window for light and air.
Clarence wondered why the big, powerful man, who seemed at home on
horseback, should ever care to sit in this office like a merchant or
a lawyer; and if this train sold things to the other trains, or took
goods, like the peddlers, to towns on the route; but there seemed to be
nothing to sell, and the other wagons were filled with only the goods
required by the party. He would have liked to ask Mr. Peyton who HE was,
and have questioned HIM as freely as he himself had been questioned. But
as the average adult man never takes into consideration the injustice
of denying to the natural and even necessary curiosity of childhood
that questioning which he himself is so apt to assume without right, and
almost always without delicacy, Clarence had no recourse. Yet the
boy, like all children, was conscious that if he had been afterwards
questioned about THIS inexplicable experience, he would have been
blamed for his ignorance concerning it. Left to himself presently, and
ensconced between the sheets, he lay for some moments staring about him.
The unwonted comfort of his couch, so different from the stuffy blanket
in the hard wagon bed which he had shared with one of the teamsters, and
the novelty, order, and cleanliness of his surroundings, while they were
grateful to his instincts, began in some vague way to depress him.
To his loyal nature it seemed a tacit infidelity to his former rough
companions to be lying here; he had a dim idea that he had lost that
independence which equal discomfort and equal pleasure among them had
given him. There seemed a sense of servitude in accepting this luxury
which was not his. This set him endeavoring to remember something of
his father's house, of the large rooms, drafty staircases, and far-off
ceilings, and the cold formality of a life that seemed made up of
strange faces; some stranger--his parents; some kinder--the servants;
particularly the black nurse who had him in charge. Why did Mr. Peyton
ask him about it? Why, if it were so important to strangers, had not
his mother told him more of it? And why was she not like this good woman
with the gentle voice who was so kind to--to Susy? And what did they
mean by making HIM so miserable? Something rose in his throat, but with
an effort he choked it back, and, creeping from the lounge, went softly
to the window, opened it to see if it "would work," and looked out. The
shrouded camp fires, the stars that glittered but gav