The room was like a church
in the early morning of a wintry day, cold and still. He went hurriedly
to the light, and taking the roll of money from his pocket, counted it.
Then he went out of the room and along the station platform almost to Main
Street, but was not satisfied. On an impulse he returned to the waiting
room again and, late in the evening on his way home, he stopped there for a
final counting of the money before he went to bed.
Peter Fry was a blacksmith and had a son who was clerk in the Bidwell
Hotel. He was a tall young fellow with curly yellow hair and watery blue
eyes and smoked cigarettes, a habit that was an offense to the nostrils of
the men of his times. His name was Jacob, but he was called in derision
Fizzy Fry. The young man's mother was dead and he got his meals at the
hotel and at night slept on a cot in the hotel office. He had a passion for
gayly colored neckties and waistcoats and was forever trying unsuccessfully
to attract the attention of the town girls. When he and his father met on
the street, they did not speak to each other. Sometimes the father stopped
and stared at his son. "How did I happen to be the father of a thing like
that?" he muttered aloud.
The blacksmith was a square-shouldered, heavily built man with a bushy
black beard and a tremendous voice. When he was a young man he sang in the
Methodist choir, but after his wife died he stopped going to church and
began putting his voice to other uses.
Pages:
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243