"Somebody had shot a squirrel and he took on about it as though he had lost
a child. I said then he was crazy, and he has sure proved I was right."
At a word from her father Clara went to sit on the front seat on Hugh's
knees. Her body trembled and she was cold with fear. As her father had
told the story of Jim Gibson's triumph over Joe Wainsworth she had wanted
passionately to kill that blustering fellow. Now the thing was done. In
her mind the harness maker had come to stand for all the men and women in
the world who were in secret revolt against the absorption of the age in
machines and the products of machines. He had stood as a protesting figure
against what her father had become and what she thought her husband had
become. She had wanted Jim Gibson killed and it had been done. As a child
she had gone often to Wainsworth's shop with her father or some farm hand,
and she now remembered sharply the peace and quiet of the place. At the
thought of the same place, now become the scene of a desperate killing, her
body shook so that she clutched at Hugh's arms, striving to steady herself.
Ed Hall took the senseless figure of the old man in the road into his arms
and half threw it into the back seat of the car. To Clara it was as though
his rough, misunderstanding hands were on her own body. The car started
swiftly along the road and Ed told again the story of the night's
happenings.
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