CYNTHY'S JOE, By Clara Sprague Ross
I DON'T think he'll be sech a fool as to p'int fer home the fust thing he does.” The speaker, a young man with a dull, coarse face and slouching air, knocked the ashes from a half-smoked cigar with his little finger, which was heavily ornamented with a large seal ring, and adjusted himself to a more comfortable position.
“I dun'no which p'int o' the compass he'd more naterally turn to,” observed another; an elderly man with a stoop in his shoulders, and a sharp, thin face that with all its petty shrewdness was not without its compensating feature—a large and kindly mouth. The third man in the little group was slowly walking back and forth on the platform that ran across the station, rolling and unrolling a small red flag which he held in his hands. He turned with a contemptuous “umph” to the young man, remarking as he did so, “'Tain't mostly fools as goes to prison. Joe Atherton prob'ly has as many friends in this section o' the kentry as some who hain't been away so much.”
“Joe was a good little boy,” pursued the old station-master; “he wuz allers kind to his mother. I never heard a word ag'in him till that city swell came down here fer the summer and raised blazes with the boy.”
“If there ain't the Squire!” exclaimed a hitherto silent member; “he's the last man as I should jedge would come to the deepo to welcome Joe Atherton.”
A stout, florid, pompous individual slowdy mounted the platform steps, wiping his forehead with a flaming red silk handkerchief, which he had taken from his well-worn straw hat. “Warm afternoon, friends,” he suggested, with an air of having vastly contributed to the information of the men, whose only apparent concern in life was an anxiety to find a shady corner within conversational distance of each other.
The Squire seated himself in the only chair of which the forlorn station boasted; he leaned back until his head was conveniently supported, and furtively glanced at a large old-fashioned watch which he drew from his vest pocket.
“Train's late this a'ternoon, Squar',” said the man with the red flag. “I reckon ye'll all hev to go home without seein' the show; 'tain't no ways sartin Joe'll come to-day. Parson Mayhew sed his time was up the fust week in September, but there's no tellin' the day as I knows on.”
A sustained, heavy rumble sounded in the distance. Each man straightened himself and turned his head to catch the first glimpse of the approaching engine, With a shriek and only a just perceptible lessening of its speed, the mighty train rushed by them without stopping, and was out of sight before the eager watchers regained the power of speech.