"So'm I," exclaimed the other. Silence then for a little while, when again the first voice was heard: "Why, my feet's right wahm!"
"So's mine!" replied his friend, in equal delight and surprise.
"I reckon I'll take my shoes inside," said the first speaker, presently.
"So'll I," said the second; after which there came silence.
In another part of the car was a lady with a little child, which jumped and squirmed about, and made eyes at all mankind, including James Thompson. The latter made eyes in turn, and waggled his fingers at the youngster, which trilled and gurgled as it danced up and down, now hiding its face, again springing up into view above the back of the plush-covered seat.
"I have three of my own back home, madam," said Mr. Thompson, going up to the mother of the child. "Come here, baby, and give me a kiss; because I'm a poor man who can't be kissed by his own little girl." The child kissed him gleefully and sweetly a dozen times; and perhaps, after all, that was shriving and absolution for James Thompson. Not all of us go down into the valley of the shadow with the kiss of innocence on our lips.
Number 4 steamed on to the southward. She crossed the flat bottoms where the great river was hedged out by the levees; edged off again toward the red clay hills and finally, leaving this fringe of little eminences, plunged straight and deep into the ancient forests of the Delta, whose flat floor lay out ahead for many miles. Number 4 was now in the wilderness. Panther, and fox, and owl went silent when the wild scream of Number 4 was heard; of Number 4, carrying its burden of the ancient comedy and tragedy of life, its hates, and loves, and mysteries, its sordid, its little and its tremendous things.
Later in the night Number 4 groaned and creaked and protested at the stop for the little siding of the Big House plantation, eighty miles from the point where she had begun her flight. Her brake shoes ground so sternly that the heavy oaken beams whined at the strain put on them; yet obedient to the hand of man, she did stop, though it was but to discharge a single passenger.
Henry Decherd hurried out into the darkness like some creature hard pursued. Number 4 swept on, clacking, rumbling, screaming. The shriek of her whistle, heard now and again, was loud, careless, imperious, self-assured.
But what meant this hoarse and swiftly broken note, as though Number 4 were caught in sudden mortal fear? What meant this broken, quavering wail, as though the monster were suddenly arrested by an utter agony? What, sounding far across the sullen forest, was this rending and crashing roar? Number 4 had been here, hurrying onward. But now—now where and what was Number 4?