“Well, sir,” said the man, “I don’t just know. He went down in the lower part of the town, there, with a great crowd of people.”
“Which way did He go?”
“Over yonder,” said the man, pointing across the railroad tracks.
Gilderman stood for a moment considering. Should he stay where he was? It looked very like rain–he hesitated–then again came that strange propulsion forward, urging him to pursue the undertaking. He crossed the five or six broad lines of railroad track. He walked down the road and over the bridge. There was a steep embankment on the other side of the bridge, and the stream went winding down the level, open lot or field below. Gilderman wondered whether this was the place where Tom Kettle had received his sight. He walked on for perhaps a quarter of a mile without seeing any sign of a crowd. At last he came to a sort of tobacco-shop that was half a dwelling-house. He hesitated for a moment or two and then went up the two dirty steps and pushed open the door. It stuck for a moment, and then suddenly gave way with a loud jangling of a bell over his head. The bell continued a persistent tink-tinking for some time. The place was full of a heavy, musty smell that was not altogether of tobacco. A woman emerged somewhere from an inner room. Gilderman felt very foolish. Then he asked her if she had seen anything of the Man whom he sought. He marvelled at the freak of fancy that seemed to thrust him forward upon his strange quest. It seemed to him that he was suddenly becoming translated into a different sphere of life from any that he had ever known before.
The woman stared at him for a moment or two without answering. She had a frowsy head of hair and a shapeless figure, and was clad in a calico dress. She told him that a crowd had gone over towards the cemetery; that the town had been full of people all the morning, and that they all appeared to have gone over after the Man.
“How far is the cemetery from here?” asked Gilderman.
“About a mile, I reckon.”
“A mile?”
Gilderman lingered for a moment. Then he said, “Thank you,” and he opened the door with the same momentary resistance that finally gave way to a repeated clamorous jangling of the bell. Again he suddenly realized that he was entering a strange life, such as he had never before beheld. He stood for a while uncertainly in the street. What should he do next? He was conscious that the woman was looking at him from the store window, and he realized how strange and remote he must appear in these unusual surroundings. He could not go a mile to the cemetery and back again in time for his train. A negro came driving a farm wagon down the road towards the station. Gilderman called to the man, who drew in the horses with a “Whoh!”