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 



