228 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



the other side of the world, in his own small barn 

 where they neither sell silk nor buy it, but where 

 they have a loft full of fragrant meadow hay, and 

 keep a cow, and eat their oatmeal porridge with 

 cream. 



It is an inconvenient world, this distant, dark- 

 ened, unmapped country of the Commuter. Only 

 God and the Commuter know how to get there, 

 and they alone know why they stay. But there 

 are reasons, good and sufficient reasons there 

 are inconveniences, I should say, many and com- 

 pelling inconveniences, such as wife and children, 

 miles in, miles out, the isolation, the chores, the 

 bundles loads of bundles that keep the Com- 

 muter commuting. Once a commuter, always a 

 commuter, because there is no place along the 

 road, either way, where he can put his bundles 

 down. 



Bundles, and miles in, and miles out, and iso- 

 lation, and children, and chores'? I will count 

 them all. 



The bundles I have carried ! And the bundles 

 I have yet to carry ! to "tote" ! to "tote " ! But 

 is it all of life to be free from bundles'? How, in- 

 deed, may one so surely know that one has a hold 



