CHAPTER XIV.
IT seemed to Tom, now that he was fairly on the homeward road, as though the wheels of the stage were weighted with lead, and as though the horses that dragged it crawled at a snail’s pace, for his hopes and his longing for home outstripped a thousand fold the rate of his traveling.
To P., 18 M.—14 M. to E.; to P., 19 M.—13 M. to E.; to P., 20 M.—12 M. to E. So passed the milestones in succession, and Tom counted every one as they rumbled by it. But at last it was 2 M. to E., and a steep hill lay in front of them; it was the last hill between him and home.
Tom had taken the Union line of stages, which did not, like the Enterprise line, run on to Downeyville, but stopped at Eastcaster. The driver of “No. 3” was a stranger to Tom; old Willy Wilkes had heretofore driven the stage as long as he could remember.
“Where’s old Willy Wilkes?” said Tom, soon after they had left Philadelphia.
The strange driver let fly an amber stream of tobacco juice over the side of the coach, and answered, briefly, “Dead.”
“Dead!”
“Ya-as. Caught cold last spring and died in June;” then, with some curiosity, “Did you know him?”
“Yes, I knew him,” said Tom, briefly. Here was the first change, and it threw a cloud over him; was he to find other changes as great? He had only been gone a year and a half, but it seemed to him as though it might have been ten years. There was a pause of a few minutes, and the new driver of “No. 3” looked furtively at Tom from out the corners of his eyes. Tom had not cut off his beard, and his hair had turned iron grey in the last five months; he knew that he was greatly changed.
It was Tom’s beard that seemed to catch the driver’s eye, for folks went clean-shaven in those days.