“Guess so,” called Tom abstractedly.
Another seemingly interminable stretch of steep and dusty mountain road brought him to Reynolds’ at the foot of the mountain. Here an elderly woman with bobbed hair and a young man in a blue velveteen jacket and a streaming yellow scarf bespoke the proximity of Woodstock.
He saw more of these artists and intellectual lights as he passed through the village and he was guilty of a momentary treason in wondering what on earth they did to justify the homage of Audry Ferris. They seemed a queer lot, to be cited as “worth while” and constructive. Tom wondered what they constructed.
One of them who stood in the village square gloried in irreconcilable socks, one green and one red. In one of the shop windows he saw specimens of pottery and outlandish pictures. He supposed these were the things they constructed. He thought that cultured Woodstock was a false alarm. Then he bethought him that Audry knew more than he did about such things. And that he ought to be thankful to know such a girl....
CHAPTER XXXI
TIME
Tom got a lift to Kingston and here he weakened. He would wait a little before calling at a police station. They would probably be busy just then; he did not tell himself why. He strolled about the hot, parched city, watched the traffic, looked in shop windows. In many of these, newspapers had been spread over the goods to protect them from the merciless sun, and he read the headings of stale news—anything to give him an excuse not to hurry.
He paused and looked at churches and public buildings. He watched a man lettering a name on a window. He loitered to examine a Ford tractor outside a hardware store, and he inspected some axes and spades which stood in an empty flour barrel. They spoke of the mountains and reminded him of the fraternal little group up there. He thought of those three, his good friends, lowering the pole into the earth. They would be sitting around eating their lunch by then....
A Ford business car with SHADYSIDE DAIRY printed on it stopped, and an aggressive looking young fellow with red hair swung out of it, hustled into the hardware store and out again. He had a handkerchief tucked in around his neck in deference to the heat.
“Where’s the police headquarters?” Tom asked him.