When her father died and she saw a chance to again turn
her face eastward and to live again among her own people, she told her
husband to resign his position with the air of one accepting an undeserved
defeat. The station master managed to get Hugh appointed in his place, and
the two people went away one gray morning in October, leaving the tall
ungainly young man in charge of affairs. He had books to keep, freight
waybills to make out, messages to receive, dozens of definite things to do.
Early in the morning before the train that was to take her away, came to
the station, Sarah Shepard called the young man to her and repeated the
instructions she had so often given her husband. "Do everything neatly and
carefully," she said. "Show yourself worthy of the trust that has been
given you."
The New England woman wanted to assure the boy, as she had so often assured
her husband, that if he would but work hard and faithfully promotion would
inevitably come; but in the face of the fact that Henry Shepard had for
years done without criticism the work Hugh was to do and had received
neither praise nor blame from those above him, she found it impossible to
say the words that arose to her lips. The woman and the son of the people
among whom she had lived for five years and had so often condemned, stood
beside each other in embarrassed silence. Stripped of her assurance as to
the purpose of life and unable to repeat her accustomed formula, Sarah
Shepard had nothing to say.
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