Well, then the children had been sick; measles, whooping-cough, scarlatina, mumps, he was sure he did not know what not; every one of them from the baby up.  There was medicine, and there were doctor’s bills, and there was sitting up with them at night,—­their mother usually did that.  Then she must needs pale down herself, like a poorly finished photograph; all her color and roundness and sparkle gone; and if ever a man liked to have a pretty wife about, it was he.  Moreover she had a cough, and her shoulders had grown round, stooping so much over the heavy baby, and her breath came short, and she had a way of being tired.  Then she never stirred out of the house,—­he found out about that one day; she had no bonnet, and her shawl had been cut up into blankets for the crib.  The children had stopped going to school.  “They could not buy the new arithmetic,” their mother said, half under her breath.  Yesterday there was nothing for dinner but Johnny-cake, nor a large one at that.  To-morrow the saloon rents were due.  Annie talked about pawning one of the bureaus.  Annie had had great purple rings under her eyes for six weeks.

He would not bear the purple rings and quivering mouth any longer.  He hated the sight of her, for the sight stung him.  He hated the corn-cake and the untaught children.  He hated the whole dreary, dragging, needy home.  The ruin of it dogged him like a ghost, and he should be the ruin of it as long as he stayed in it.  Once fairly rid of him, his scolding and drinking, his wasting and failing, Annie would send the children to work, and find ways to live.  She had energy and invention, a plenty of it in her young, fresh days, before he came across her life to drag her down.  Perhaps he should make a golden fortune and come back to her some summer day with a silk dress and servants, and make it all up; in theory this was about what he expected to do.  But if his ill luck went westward with him, and the silk dress never turned up, why, she would forget him, and be better off, and that would be the end of it.

So here he was, ticketed and started, fairly bound for Colorado, sitting with his hat over his eyes, and thinking about it.

“Hm-m.  Asleep,” pronounced Tommy, with his keen glance into the corner.  “Guess I’ll wake him up.”

He laid his cheek down on his little fiddle,—­you don’t know how Tommy loved that little fiddle,—­and struck up a gay, rollicking tune,—­

“I care for nobody and nobody cares for me.”

The man in the corner sat quite still.  When it was over he shrugged his shoulders.

“When folks are asleep they don’t hist their shoulders, not as a general thing,” observed Tommy.  “We’ll try another.”

Tommy tried another.  Nobody knows what possessed the little fellow, the little fellow himself least of all; but he tried this:—­

  “We’ve lived and loved together,
  Through many changing years.”

It was a new tune, and he wanted practice, perhaps.