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.
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