For hours he plodded straight ahead,
doing over and over some appointed task. He forgot the purpose of the job
he had been given to do and did it because it was a job and would keep him
awake. One morning he was told to sweep the station platform and as his
employer had gone away without giving him additional tasks and as he was
afraid that if he sat down he would fall into the odd detached kind of
stupor in which he had spent so large a part of his life, he continued
to sweep for two or three hours. The station platform was built of rough
boards and Hugh's arms were very powerful. The broom he was using began to
go to pieces. Bits of it flew about and after an hour's work the platform
looked more uncleanly than when he began. Sarah Shepard came to the door of
her house and stood watching. She was about to call to him and to scold him
again for his stupidity when a new impulse came to her. She saw the serious
determined look on the boy's long gaunt face and a flash of understanding
came to her. Tears came into her eyes and her arms ached to take the great
boy and hold him tightly against her breast. With all her mother's soul she
wanted to protect Hugh from a world she was sure would treat him always
as a beast of burden and would take no account of what she thought of as
the handicap of his birth. Her morning's work was done and without saying
anything to Hugh, who continued to go up and down the platform laboriously
sweeping, she went out at the front door of the house and to one of
the town stores.
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