OR,
How Bud Wilson Made Good
[CHAPTER I]
AN IDLE BOY GETS A JOB.
“Here she comes.”
Doug’ Jackson, the driver of the Scottsville House ’bus, rose from the edge of the depot platform, hitched up his trousers, and motioned the usual depot loungers back to safety. All were waiting for passenger train No. 22, west bound, due at 11:15 A. M., and late, as usual.
“She’s made up seven minutes,” Doug’ announced authoritatively after consulting a large silver watch. “She’s fannin’—git back there, you kids.”
No one else yet saw or heard the approaching train, whose proximity was only detected by Doug’s long experience in such matters; but all necks were craned toward the grade east of town and the curve at its far end.
One of these anxious watchers was Mr. Josiah Elder, a man just beyond middle age, who shaved every morning down to a round patch of whiskers on a prolonged chin, and whose white starched shirt and heavy gold watch chain proclaimed him a person of affairs. Just at present, a heavy coat of dust on a new, black, soft hat and on his dark trousers suggested that the morning had been spent out of doors, where the September drought had coated the town and country with suffocating dust.