Hulbert Footner

“ The way he goes on at this time of year is disgraceful; sneers and jeers at folks for laying out money on Christmas gifts!”
“Maybe Christmas hurts him more than other times,” suggested the fourth passenger, little Miss Whybrow, the seamstress.
“I'm sure I hope it does,” said Mrs. Tableporter, piously. “If ever a man deserved it, he does. To treat his wife the way he did! She was from way up Bruce county way, as pretty spoken a little woman as you could find; and Dawbarn, from a boy dumb and surly, the kind that thinks it a shame to let any natural feeling show. ”

“ Dean having made his way back to the front platform, the interrupted journey to Bartonville was resumed. Dawbarn propped his small captive in the corner of the seat. The boy extended his arm on the window sill, and dropping his face on it, sobbed as if his heart would break. He was incapable of hearing or speaking, and Dawbarn took the money from the pocket he had thrust it in, and distributed it among the late possessors.
Miss Whybrow expressed a timid desire to sit beside the boy and hold his hand.
“Just like a woman!” ”

“ The 7:45 Bartonville car waited at the city line with four passengers. This suburban railway, which consists of three miles of track and a single car, is Bartonville's own institution, its patronizing concession to modernity. The car is naturally the meeting-place, the news-exchange, the lyceum of the inhabitants and the motorman and conductor needs must be thoroughly en rapport with village affairs: the conductor in especial might be termed the herald of Bartonville. The present incumbent of the rear platform, Archy Biggar, had a due sense of the weight of his position ”

“ Tableporter. “Has the village terrorized with his broad shoulders and his black looks and his shut mouth. Tries to act the wronged husband, indeed; thinks it's very fine to keep himself to himself, and pass his life-tong neighbors with a scowl. It's a pity he didn't have a woman of spirit to put him down, instead of getting a timid little creature who shook when he looked at her.”
“He's rich, isn't he?” queried the young man, whose name was Jake Perrin, and who was suitor to a maiden of Bartonville. ”

“ Now that the passengers had all got off, there was the same necessity for keeping up appearances, though he was still uneasy about Archy Biggar seeing him in this compromising attitude.
Strange new forces were at work in the breast of the misanthrope of Bartonville. Dawbarn was thoroughly perplexed at himself, and very uneasy. The warmth of the little frame pressing against his side seemed to be stealing into his breast and melting at his carefully reared defenses. The thin shoulder had slipped snugly under his arm ”

“ Further discussion was cut short by the arrival of Dawbarn himself on the next car from the city. True to the character Mrs. Tableporter had given him, he passed through the car without recognizing his neighbors, and sitting by the front door, buried his head in a newspaper.
As they got under way for Bartonville a sixth passenger joined the company in the person of a small boy who, appearing unexpectedly out of the darkness beside the track, swung himself on the rear platform. He came inside and sat down by the door. He was a thin boy and had the look of being small for his age. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1944, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 79 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”