ing the wad of
notes in his breast-pocket. Next day a box went down the country, and
a letter with it, and that night Jim could not have bought a chew of
tobacco. The next letter he got from home was heavy. Jim smiled over it
a good deal, and cried a little too. He wondered how Kitty looked in
her new dress, and if the barrel of flour made good bread; and if his
mother's shawl was warm.

One day he was changed to the passenger service, the express. It was a
promotion, paid more, and relieved him from Dick Rail.

He had some queer experiences being ordered around, but he swallowed
them all. He had not been there three weeks when Mrs. Wagoner was a
passenger on the train. Carry was with her. They had moved to town. (Mr.
Wagoner was interested in railroad development.) Mrs. Wagoner called him
to her seat, and talked to him--in a loud voice. Mrs. Wagoner had a loud
voice.

It had the "carrying" quality. She did not shake hands; Carry did
and said she was so glad to see him: she had been down home the week
before--had seen his mother and Kitty. Mrs. Wagoner said, "We still keep
our plantation as a country place." Carry said Kitty looked so well; her
new dress was lovely. Mrs. Wagoner said his mother's eyes were worse.
She and Kitty had walked over to see them, to show Kitty's new dress.
She had promised that Mr. Wagoner would do what he could for him
(Jim) on the road. Next month Jim went back to the freight service. He
preferred Dick Rail to Mrs. Wagoner. He got him. Dick was worse than
ever, his appetite was whetted by abstinence; he returned to his attack
with renewed zest. He never tired--never flagged. He was perpetual: he
was remorseless. He made Jim's life a wilderness. Jim said nothing, just
slouched along silenter than ever, quieter than ever, closer than
ever. He took to going on Sunday to another church than the one he had
attended, a more fashionable one than that. The Wagoners went there. Jim
sat far back in the gallery, very far back, where he could just see the
top of Carry's head, her big hat and her face, and could not see Mrs.
Wagoner, who sat nearer the gallery. It had a curious effect on him:
he never went to sleep there. He took to going up-town walking by the
stores--looking in at the windows of tailors and clothiers. Once he
actually went into a shop and asked the price of a new suit of clothes.
(He needed them badly.) The tailor unfolded many rolls of cloth and
talked volubly: talked him dizzy. Jim