"What the Hell are you doing in my flower bed?" he growled.
* * * * *
Hurrying through the streets Sam's mind was in a ferment. Like the Roman
emperor he wished that all the world had but one head that he might cut it
off with a slash. The town that had seemed so paternal, so cheery, so
intent upon wishing him well, now seemed horrible. He thought of it as a
great, crawling, slimy thing lying in wait amid the cornfields.
"To be saying that of her, of that white soul!" he exclaimed aloud in the
empty street, all of his boyish loyalty and devotion to the woman who had
put out a hand to him in his hour of trouble aroused and burning in him.
He wished that he might meet another man and could hit him also a swinging
blow on the nose as he had hit the amazed shoemaker. He went to his own
house and, leaning on the gate, stood looking at it and swearing
meaninglessly. Then, turning, he went again through the deserted streets
past the railroad station where, the midnight train having come and gone
and Jerry Donlin having gone home for the night, all was dark and quiet.
He was filled with horror of what Mary Underwood had seen at Jane
McPherson's funeral.
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