"Now just think about that! Reconsider! If—"
The two raised threatening pick axes. "Are you deef?"
"I was just going," Jeff said hastily.
He was not so much as a trifle saddened as he trudged on down the tracks. Even Tarrant Enterprises, Ltd., could not overcome sales resistance that was backed by threatening pick axes, and nobody won every time. Nobody had to, for just down the road there were sure to be new customers.
Jeff came to a steel railroad bridge and looked with delighted eyes at the creek flowing beneath it. It was a clear, spring-fed stream, and it purled down riffles that filled a deep pool. Beneath the bridge there were weeds, sand, some big rocks, and driftwood.
Scrambling down the embankment, Jeff sighed at the sheer luxury of such a place. It had everything anyone needed. Carefully, he laid the pack down, put his food parcels in the shade, and from his own personal compartment of the pack he took a towel, a wash cloth, a bar of soap, a tooth brush and a comb. Taking off his clothes, he plunged into the pool and swam across. After five minutes he waded out, soaped himself from head to foot, and rinsed in the pool. He was thus engaged when the handcar rattled over the bridge.
Jeff dried himself, dressed and combed some order into the chaos of his hair. For a while he was satisfied to lay in the sun, happy just to dream.
Left without parents when a young child, he had been brought up in an orphanage which he had voluntarily left when he was fourteen and a half. He had worked for a farmer, for a livery stable which was in the process of becoming converted to a garage, for a pipe line crew and for others, long enough to convince himself that there is no special virtue in and not much to be gained through hard work alone. For the past two and a half years he had been owner, manager and entire working force of Tarrant Enterprises, Ltd.
That, by train, car, horse conveyance and on foot, had taken him to both coasts and both borders. He spent his summers in the north and his winters in the south, and the tidy roll of bills sewed in an inside pocket was proof that hard work is fine and wonderful if combined with initiative and intelligence. It was a happy life, one he liked, and though he thought he might take roots some time, he was not ready to do it yet.
Not until dusk brought the first hint of evening chill did Jeff gather wood and build a fire. He built it close enough to a big boulder so that the rock's surface would reflect heat, but far enough away so that it would not be too hot. He lingered beside the pool, listening to the night noises.