nephew's more prosperous days. George Henry had paid the insignificant
taxes regularly, and as his troubles thickened had tried to sell the
vaguely valued property at any price, but no one wanted it. This land,
while it would not bring him a meal, was his own at least, and he
reasoned that if he could get to it and build a little cabin upon it, he
could live after a fashion.

The queer thought somehow inspirited him. He would make a desperate
effort. He would get a barrel of pork and a barrel or two of flour and
some potatoes, a gun and an axe; he knew a lake captain, an old friend,
who would readily take him on his schooner on its next trip and land him
on his possessions. But the pork and the flour and the other necessaries
would cost money; how was he to get it? The difficulty did not
discourage him. The plan gave him something definite to do. He resolved
to swallow all pride, and make a last appeal for a loan from some of
those he dreaded to meet again. Surely he could raise among his friends
the small sum he needed, and then he would go into the woods. Maybe his
head and heart would clear there, and he would some day return to the
world like the c