igence also. The intelligence was, that an accumulated force
of seven engines, with a large working party, had left Groton Junction
downward at three. Nothing had arrived upward at Groton Junction; and,
from Boston, Dix learned that nothing more would leave there till early
morning. No trains had arrived in Boston from any quarter for
twenty-four hours. So long the blockade had lasted already.

On this intelligence, it was clear that, with good luck, the down-train
might reach them at any moment. Still the men resolved to leave their
milk, while they went back for more, relying on Silas and the "large
working party" to put it on the cars, if the train chanced to pass
before any of them returned. So back they fared to Lovejoy's for their
next relay, and met John and Reuben working in successfully with their
second. But no one need have hurried; for, as trip after trip they built
their pyramid of cans higher and higher, no welcome whistle broke the
stillness of the night, and by ten o'clock, when all these cans were in
place by the rail, the train had not yet come.

John and Reuben then proposed to go up into the cut, and to relieve poor
Silas, who had not been heard from since he swung along so cheerfully
like an "Excelsior" boy on his way up the Alps. But they had hardly
started, when a horn from the meadow recalled them, and, retracing their
way, they met a messenger who had come in to say that a fresh team from
the Four Corners had been reported at Lovejoy's, with a dozen or more
men, who had succeeded in bringing down nearly as far as Lovejoy's
mowing-lot near a hundred more cans; that it was quite possible in two
or three hours more to bring this over also,--and, although the first
train was probably now close at hand, it was clearly worth while to
place this relief in readiness for a second. So poor Silas was left for
the moment to his loneliness, and Reuben and John returned again upon
their steps. They passed the house where they found Mrs. Lovejoy and
Mrs. Stacy at work in the shed, finishing off two more jumpers, and
claiming congratulation for their skill, and after a cup of tea
again,--for no man touched spirit that day nor that night,--they
reported at the new station by the mowing-lot.

And Silas Lovejoy--who had turned the corner into the Pitman cut, and so
shut himself out from sight of the station light, or his father's
windows, or the lanterns of the party at the pyramid of cans--Silas
Lovejoy held hi