“I wouldn’t even suspect it.”

“—­lost his left leg when he was a brakeman ... made that wooden leg for himself ... it works so smoothly that he’s thinking of taking out a patent on it.”

“Why does a woman take to a man with a wooden leg?”

“—­makes good money ... and he has a way about him with the girls ... he goes about so quietly.  He’s so gentle and considerate ... acts, but doesn’t say much, you know! that’s what they like!”

“—­damned sorry for his wife and two kids, though; when Willets comes to town again I’m not going to let him have my shack any more ... might be some trouble ... divorce or something.”

There was trouble and very shortly.  In a month Willets had poisoned his wife ... with rough-on-rats ... and the quiet little shoemaker went to the penitentiary for life ... a life-time of shoe-making.

* * * * *

I rented a tent and pitched it on an island in the middle of the Kaw, or Kansas River.  There I was alone.  I rented a boat to take out my possessions.

I lived naked till I grew brown all over.  I studied and read and wrote to my full desire, there in the grateful silence of trees and waters—­a solitude broken only by an occasional train streaming its white trail of smoke as it whistled and raced round the curve of shining track toward Laurel.

I read Josephus entirely through, haltingly, line by line, in the Greek.  I read all the books the “stack” at the university could afford me on New Testament life and times, in preparation for my play on Judas.

My only companions were a flock of tiny mud-hens with their dainty proud little rooster.  I heard them talking in bird-language, saw them paddling with diminutive gravity up and down in the mud, on the island mud-bank just beneath the high place on which my tent was pitched.

When I grew lonesome for company, human company, I swam ashore, my clothes tied on top of my head to keep them dry, and, dressing, walked into Laurel.  Where I lounged about for the day on the streets, or in the stores, or in the livery stables ...  I knew everybody and everybody knew me, and we had some fine times, talking.

I had access to the local Carnegie Library as well as to the university “stack”.

My food did not cost me above a dollar a week.  For I went on a whole wheat diet, and threw my frying pan away.

I was the tramp, as ever, only I was stationary.

* * * * *

The opening days of the fall term came round again.  Summer weather, hot and belated, lingered on.  I was now more native to the river than to life in a four-walled room and on street pavements.

I debated seriously whether I should return to classes, or just keep on studying as I was, staying in my tent, and taking books out at the two libraries.  I knew that they’d allow me to continue drawing out books at the university, even though I attended classes no longer—­Professor Langworth would see to that.