The boy’s eyes studied the worn face with its wrinkles, the thin, hard lips and stern lines. Something in it made his heart suddenly go from him. “I think I’m coming, sir,” he said simply.
The face did not look up. It worked strangely for a moment.
Then it dropped in the folded arms on the table and rested there.
The boy fell to sorting the telegrams.
When the man looked up the face was quiet. But something had gone from it—a kind of hard selfishness. The gentleness that touched the lines had left them free. He smiled a little wistfully as he held out his hand for the papers. “I’m ready now. Go ahead.”
In ten minutes the papers were all in his hands, and the special was on her way to the wreck. The boy watched it out of sight. Then he turned away and crossed the tracks to the sandy bank, whistling softly—little breaths of sound that broke into lightest bubbles of joy as he climbed the bank. He was going to gather the clover blossoms, with the pink-and-white hearts, to carry home to her.
V
The man at work in the garden looked up with sudden interest. A light whistle had caught his ear—“That you, Johnny?” He looked out through the vista of currant-bushes and peas to the path that skirted the house. “You there?” he called.