luxury, that was meat to his longing. Never had he been in a place that
allured him more and that held him more contemptuously at arm's length.

He had sunk to his lowest depth in this tantalizing paradise, tramped the
streets of cattle towns, herded with outcasts lower than himself. In Los
Angeles he had washed dishes in a cafeteria, in Fresno polished the
brasses in a saloon. And all around him was plenty, an unheeding prodigal
luxuriance, Nature rioting in a boundless generosity. Her message came to
him from sky and earth, from sweep of flowered land, from embowered
village and thronging town--that life was good, to savor it, plunge in
it, live it to the full. At times he felt half mad, struggling to exist
in the midst of this smiling abundance.

When he began that upward march through the state he had no purpose, his
mind was empty as a dried nut, the terrible lethargy of the tramp was
invading him. From down-drawn brows he looked, morose, at a world which
refused him entrance, and across whose surface he would drift aimless as
a leaf on the wind. Then, the strength regained by exercise and air, the
few dollars made by fruit picking, gave a fillip to his languishing
spirit and an objective point rose on his vision. He would go to San
Francisco--something might turn up there--and with his hoarded money buy
cleanliness and one good meal. It grew before him, desirable, dreamed of,
longed for--the bath, the restaurant, the delicate food, the bottle of
wine. He was obsessed by it; the deluge could follow.

The wind, blowing through the open casement, brought him back to the
present. The night had fallen, the street below a misty rift, its lights
smothered in swimming vapor. There was brightness about it, blotted and
obscured but gayly intentioned, even the sheds on the gore sending out
golden gushes that suffused the milky currents with a clouded glow. He