From a
street corner, where he stopped in the shadow of a tree, Sam could see
them there, the wind swinging the lantern in Freedom's hand and the
slender little old wife making a white blotch against the darkness.
CHAPTER VI
Sam went along the board sidewalk homeward bound, hurried by the driving
March wind that had sent the lantern swinging in Freedom's hand. At the
front of a white frame residence a grey-haired old man stood leaning on
the gate and looking at the sky.
"We shall have a rain," he said in a quavering voice, as though giving a
decision in the matter, and then turned and without waiting for an answer
went along a narrow path into the house.
The incident brought a smile to Sam's lips followed by a kind of weariness
of mind. Since the beginning of his work with Freedom he had, day after
day, come upon Henry Kimball standing by his gate and looking at the sky.
The man was one of Sam's old newspaper customers who stood as a kind of
figure in the town. It was said of him that in his youth he had been a
gambler on the Mississippi River and that he had taken part in more than
one wild adventure in the old days. After the Civil War he had come to end
his days in Caxton, living alone and occupying himself by keeping year
after year a carefully tabulated record of weather variations.
Pages:
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118