"Good luck," she called back. Her handful of the hailed rice, scooped desperately the last minute, was aimed badly; it baptized a bewildered family, chiefly children, still looking for the obtrusively obvious exit.
"Good luck," Pelham's deeper tones echoed hers.
The oiled switches, affectionately clearing the way for the long iron carriage and its coupling hearts, creaked beneath them, as the cars slid and jangled down the yards, between the furnacetown shanties, into the winter-shriven suburban streets. Jane's placid smile followed her man as he joined two of the comfortable chairs; her hands locked within his, her cheek rested against the warm roughness of his, her eyes watched the flying world curtsey and part behind them, then gradually coalesce into a welded and blurred oblivion. They were turning their backs upon the mountain her Pelham loved; not for good ... yes, for good, but not for all time.
| West Adamsville | | | 8.37| |
The mountain was going with them; its inscrutable mass, off to the left, still followed, a protection and a reminder. What a boyish fancy of his, that it mothered him! Well, it could safely leave the task to her, Jane reflected; he was worth mothering—her first child.... A sudden freshet of tenderness lifted her arm around his shoulder.
This station they had just left—to think that its scattered home-lights held striving hearts who had followed her Pelham through the harsh campaign, and looked to him as children to their leader. And now he was hers, hers! And she would see to it that she kept him theirs.
Hers ... as she must be his. She dared to inch her fancies beyond their previous bounds. As a modern woman, she reminded herself, she knew from her reading the essential facts of mated life; but feelings were of different breed: words could not communicate unfelt emotions, they could only evoke memories of those formerly experienced. The emotional Atlantic lay before her.... To-night? She could not tell.
| Coalstock | | | 8.57| |
"What are you thinking of, dear?" she asked.
"Geographically.... Reminiscing.... Bragg County ends in a few miles; my last speech, before the final one in Main Park, was in the Elks' Hall here."