Page:A Leaf in the Storm.djvu/109

102 For the first time since I had awakened in my poor mother's arms to the summons of the pipe and the drum, the life I had led seemed vile to me,—foolish and wretched, and of no result. As I went home in the darkness, her laughter seemed all about me,—in the leaves, in the fountains, in the little low winds, in the tremulous singing of the grass-hidden insects. All of them seemed to laugh at me with her laughter, and shout in chorus with all their tiny, tender voices, in a derision the more cruel because coming from things so slight and fair. "So ugly and so stupid too! Why does God make such creatures?"

Ah, why indeed? Often have I asked that also.

My story is nothing new, you see. It is such a common one. I was a fool. That night my chief followed me up into the garret where I slept, and told me that he would give me some increase of payment, and that he thought that we might tarry full a month in this small town, since I was so popular with the people, and the district was in a manner rich; its tanners, its vine-dressers, its husbandmen were well to do, and, for our country, it was populous, and from the many hamlets round there would be, most likely, audiences for us all the summer season through.