Whenever the boss went
away an old man who had a reputation as a wit told stories concerning his
relations with women. A young man with red hair took the cue from him. The
two men talked loudly and kept looking at Hugh. The younger of the two
wits turned to another workman who had a weak, timid face. "Well, you," he
cried, "what about your old woman? What about her? Who is the father of
your son? Do you dare tell?"
In the towns Hugh walked about in the evening and tried always to keep his
mind fixed on definite things. He felt that humanity was for some unknown
reason drawing itself away from him, and his mind turned back to the figure
of Sarah Shepard. He remembered that she had never been without things
to do. She scrubbed her kitchen floor and prepared food for cooking;
she washed, ironed, kneaded dough for bread, and mended clothes. In the
evening, when she made the boy read to her out of one of the school books
or do sums on a slate, she kept her hands busy knitting socks for him or
for her husband. Except when something had crossed her so that she scolded
and her face grew red, she was always cheerful. When the boy had nothing to
do at the station and had been sent by the station master to work about the
house, to draw water from the cistern for a family washing, or pull weeds
in the garden, he heard the woman singing as she went about the doing of
her innumerable petty tasks.
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