of black smoke covered the sky. From all sides of him and even in the air
above his head a great clatter and roar of bells and whistles went on.

With the air of a child venturing into a dark forest Hugh went a little
way into one of the streets that led westward from the station. Again he
stopped and stood by a building. Near at hand a group of young city roughs
stood smoking and talking before a saloon. Out of a nearby building came a
young girl who approached and spoke to one of them. The man began to swear
furiously. "You tell her I'll come in there in a minute and smash her
face," he said, and, paying no more attention to the girl, turned to stare
at Hugh. All of the young men lounging before the saloon turned to stare at
the tall countryman. They began to laugh and one of them walked quickly
toward him.

Hugh ran along the street and into the station followed by the shouts of
the young roughs. He did not venture out again, and when his train was
ready, got aboard and went gladly out of the great complex dwelling-place
of modern Americans.

Hugh went from town to town always working his way eastward, always seeking
the place where happiness was to come to him and where he was to achieve
companionship with men and women. He cut fence posts in a forest on a large
farm in Indiana, worked in the fields, and in one place was a section hand
on the railroad.

On a farm in Indiana, some forty miles east of Indianapolis, he was for
the first time powerfully touched by the presence of a woman. She was the
daughter of the farmer who was Hugh's employer, and was an alert, handsome
woman of twenty-four who had been a school teacher but had given up the
work because she was about to be married. Hugh thought the man who was to