That was the one he wanted, that was his. She had promised him a pipe if she got work to-day. If only she had brought work with her!
After one last look and one more ... he went on.
He caught up his barrow and pushed it, over the wide road, straight to the station.
There he had to wait.
He loitered round the dreary, deserted yard. The noon sun bit the naked stones; and everything, hiding and shrinking from that glowing sun-fire, seemed dead. The drivers sat slumbering on the boxes of their cabs; the horses stood on three legs, their heads down, crookedwise between the shafts, and now and then they gave a short stamp, to keep off the flies, which were terribly active. A group of loafers lay sleeping on their stomachs in the shade. A slow-moving vehicle drove past and disappeared round the corner. A dog came stepping up lazily and went and lay under the sunflowers near the signal-box, blinking his eyes.
There was nothing more that moved.
At last the train came gliding in very gently, without noise, and it sent a gulp or two of white smoke into the quivering blue sky.
Now the boy stood stretching his neck through the railings, on the look-out for his mother, whom he already saw in his thoughts, coming bent, with a heavily-laden bag of weaving-stuff; and the pipe was in his pocket ... or else nothing, nothing at all!
‘Twas a fat gentleman that got out first; then a tall, thin one; then a woman; then another woman; always others; and now, now it was mother. She stuck out her thin leg, groping from the high foot-board to find the ground, and ... she had an empty blue-and-white canvas bag on her shoulder. His lower lip dropped sadly and he turned slowly to his barrow:
“No work yet. God better it!”