Ezra  Barnet  sat  on  a  fallen  tree  from
which  he  had  brushed  the  powdery  snow.  It
was  hard  work  wading  through  the  drifts,
and  he  had  made  good  headway  up  the  long
hill  before  he  stopped  to  rest.  Across  the
valley  in  the  fading  daylight  he  saw  the  two
farms,  and  could  even  trace  the  course  of  Law
Lane  itself,  marked  by  the  well-known  trees.
LAW  LANE.  197

How  small  his  own  great  nut-tree  looked  at
this  distance !  The  two  houses,  with  their
larger  and  smaller  out-buildings  and  snow-
topped  woodpiles,  looked  as  if  they  had  crept
near  together  for  protection  and  companion-
ship. There  were  no  other  houses  within  a
wide  space.  Ezra  knew  how  remote  the
homes  really  were  from  each  other,  judged
by  any  existing  sympathy  and  interest.  He
thought  of  his  bare,  unnourished  boyhood
with  something  like  resentment;  then  he
remembered  how  small  had  been  his  par-
ents' experience,  what  poor  ambition  had
been  fostered  in  them  by  their  lives ;  even
his  mother's  impatience  with  the  efforts  he
had  made  to  bring  a  little  more  comfort
and  pleasantness  to  the  old  farm-house  was
thought  of  with  pity  for  her  innate  lack  of
pleasure  in  pleasant  things.  Ezra  himself
was  made  up  of  inadequacies,  being  born
and  bred  of  the  Barnets.  He  was  at  work
on  the  railroad  now,  with  small  pay ;  but  he
had  always  known  that  there  could  be  some-
thing better  than  the  life  in  their  farm-
house, while  his  mother  did  not.  A  different
feeling  came  over  him  as  he  thought  whom
the  other  farm-house  sheltered;  he  had
looked  for  that  first,  to  see  if  it  were  stand-


198  LAW  LANE.
