The morning was so clear that every object stood in startling relief. A plume of steam far up the leafy railroad vista heralded the Peru express's lightning passage through the town. Scarcely a lounger was left on the platform. Mallston had a job of cleaning the cellar for the storekeeper, and at intervals appeared from its gaping doors with a basket of decayed potatoes on his shoulders. The landscape rung with bird-songs, and the girl, who had skimmed the cream off such a morning, looked up and laughed at her dejected friend. She had purple violets tucked into her coil of hair, her belt and under her collar.
"What are you doing here? Why aren't you out trying to catch the effect of day-twilight in the thick woods?"
"I've been trying," he replied without smiling, "to catch the effect of a rash action—and a woman's face."
"How solemn! Let me see it. Is it Mrs. Stillman's?"
"No, it isn't: it's my wife's."
Her half-lifted hand dropped. While her eyes met his without blenching she turned ghastly white, her face seeming to wither into sudden age.
The express-train whistled. Only a moment before its steam-plume had been her symbol of rushing success in life, and now, for some scarcely apprehended reason, she felt that the train and Fate were running her down. With intuitive resistance and a defiant sweep of her body she turned toward it and screamed aloud.
The photographer could not credit this rapid change to himself when he saw upon the track a small rough cart drawn by Mallston's oldest girl and containing his youngest stretched upon a dirty pillow. The express was coming down-grade at full speed, but at its whistle the oldest child turned off the track and tried to drag her burden across the rail. The cart upset, and the baby sprawled, crying, between the rails, while his sister fled crying toward home.
This whole occurrence was a flash: it seemed to the spectators they had barely started forward with their blood curdling, the engine had but screamed, and Mallston was merely seen dropping a basket of potatoes and leaping with upright hair and starting eyes, before the whole thing was over. The train stopped with such a recoil that many passengers were thrown from their seats: the engineer dropped from his cab, and there was a crowd.