Things have gone badly with me, but I have not
taken to drink--you may believe that, though, to be sure, I can't prove
it."
"I believe you, for you surely would not wish to deceive the only one
you have on earth! But oh, how wild and miserable you look! You have a
beard as heavy as a knife-grinder's. I won't allow that--you must shave
it off. But you're in good health? There's nothing the matter with you?"
"I am in good health, and intend to be a soldier."
"What you are, and what you are to be, we'll think about in good time.
But now tell me how things have gone with you."
Damie kicked his foot against a half-burnt log of wood--one of the
spoilt logs, as they were called--and said:
"Look you--I am just like that, not completely turned to coal, and yet
no longer fresh wood."
Barefoot exhorted him to say what he had to say without complaints. And
then Damie went off into a long, long story, setting forth how he had
not been able to bear the life at his uncle's, and how hard-hearted and
selfish that uncle was, and especially how his wife had grudged him
every bit he ate in the house, and how he had got work here and there,
but how in every place he had only experienced a little more of man's
hard-heartedness. "In America," he said, "one can see another person
perishing in misery, and never so much as look around at him."
Barefoot could hardly help laughing when there came again and again, as
the burden of his story,--"And then they turned me out into the street.
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