The mother was thirty, though there were lines of worry on her forehead and around her eyes that made her look older. She wore little makeup and her clothing had been bought for wear instead of for looks. She looked around, leaned absently down to pat the little girl and straightened as the station-master came slowly out.
"Need anything, ma'am?" He was pleasant enough. Janet Bagley appreciated that; life had not been entirely pleasant for her for some years.
"I need a taxicab, if there is one."
"There is. I run it after the train gets in for them as ain't met. You're not goin' to the college?" He pronounced it "collitch."
Janet Bagley shook her head and took a piece of paper from her bag. "Mr. Charles Maxwell, Rural Route Fifty-three, Martin's Hill Road," she read. Her daughter began to whimper.
The station-master frowned. "Hum," he said, "that's the Herm—er, d'you know him?"
Mrs. Bagley said: "I've never met him. What kind of a man is he?"
That was the sort of question the station-master appreciated. His job was neither demanding nor exciting; an opportunity to talk was worth having. He said cheerfully, "Why, I don't rightly know, ma'am. Nobody's ever seen him."
"Nobody?"
"Nope. Nobody. Does everything by mail."