Workmen talked to
each other of the new tricks of their trades, and after hours of discussion
of some new way to cultivate corn, shape a horseshoe or build a barn,
spoke of God and his intent concerning man. Long drawn out discussions of
religious beliefs and the political destiny of America were carried on.
And across the background of these discussions ran tales of action in a
sphere outside the little world in which the inhabitants of the towns
lived. Men who had been in the Civil War and who had climbed fighting over
hills and in the terror of defeat had swum wide rivers, told the tale of
their adventures.
In the evening, after his day of work in the field or on the railroad with
the section hands, Hugh did not know what to do with himself. That he
did not go to bed immediately after the evening meal was due to the fact
that he looked upon his tendency to sleep and to dream as an enemy to his
development; and a peculiarly persistent determination to make something
alive and worth while out of himself--the result of the five years of
constant talking on the subject by the New England woman--had taken
possession of him. "I'll find the right place and the right people and then
I'll begin," he continually said to himself.
And then, worn out with weariness and loneliness, he went to bed in one of
the little hotels or boarding houses where he lived during those years,
and his dreams returned.
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