With his first savings he had bought a home, a tiny two-roomed frame
cottage on a bill above the Spencer mill, with a bit of waste land that
he turned into a thrifty garden. Anna was born there, and her mother
had died there ten years later. But long enough before that he had added
four rooms, and bought an adjoining lot. At that time the hill had been
green; the way to the little white house had been along and up a winding
path, where in the spring the early wild flowers came out on sunny
banks, and the first buds of the neighborhood were on Klein's own
lilac-bushes.

He had had a magnificent sense of independence those days, and of
freedom.

He voted religiously, and now and then in the evenings he had been the
moderate member of a mild socialist group. Theoretically, he believed
that no man should amass a fortune by the labor of others. Actually he
felt himself well paid, a respected member of society, and a property
owner.

In the early morning, winter and summer, he emerged into the small side
porch of his cottage and there threw over himself a pail of cold water
from the well outside. Then he rubbed down, dressed in the open air
behind the old awning hung there, took a dozen deep breaths and a cup of
coffee, and was off for work. The addition of a bathroom, with running
hot water, had made no change in his daily habits.