In the shop Hugh tried all morning to refurnish the warehouse of his mind,
to put back into it the things blown so recklessly away. At ten Tom came
in, talked for a moment and then flitted away. "You are still there. My
daughter still has you. You have not run away again," he seemed to be
saying to himself.
The day grew warm and the sky, seen through the shop window by the bench
where Hugh tried to work, was overcast with clouds.
At noon the workmen went away, but Clara, who on other days had come to
drive Hugh to the farmhouse for lunch, did not appear. When all was silent
in the shop he stopped work, washed his hands and put on his coat.
He went to the shop door and then came back to the bench. Before him lay
an iron wheel on which he had been at work. It was intended to drive some
intricate part of the hay-loading machine. Hugh took it in his hand and
carried it to the back of the shop where there was an anvil. Without
consciousness and scarcely realizing what he did he laid it on the anvil
and taking a great sledge in his hand swung it over his head.
The blow struck was terrific. Into it Hugh put all of his protest against
the grotesque position into which he had been thrown by his marriage to
Clara.
The blow accomplished nothing. The sledge descended and the comparatively
delicate metal wheel was twisted, knocked out of shape. It spurted from
under the head of the sledge and shot past Hugh's head and out through a
window, breaking a pane of glass.
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