In the morning he took leave of his wife, and with his hoe slung over
his shoulder, made his way down to the cornfield. There, seated upon a
stone, he saw himself in Attleboro again, pictured to himself the
countryside beyond, and before noon, was half way round the world,
leaving friends behind him in every land. Then, with a sigh, he would
go in among the corn with his weeder, only to stand dreaming at every
rustle of wind, seeing, in his mind, the smoke of distant cities,
hearing, in fancy, the booming of foreign seas.
His wife was no longer a young woman. As a girl she had also had hopes
for herself. It seemed to her, when she chose Aaron Bade, that in his
company, life would be surprising and delightful. She expected to see
something of the world--he spoke of it so much. But she was mistaken.
For Aaron's travels were all of the mind. And she soon discovered that
the more he talked, the more there remained for her to do. Thus her
hopes died away; between the stove and the chickens, and what with
cleaning, washing, sweeping and dusting, she rarely found time nowadays
for more than a shake of her head, never very pretty, and at last no
longer young, at the thought of what she had looked for, what she had
meant to find.
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