The accommodation train wandered languidly through the early afternoon
sunshine, stopping at every village and almost every country post-office
on the line; the engine toot-tooting at the road crossings; and, now and
again, at such junctures, a farmer, struggling with a team of prancing
horses, would be seen, or, it might be, a group of school children,
homeward bound from seats of learning. At each station, when the train
came to a stand-still, some passenger, hanging head and elbows out of his
window, like a quilt draped over a chair, would address a citizen on the
platform: "Hey, Sam, how's Miz Bushkirk?"
"She's wal."
"Where's Milt, this afternoon?"
"Warshing the buggy." Then at the cry, "All 'board"--"See you Sunday over
at Amo."
"You make Milt come. I'll be there, shore. So long."
There was an impatient passenger in the smoker, who found the stoppages at
these wayside hamlets interminable, both in frequency and in the delay at
each of them; and while the dawdling train remained inert, and the moments
passed inactive, his eyes dilated and his hand clenched till the nails bit
his palm; then, when the trucks groaned and the wheels crooned against the
rails once more, he sank back in his seat with sighs of relief. Sometimes
he would get up and pace the aisle until his companion reminded him that
this was not certain to hasten the hour of their arrival at their
destination.
"I know that," answered the other, "but I've got to beat McCune."
"By the way," observed Meredith, "you left your stick behind."
"You don't think I need a club to face----"
Tom choked. "Oh, no. I wasn't thinking of your giving H. Fisbee a
thrashing. I meant to lean on."
"I don't want it. I've got to walk lame all my life, but I'm not going to
hobble on a stick." Tom looked at him sadly; for it was true, and the
Cross-Roaders might hug themselves in their cells over the thought. For
the rest of his life John Harkless was to walk with just the limp they
themselves would have had, if, as in former days, their sentence had been
to the ball and chain.
The window was open beside the two young men, and the breeze swept in,
fresh from the wide fields, There was a tang in the air; it soothed like a
balm, but there was a spur to energy and heartiness in its crispness, the
wholesome touch of fall. John looked out over the boundless aisles of corn
that stood higher than a tall man could reach; long waves rippled across
them. Here, where the cry of the brave had rung in forest glades, where
the painted tribes had hastened, were marshalled the tasselled armies of
peace. And beyond these, where the train ran between shadowy groves,
delicate landscape vistas, framed in branches, opened, closed, and
succeeded each other, and then the travellers were carried out into the
level open again, and the intensely blue September skies ran down to the
low horizon, meeting the tossing plumes of corn.