, would hold
the apology good for claiming so much of your time for this old dreamer
of dreams, since I may give you a bit of useful knowledge in the telling
about a place and people here in the States utterly different from any
other, yet almost unknown, and, so far as I know, undescribed. When I
first met Knowles it was in an obscure country town in Pennsylvania, as
he was on his way across the mountains with his son. I was ill in the
little tavern where he stopped; and, he being a physician, we were
thrown together,--I a raw country lad, and he fresh from the outer
world, of which I knew nothing,--a man of a muscular, vigorous type even
then. But what he did for me, or the relation we bore to each other, is
of no import here.

One or two things about him puzzled me. "Why do you not bring your boy
to this room?" I asked, one day.

His yellow face colored with angry surprise. "Antony? What do you know
of Antony?"

"I have watched you with him," I said, "on the road yonder. He's a
sturdy, manly little fellow, of whom any man would be proud. But you are
not proud of him. In this indifference of yours to the world, you
include him. I've seen you thrust him off into the ditch when he caught
at your hand, and let him struggle on by himself."

He laughed. "Right! Talk of love, family affection! I have tried it. Why
should my son be more to me than any other man's son, but for an
extended selfishness? I have cut loose all nearer ties than those which
hold all men as brothers, and Antony comes no closer than any other."

"I've watched you coming home sometimes," I said, coolly. "One night you
carried the little chap, as he was sound asleep. It was dark; but I saw
you sit by the pond yonder, thinking no one saw you, caressing him,
kissing his face, his soiled little hands, his very feet, as fierce and
tender as a woman."

Knowles got up, pacing about, disturbed and angry; he was like a woman
in other ways, nervous, given to sudden heats of passion,--was leaky
with his own secrets. "Don't talk to me of Antony! I know no child, no
wife, nor any brother, except my brother-man."

He went trotting up and down the room, then sat down with his back to
me. It was night, and the room was dimly lighted by the smoky flame of a
lard lamp. The solitary old man told me his story. Let me be more chary
with his pain than he was; enough to say that his wife was yet living,
but lost, to him. Her boy Antony came into the room just when hi