Had he elected to remain there,
with the thirty-five hundred dollars already in the Savings Bank--built to
that during his years with Freedom Smith--he might soon become one of the
town's solid men.
He did not want to stay. He felt that his call was in another place and
that he would go there gladly. He wondered why he did not get on the train
and be off.
One night when he had been late on the road, loitering by fences, hearing
the lonely barking of dogs at distant farmhouses, getting the smell of the
new-ploughed ground into his nostrils, he came into town and sat down on a
low iron fence that ran along by the platform of the railroad station, to
wait for the midnight train north. Trains had taken on a new meaning to
him since any day might see him on such a train bound into his new life.
A man, with two bags in his hands, came on the station platform followed
by two women.
"Here, watch these," he said to the women, setting the bags upon the
platform; "I will go for the tickets," and disappeared into the darkness.
The two women resumed their interrupted talk.
"Ed's wife has been poorly these ten years," said one of them. "It will be
better for her and for Ed now that she is dead, but I dread the long ride.
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