The first thing he saw was heat. He could see it rising in little wiggling waves from the blackened sand; he could see it at work raising more blisters on the paint of the station; he could see it struggling in vain to reduce the weight of the baggage-master, who was also telegraph-operator, station-agent, porter, and information bureau. The next thing he saw was a jumble of form and color that would have made immortal a cubist who could have caught it and labeled it “A Hole Raveled in Civilization’s Heel.” But if the cubist had caught it he probably would have called it “Gentleman in Union Suit Climbing a Telegraph Pole,” and so passed Fame by on the other side.
The station reminded him for all the world of a flabby, disreputable redbird, squatting in the midst of an hilariously ragamuffin brood which sat back on its tails and derided her scurrilously. The progeny consisted of coal-sheds, warehouses, nondescript buildings where nothing was or apparently ever had been done, a feed-mill and a water-tank. All of them seemed to detest the perpendicular; most of them leered through doors squeezed to the shape of a clumsy diamond. Fire, thought Jim, would bring a merciful release to the whole of them.
He alighted with all the pleasant anticipation of a Christian martyr about to dip into a caldron of boiling oil. No one was there to meet him, for no one knew he was coming. He didn’t know where to go and didn’t much care. All directions seemed equally unpromising. However, before plunging into the unknown he stopped in the shade of the building, mopped his forehead, and took an observation.
Standing with the sun beating down upon her was a young woman who looked at the departing train with an expression like one Jim had seen on a girl’s face as she stood in the bread-line. It spoke hunger. In spite of his own discomfort Jim was interested, and there can be no doubt he stared. He stared long enough to observe that the young woman was dark, with a heap of curling hair so black that even the old, hard-working simile of the raven’s wing was not of the slightest use to him. She was small, but had one of those exquisite figures which just a little startle one.
She did not impress Jim as at all pretty, but she did impress him as a young person who might find difficulty in letting somebody else have his own way.
She continued to stare hungrily after the train, but presently she turned her eyes so they met Jim’s stare. In a second she comprehended he was staring, and she flashed resentment at him. She even bit her lip with vexation. Then she turned abruptly—but very gracefully, Jim noticed—and walked across the tracks.
Jim flushed uncomfortably and looked about to see if anybody had noticed his bit of bad manners and its result. In a ramshackle buggy drawn up to the platform sat an old man with square white whiskers. Possibly “sat” is not the precise word to use, for the old man rested mainly on the back of his neck, allowing the rest of his body to clutter up the space intended only for his legs and feet. Jim picked up his bag and approached.
“Could you drive me to the hotel?” he asked.
The old man looked at Jim’s feet, at his ankles, his knees, his belt-buckle, his cravat, finally into his eyes. This took time, and the sun was hot on Jim’s head.
“I could,” said the old man, finally. Then he wiggled the lines. “Giddap, Tiffany,” he said, wholly oblivious to Jim’s presence on earth. “Giddap there. Stir yourself. G’long.”