On the way back to Bloomfield she had no eyes for the beauties of the fast-falling October evening. But in a little while she began to feel warmer inside. At least she had shaken the dust of the city from her feet, the city where everyone wore a mask—of honesty and sobriety and right living—and lived otherwise. No wonder they called it a melting pot. She would be content from henceforth to live where the air and the living were cleaner and purer.
So absorbed was she that she did not realize that Zeke had taken another route home. When she noticed, she remarked on it.
"Hit's a shoht cut," explained Zeke. "You said you wanted to get home quick."
She smiled at his responsiveness.
They came suddenly around a bend in the road upon a gang of men, road mending. There was a huge concrete mixer and she wondered at the sight of it, a new sign of progress for Bloomfield. There was a stretch of loose rock and a wooden bar blocking the road. Zeke muttered his dismay but did not stop. They rolled right up to the barrier. A man in khaki breeches and flannel shirt and high lace boots came and waved them back.
"You'll have to turn around," he called out cheerily, and she saw that it was Joe Hooper. As though in answer to the obvious question he added, as he in turn recognized her, "Like a bad penny—I'm turning up again."
She looked at him and stared. His face was very red and somehow he looked quite natural, more so than in his city clothes.
"What in the world?" she said.
He had come quite close and she could see he was smiling. That baffling, uncertain look had left his face and there was something open about it.
"Got a man's job again," he said, still smiling.