THE Wise homestead dated back more than a
century, yet it had nothing imposing about it
except its site. It was a simple, glaringly white cot-
tage. There was a center front door with two win-
dows on each side; there was a low slant of roof,
pierced by unpicturesque dormers. On the left of
the house was an ell, which had formerly been used
as a shoemaker's shop, but now served as a kitchen.
In the low attic of the ell was stored the shoemaker's
bench, whereon David Wise's grandfather had sat
for nearly eighty years of working days; after him
his eldest son, Daniel's father, had occupied the same
hollow seat of patient toil. Daniel had sat there for
twenty-odd years, then had suddenly realized both
the lack of necessity and the lack of customers, since
the great shoe-plant had been built down in the vil-
lage. Then Daniel had retired -- although he did
not use that expression. Daniel said to his friends
and his niece Dora that he had "quit work." But
he told himself, without the least bitterness, that
work had quit him.

After Daniel had retired, his one physiological
peculiarity assumed enormous proportions. It had
always been with him, but steady work had held it,
to a great extent, at bay. Daniel was a moral
coward before physical conditions. He was as one
who suffers, not so much from agony of the flesh as
from agony of the mind induced thereby. Daniel