IV

IT was six o’clock--the close of a perfect June day. Not even the

freight engines, pulling and hauling up and down the yard, with their

puffs of black smoke, could darken the sky. Over in the meadow, beyond

the network of tracks, the bobolinks had been tumbling and bubbling all

day. It was time to close shop now, and they had subsided into the long

grass. In the office the assistant shipping-clerk was finishing the last

bill of lading. He put it to one side and looked at his watch. A look of

relief crossed his face as he replaced it and climbed down from the high

stool. It had been a hard day in the Bridge-water freight-office.

News had come, in the early morning, of a wreck, three miles down the

track--a sleeper and a freight had collided where the road curves by

the stonework of the long bridge, and John had been sent down to help in

looking after the freight.

It was one of the worst wrecks the road had known. No one placed the

blame. Those on the ground were too busy to have theories; and those at

a distance had to change their theories a dozen times during the day.

At noon word came that the president of the road was on his way to the

scene of the accident. The news reached John as he was getting into the

wrecking-car to return to the office. He paused for a flying minute,

one foot on the step of the car. Then he swung off, and the car moved on

without him. He spent the next half hour going over the ground. He made

careful notes of every detail, recalling points from memory, taking

measurements, jotting down facts and figures with his swift, short

fingers. When he had finished he took the next wrecking-car back, making

up for lost time by lunching at his desk while he worked.

All the afternoon he had been doing the work of three men.... Six

o’clock. He got down from the high stool, stretching himself and rubbing

his arms. In ten minutes the special would pass. He glanced out through

the office window at the back of the building. High at the top of the

sandy bank a bunch of clover bloomed against the sky, huge heads, with

pink-and-white hearts--a kind of alfalfa--perhaps a seed from some

passing freight. He had seen them, flaunting there, between hurried

snatches of work, all the afternoon. He would pick them and carry them

to her. But not now.... He looked again at his watch. He wanted to see

the special when it passed. It would not stop, probably, but he might

catch a glimpse of Simeon Tetlow. He had often wished he might see

him, and he had often thought of his face the morning he said good-by.

Beneath the anger in it had been something the boy could not fathom--a

kind of entreaty.... He must find some way to give him the notes he had

made of the wreck. He stepped out on the platform, looking up and down

the shine on the tracks. The sun, coming low across the meadow

beyond the tracks, made everything beautiful. A whistle sounded. The

special--at the upper bridge. In five minutes it would pass. A smile

curved his lips. The sound of quick bells and puffs and wheels came

pleasantly to him from the engines at work in the yard down beyond the

freight-house. A long train at the left was backing in slowly. John

watched it and jingled some pennies in his pockets. He was thinking

of Simeon Tetlow, the smile still on his lips.... Suddenly the smile

stopped. The fingers gripped the pennies and held them fast.. .. His eye

flashed along the top of the slow-moving train.--No one in sight--level

tracks--the special two minutes off--the freight taking her track....

The switch, if he could make it--It was not a thought, but a swift turn

of the short legs. Never had they seemed to him so fat and heavy beneath

him. Yet they were flying over the ties as the wind sweeps a field.

The short, strong body dropped itself upon the switch and hung there,

gripping--a whirl of cinders and blast and roar. ... Had he come fast

enough?... Ages passed. He lifted his head and looked back up the long

tracks. The freight was still backing in slowly. The special--like

an old lady who has taken the wrong crossing--was emitting a sound

of dismay, a quick, high note. The wheels reversed and she came back,

puffing and complaining, in little jerks.

When the train halted Simeon Tetlow stepped down from the platform. His

hand, as it left the iron rail, trembled a little. He thrust it into

the pocket of his light coat, looking up and down the tracks with stern

glance. The glance fell upon John mopping his brow.

The president of the road moved toward him slowly. “What ’s up?” It was

short and sharp.

John waited a minute while he mopped his brow again and replaced the

handkerchief. He was thinking fast--for two. “I--I wanted to see you,

sir.” One glance at the man had told him everything--the shaking hand

clinched in the pocket, the quivering nerves, the dusty journey, the

anxiety and fierce need of help. One more shock and the tension would

give way. “I wanted to see you, sir,” he repeated quietly.

Simeon was looking at him keenly, up and down. “So you stopped my

special?”

John nodded. “Yes, I stopped it--I guess I stopped it.” His voice almost

laughed at the words. He was tugging at something in his pocket.

“I wanted to give you these, sir.” He had fished out the handful of

papers--old envelopes, scraps, bits of newspaper margins--covered with

writing and figures. “I was down there this morning--to the wreck,” he

said quickly. “Things were pretty well mixed up--I thought you might

like to see how they lay. I made some notes.”

“Ah-h!” It was a long-drawn breath-something between a snarl and a

laugh. “Come inside.”

They went into the special, with her hideous decorations of plush and

imitation leather. The president nodded to the seat beside a table

covered with telegrams and newspapers and memoranda: “Sit down.”

He seated himself opposite the boy, his elbow on the table and his head

resting on the hand. Beneath its shelter his swift eyes looked out,

scanning the boy’s face. “Well!” It was sharp and quick.

The boy smiled at the familiar note. He ran over the papers in his

fingers, selecting one near the bottom. “This is the way things lay when

we got there. We were first on the ground. I had a good chance to see,”

he said simply.

“I ’ll warrant.” Simeon growled a little, leaning toward it.

The boy moved nearer to him. “These are the sleepers--the freight lay

this way, over to the left. They must have struck just as the last car

left the bridge.”

“I see.” Simeon reached out a hand for the paper. It trembled mistily as

he bent above it. “I see.” The tone held a note of satisfaction. “What

else?” He looked up quickly.

John was sorting the papers, a half-smile on his slow lips. A sense of

happiness held his stubby fingers.

The president’s eyes rested on the dull face for a long minute. His

hand, holding the paper, had ceased to tremble. He was resting in the

strength of this body, short and sturdy and full of willing life. No one

knew what that stubby-fingered boy had meant to him--what plans for the

future had been cut off. The boy was to have been closer than a partner

for him, closer than his own body, through the years. He was to have

lived with him--shared his fortune, good and bad.... No one had guessed.

He himself had not quite known--until, one day, the door closed

behind the boy and he found himself sitting before a desk, trying with

trembling fingers to make an entry in the ledger.... He had worried

along since then as best he could.... And now he was sitting in the

quiet car with the boy opposite him. The freight outside was pulling

away with slow, disturbed puffs. The low sun shone through the car, and

a glow of red plush lifted itself about them and filled the car with

clear, rosy light.

The boy looked up. His eyes met the watching ones, and a quick light

flashed into them, touching the lamps of service to flame. “This is the

next one, sir.” He looked down again at the papers and held one out.

The president pushed it aside with a touch. His eyes searched the boy’s

face. “Tell me what happened--just now!”

“Just now--!” The boy looked up, waiting, his lips half apart.

The president nodded. “You know--When we stopped--What was wrong!”

The boy waited a minute. “No. 39 had your track,” he said at last,

quietly. “She’s gone now. That’s her whistle--up the yard.” He turned

his head a little.

The president’s eyes still scanned the dull face. “And you changed the

switch!”

“Yes, sir.”

The president pushed the papers farther from him, making a place for

both arms on the table. He leaned forward a little. “So that’s what you

left me for?”

The boy looked up, startled. “What, sir!”

The president nodded slowly. “To turn a switch, I suppose--” The thin

hand lifted to his lips was trembling now as a leaf quivers at a sudden

wind.

“Some one else would have seen,” said the boy quickly.

“Nobody sees--but you.” He crunched out the words. “When are you coming

back?”

“Back!”

“To the office--I need you.” He gulped a little over the words. He had

never said as much to any one.

The lamps, with their still glow, were turned toward him. “I want to

come, sir.”

“Well?”

“We talked it over last night--She wants me to do it--She will come with

me--But--”

The president of the road was looking down now--waiting.

The boy’s eyes studied the worn face with its wrinkles, the thin, hard

lips and stern lines. Something in it made his heart suddenly go from

him. “I think I’m coming, sir,” he said simply.

The face did not look up. It worked strangely for a moment.

Then it dropped in the folded arms on the table and rested there.

The boy fell to sorting the telegrams.

When the man looked up the face was quiet. But something had gone from

it--a kind of hard selfishness. The gentleness that touched the lines

had left them free. He smiled a little wistfully as he held out his hand

for the papers. “I’m ready now. Go ahead.”

In ten minutes the papers were all in his hands, and the special was on

her way to the wreck. The boy watched it out of sight. Then he turned

away and crossed the tracks to the sandy bank, whistling softly--little

breaths of sound that broke into lightest bubbles of joy as he

climbed the bank. He was going to gather the clover blossoms, with the

pink-and-white hearts, to carry home to her.

V

The man at work in the garden looked up with sudden interest. A

light whistle had caught his ear--“That you, Johnny?” He looked out

through the vista of currant-bushes and peas to the path that skirted

the house. “You there?” he called.

The youth, who had come around the corner, nodded casually. “How is

mother?”

The old man got slowly to his feet, rubbing his knees a little. “All

right, I guess. She was out here with me a while ago, but I took her

in.--You got some flowers for her?” He glanced at the pink-and-white

blossoms in the boy’s hand.

“I got them on the bank by the track--Has she had a good day?”

“Putty good, I reckon. Putty good.” He was coming down between the peas,

limping a little. “They found out who’s to blame--?”

The boy was moving toward the house, but he turned back with a little

gesture of silence. “She does n’t know?”

The older man looked a little guilty. “Well--yes--fact is--I told her.

She kind o’ got it out o’ me,” he added in defence.

The boy smiled. “She always gets it out of you.--Never mind if it has

n’t hurt her.” He turned again toward the house.

She was very quiet as he entered the room. The blinds were closed and

the little light that came through the shutters made a kind of cool

dusk. He crossed to the lounge and laid the flowers by her hand. The

delicate fingers reached out and closed over them. “Clover blossoms,”

she said softly. “I was wishing today--We used to have them in the

yard-before the lawn-mower--” The fingers strayed here and there,

touching them gently. “Are they crimson?”

“Guess again.” His voice was full of gentle love.

“Not crimson, no.... But they ’re not white, either--”

“But you ’re warm,” he said.

The eyes flashed open and looked at him. “What happened today?”

“Father told you--about the accident?”

“The accident--Yes. But there was something else--”

He laughed quietly. “You always know, don’t you! Was it good or bad!”

She hesitated a second. “Good--for you.”

“And for all of us, mother.” He bent toward her. “We were talking about

it last night--about my going back--if he wanted me.”

“Yes--Have you heard from him!”

“I ’ve seen him.”

“Today!”

He nodded. “He came down to look after the accident, and his train

stopped a minute at the office. He wants me--I think he needs me--But it

’s for you to say, mother--you and father.”

The breath of a sigh came to her lips and changed to a smile. “Ah, if

you can get your father to go--”

He smiled back, his eyes searching her face for the slightest shadow

that should cross it. “He ’ll go,” he said decisively. “And he ’ll like

it--after we get there. But will _you_ like it, mother! That ’s what I

’m afraid of--You ’ll miss your friends--and little things--”

“I shall have you,” she returned quickly, “and your father--and

President Tetlow.”

He smiled a little at the picture. But his face had suddenly cleared. “I

believe you _would_ like him,” he said. “I never thought before how much

alike you are--you two--in some ways!”

She laughed out. “He’s a terrible hard man to get on with!”

He bent and kissed her cheek lightly. “For other people, perhaps--not

for you--or me.” She had lifted the clovers and was looking at them.

“How beautiful they are!” she said softly. They dropped again to her

side. “I want to go.” She was looking at him with clear eyes. “And I

want _you_ to go--I didn’t see how it was when we talked it over last

winter--how much it would mean to you. I dreaded the change and your

father is so hard to move--and I thought, too, that it would be too much

for you--having me to look after and all the responsibility besides.

I did n’t see then--but I’ve been thinking about it months now, lying

here. You really liked the work there and that made it easy--” She was

looking at him inquiringly.

He nodded slowly. “I liked it--I don’t think I ever did any work I

liked so well. It was almost as if I thought things out myself. I can’t

explain how it felt--but somehow I used to forget, almost, that I was

n’t planning things--It seemed so natural to do them--the things he

wanted done.”

“I know.” She sighed softly. “How he must miss you!”

He seemed not to have heard her. He was following his thought, clearing

it to his slow mind. “You ’re right in the midst of things down there.

It’s like being fireman on one of these big engines, I guess--every

shovelful you put in, you can see her fly just as if you were doing it

yourself. Here it ’s different, somehow. I do first one thing and then

another, but nothing seems to count much.”

“It ’s like being a brakeman,” she suggested.

“That’s it! I never thought of that! But I’ve always said I’d rather

be fireman on any old engine than a high-class brakeman--Pullman or

anything.”

Again the little breath of a sigh that changed quickly to a smile.

“We won’t be brakemen any more,” she said. “We ’ll go live on the

engine--right by the throttle--that’s what you call it, is n’t it?” A

little laugh covered the words.

He bent and kissed her again. “Dear mother! You shall never go if you do

not want it.”

“Ah, but I want it--more than anything in the world. But there is your

father--?”

“There is father,” he said decisively. “But first we ’ll have supper.”

He went out into the kitchen and she lay in the half-dusk with the

flowers clasped in her fingers. Presently she lifted them and drew them

across her cheek. “It was good in You to make flowers,” she said softly,

“thank You for them. ... Thank You....” The words trailed away to a

breath as she held the flowers to the light, turning them a little and

shaking them softly apart to look into their cool fragrance.

Then she touched them again to her cheek and lay with closed eyes.

When the boy came in a few minutes later, he stood for a moment watching

her before he set the slender glass of water on the table and turned

to the window, opening the blinds and letting in the late light. Her

eyelids lifted and she looked out at him dreamily. “I must have been

asleep,” she said. “I was picking flowers in the meadow at home and the

wind blew in my face. I ran a little way--” She held out the flowers to

him. “Put them in water for me, John.”

He took them and shook them apart, dropping them lightly into the glass

of water on the table.

“They are drooping,” she said regretfully.

“Yes, but they will come up.--Supper is ready.” He had placed an arm

under her shoulders and lifted her from her place as easily as if

she were a child. They waited a moment while she slipped to her feet,

steadying herself a little. Then they moved slowly toward the door, her

weight half resting on the arm that guided her. Any one watching them

would have seen where the boy had gained his gentle bearing. He leaned a

little as they went, his soul absorbed in serving her; and something of

the dignity and courage of the slender shoulders seemed to have passed

into the heavier ones, as if they, too, bore the burden and the pain

with heroic spirit.

To the old man, waiting by the stove, tea-pot in hand, there was nothing

heroic in the sight of the two in the doorway. They were simply John and

Marcia and they had always walked together like that, almost from the

time John could toddle across the floor. Then her hand had rested on

the boy’s shoulder and he had looked up, now and then, under the weight,

saying, “Does it hurt this way, mother?” Now he did not need to ask. He

guided the slight figure, half carrying it, lightly, as if it had been a

part of himself.

The old man set the tea-pot on the table and drew out her chair

clumsily. “We’ve got lettuce for supper,” he said proudly, “and

redishes, and tomorrow night they ’ll be a mess of peas, if nothin’

happens.”

She sank into the chair with a little sigh and a smile of pleasure at

the dainty table. The lettuce lifted itself crisply and the radishes

glowed pink and white in their dish. A silence fell for a moment on the

little group. They had never formed the habit of saying grace; but when

the mother was well enough to be in her place, there was a quiet moment

before they broke bread.

John looked at her now, a little shade of anxiety in his face. Then he

began to talk of the day’s happenings, the old man chiming in with the

odd effect of a heavy freight, shacking back and forth through the whirl

of traffic. To the boy and his mother talking was a kind of thinking

aloud--elliptical flashes, sentences half-finished, nods intercepted and

smiles running to quick laughs. To the old man it was a slower process,

broken by spaces of silence, chewing and meditating. Now and then

he caught at some flying fragment of talk, holding it close--as to

near-sighted eyes.

“You wa’n’t thinkin’ of moving to Bay-port?” He asked the question

humbly, but with a kind of mild obstinacy that checked the flow of talk.

“That’s what we wanted to ask you, father.”

The boy had raised his voice a little, as if speaking to a person who

was a little deaf.

The old man sat down his tea-cup and rubbed his finger thoughtfully

along his chin. “I don’t b’lieve I ’d better go,” he said slowly. He

shook his head. “I don’t see how I can go nohow.”

The boy glanced swiftly at his mother. A little line had fallen between

her eyes. The slower processes of the man’s mind were a nervous horror

to her quick-moving one.

She leaned forward a little. “We want to go, Caleb, because it will be

better for John,” she said slowly.

He nodded imperturbably. “Yes, it ’ll be better for the boy.” He glanced

at him kindly. “I know all about it’s being better for the boy. We

talked about it last winter, and if you ’d made up your minds to go

then, I would n’t ’a’ said a word--not a word.”

“But it will be better now--easier to go. There is n’t any other

difference from what there was last winter.”

“Yes, they’s a difference,” said the old man slowly. “I did n’t hev my

squashes then.”

“But you have n’t got them now,” said John. “They won’t be ripe for

months--”

“Six weeks,” interrupted the old man solemnly. “They are just a-settin

’.”

“But we can buy squashes in Bayport, Caleb.”

He looked at her mildly. “Yes, we can buy ’em, but will they be them

squashes!--You know they won’t be, and Johnny knows they won’t.” His

look changed a little to severity. “When a man’s done what I have for

them squashes--Why, I dug that ground and I fertilized it, and I’ve

weeded and watered and fussed and tended them all spring, and when a man

’s done that much, a man wants to _eat ’em!_” It was a long speech for

the old man, and he chewed in gloomy silence.

The man looked up again and saw them shining at him. “I want to go,

Johnny,” he said, and his thick lips trembled a little, “I want to do

what’s best for you. You know it and your mother knows it.” He was

looking at her humbly.

“Yes, Caleb, I know.” The line had vanished from her eyes. Dear old

Caleb!--How slow he was and how right, always, in the end!

“How would it do, father, if we had the things sent down to us?” said

the boy.

The man’s mouth was open, regarding him mildly. “If we had, what sent,

Johnny?”

“The garden stuff--peas and beets and squashes and so on?”

The dull look lightened. “Maybe we could--and it would seem good to eat

the same ones we raised, would n’t it?” He looked at him appealingly.

“We’d all like it, and it would be good for mother--to have the things

fresh from home.”

“So ’t would, Johnny. So ’t would. Who’ll we get to tend ’em?” The

thought puckered his forehead in anxious lines.

“There ’s Stillwell,” said John absently. He was not looking at the old

man, but at his mother’s face.

It was turned to him with a little smile. “I am glad,” she said, as if

he had spoken.

“You are tired?”

“Yes--it has been a long day--so much has happened.”

“I will help you to bed,” he said, thoughtfully, “and then I must go

back to the office for a little while.”

She looked at him inquiringly. “Tonight?”

“Only for a little while. The special goes back at eight--I want to tell

him.”

She made a swift gesture. “Don’t wait. Your father will help me.”

“I ’ll help her, Sonny. You run right along,” said the old man kindly.

“I am a little late,” said the hoy, looking at his watch. “I ’ll have

to hurry. But I ’ll be back before you ’re asleep.” With a little nod he

was gone.

They looked at each other across the vacant place. “I do know how you

’re goin’ to stand it,” said the old man slowly.

“I shall not mind.” She spoke with quick decision, “but it will be hard

for you--leaving the garden and the place.”

“We ’ve lived here thirty year,” he said thoughtfully.

“Thirty-one,” she responded.

“So ’t was--thirty-one last May.”

He came around and laid a clumsy hand on her shoulder. “You want I

should help you, Marcia?”

“No, Caleb, I ’ll sit here a little--perhaps till the boy comes back. I

like to look at the garden from here.”

The old man’s glance followed hers. “It is putty,” he said. “You see how

them squashes hev come on since morning?”

“Yes.” She smiled at him in the dim light. “Seems’s if you could most

see ’em grow,” said the old man with a little sigh. He took up his

battered hat. “Well, I ’ll go see Stillwell. Like enough he ’ll be glad

to do it.”

But when he was outside of the door, he did not turn toward Stillwell’s.

He went down the garden path instead, stooping now and then to a plant

or vine, patting the mold with slow fingers. At the end of the garden he

dropped to his knees, feeling cautiously along the bed that skirted the

high board fence.... “Coming on fine,” he said, “and hollyhocks is what

she wanted most of all.” His fingers strayed among them, picking off

dead leaves, straightening stems and propping them with bits of stick.

While he worked he talked to himself, a kind of mumbling chant, and

sometimes he lifted himself a little and looked about the garden, much

as a muskrat sits upon its haunches and watches the outer world for a

moment before it dives again to its home. Once he looked up to the

sky and his fingers ceased their work, his face wore a passive look.

Kneeling there in the half-light, his big face lifted and the fragrance

of the garden rising about him, he seemed to wait for something.

Then his face dropped and his fingers groped again among the plants.

By-and-by he got to his feet, stamping a little to shake out the

stiffness. “It ’s better for the boy,” he said humbly. “I ’ll go see

Stillwell right off.”