Hugh looked at his father asleep and snoring in the long grass on the
river bank. An odd feeling of disloyalty crept over him and he became
uncomfortable. The man's mouth was open and he snored lustily. From his
greasy and threadbare clothing arose the smell of fish. Flies gathered
in swarms and alighted on his face. Disgust took possession of Hugh. A
flickering but ever recurring light came into his eyes. With all the
strength of his awakening soul he struggled against the desire to give way
to the inclination to stretch himself out beside the man and sleep. The
words of the New England woman, who was, he knew, striving to lift him out
of slothfulness and ugliness into some brighter and better way of life,
echoed dimly in his mind. When he arose and went back along the street
to the station master's house and when the woman there looked at him
reproachfully and muttered words about the poor white trash of the town, he
was ashamed and looked at the floor.
Hugh began to hate his own father and his own people. He connected the man
who had bred him with the dreaded inclination toward sloth in himself.
When the farmhand came to the station and demanded the money he had earned
by carrying trunks, he turned away and went across a dusty road to the
Shepard's house. After a year or two he paid no more attention to the
dissolute farmhand who came occasionally to the station to mutter and swear
at him; and, when he had earned a little money, gave it to the woman to
keep for him.
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