When the wind was the right way he could now and then hear the strokes of their axes and a shout.

Often as he worked alone, swinging his axe steadily with his breath in a white cloud before his face, he amused himself miserably--as one might with a bitter sweetmeat--with his old dreams.
He had no dreams in the present; they all belonged to the past, and he dreamed them over as one sings over old songs.

Sometimes it seemed quite possible that they still belonged to his life, and might still come true.
Then he would hear a hoarse shout through the still air from the other side of the swamp, and he would know suddenly that Charlotte would never wait in his home yonder, while he worked, and welcome him home at night.
The other wood-cutters had families.

They had to pass his lot on their way out to the open road.

Barney would either retreat farther among the snowy thickets, or else work with such fury that he could seem not to see them as they filed past.
Often he did not go home at noon, and ate nothing from morn until night.