"Well," he said, speaking slowly and with the hesitating
drawl characteristic of his people, "if you give me time I'll learn. I want
to be what you want me to be. If you stick to me I'll try to make a man of
myself."
* * * * *
Hugh McVey lived in the Missouri town under the tutelage of Sarah
Shepard until he was nineteen years old. Then the station master gave up
railroading and went back to Michigan. Sarah Shepard's father had died
after having cleared one hundred and twenty acres of the cut-over timber
land and it had been left to her. The dream that had for years lurked in
the back of the little woman's mind and in which she saw bald-headed,
good-natured Henry Shepard become a power in the railroad world had begun
to fade. In newspapers and magazines she read constantly of other men who,
starting from a humble position in the railroad service, soon became rich
and powerful, but nothing of the kind seemed likely to happen to her
husband. Under her watchful eye he did his work well and carefully but
nothing came of it. Officials of the railroad sometimes passed through
the town riding in private cars hitched to the end of one of the through
trains, but the trains did not stop and the officials did not alight and,
calling Henry out of the station, reward his faithfulness by piling new
responsibilities upon him, as railroad officials did in such cases in the
stories she read.
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