The more he thought of this shady side of
his past, the more changed became the point of view with which he judged
the rest of the world. The laborer whom he saw in the early morning
swinging his dinner pail while with light steps he marched to the daily
task in mill and factory, and whom he watched in the evening's dusk
after the factory sirens had blown the working man's curfew, hurrying
home anxious to reach his humble fireside, and for whom heretofore he
had only known feelings of deepest contempt, suddenly had become a man
who benefitted preciously far more of his life than any yegg he could
recall.
A strange yearning to join those who carried the dinner pails and who
had homes and firesides of their own made itself felt, and still later
this desire to foreswear his past and reform became ever stronger,
especially when one day by a singular chance he happened during recess
to pass a school house, and stepping behind a tree from where with a
wistful look in his eyes he watched the rosy-cheeked, romping children,
while at the same time revolting pictures of his own misspent life and
thoughts of the far worse to-be-spent future, and the fact that he had
been heretofore his own worst enemy came so strongly to his mind that
he could barely keep himself from sobbing.
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