She crossed the canal and was almost in sight of the station when she saw a tall figure ahead of her whose singular gait and old-fashioned manner of dress would have caused comment anywhere.
To wear a "stove-pipe" hat on a hot day like this, with a heavy, dark frock-coat and gray trousers, with his feet encased in overshoes, seemed to the casual observer rather ridiculous.
"Why," thought Ruth, "he looks as Seneca Sprague might if he were dressed up and going to his own wedding," and she laughed to think of that ridiculous possibility regarding one of the well-known characters of Milton.
This old gentleman was a stranger to her, Ruth was sure. Milton being a junction point of two railroads, there were often strangers about the railroad station waiting for connections on one or the other of the roads. This man must be, the girl thought, such a marooned passenger.
As he reached the edge of the shade cast by the trees on Pleasant Street and stepped into the glare of the open square about the railway station, he unfurled a huge umbrella and raised it to shield himself from the sun's glare. It was a most astonishing umbrella. The upper side was a faded green; the under side an age-yellowed white.
"Why," thought Ruth, "it must be an heirloom in his family."
Amused, she continued directly behind the old gentleman as he started to cross the four tracks which blotted the center of Milton. Accidents had happened more than once at this grade crossing, and the town councilmen had been in hot water with the taxpayers for some years regarding the changing of the railroad's level.
There were drop gates, but only one decrepit watchman here at Pleasant Street. Ruth always looked both ways when she started to cross the tracks. And at this time—or about this time—in the afternoon the so-called Cannon-Ball Express went through. That train did not even hesitate at Milton.
Quite as a matter of course, the girl halted when she came to the tracks and looked both east and west. A freight train was backing down past the station on the third track. The second track was open for passenger traffic. There was a growing roar from the west.
The old gentleman stopped and peered in that direction. He could easily have crossed ahead of the slow freight, but like Ruth he was doubtful regarding the growing clamor of the approaching express, although that fast-flier was not yet in sight at the curve.