Tom
Wilder, the Bidwell hack driver, had got a traveling man off the train and
the dust left by the heels of his team still hung in the air over Turner's
Pike. From the darkness that brooded over the trees that grew along the
creek beyond the factory came the hoarse croak of frogs. On Turner's Pike a
half dozen Bidwell young men accompanied by as many town girls walked along
the path beside the road under the trees. They had come to the station
to have somewhere to go, had made up a party to come, but now the half
unconscious purpose of their coming was apparent. The party split itself
up into couples and each strove to get as far away as possible from the
others. One of the couples came back along the path toward the station and
went to the pump in George Pike's yard. They stood by the pump, laughing
and pretending to drink out of a tin cup, and when they got again into
the road the others had disappeared. They became silent. Hugh went to the
end of the platform and watched as they walked slowly along. He became
furiously jealous of the young man who put his arm about the waist of his
companion and then, when he turned and saw Hugh staring at him, took it
away again.
The telegraph operator went quickly along the platform until he was out of
range of the young man's eyes, and, when he thought the gathering darkness
would hide him, returned and crept along the path beside the road after
him.
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