for leaving so suddenly and declaring the tall Missourian was no doubt a
drunkard who wanted to go off on a drunk, she had nothing to say. In her
own heart she knew what was the matter with her father's farm hand and was
sorry he had gone before she had more completely exercised her power over
him.

* * * * *

None of the towns Hugh visited during his three years of wandering
approached realization of the sort of life Sarah Shepard had talked to him
about. They were all very much alike. There was a main street with a dozen
stores on each side, a blacksmith shop, and perhaps an elevator for the
storage of grain. All day the town was deserted, but in the evening the
citizens gathered on Main Street. On the sidewalks before the stores young
farm hands and clerks sat on store boxes or on the curbing. They did not
pay any attention to Hugh who, when he went to stand near them, remained
silent and kept himself in the background. The farm hands talked of their
work and boasted of the number of bushels of corn they could pick in a day,
or of their skill in plowing. The clerks were intent upon playing practical
jokes which pleased the farm hands immensely. While one of them talked
loudly of his skill in his work a clerk crept out at the door of one of the
stores and approached him. He held a pin in his hand and with it jabbed
the talker in the back. The crowd yelled and shouted with delight. If the
victim became angry a quarrel started, but this did not often happen. Other
men came to join the party and the joke was told to them. "Well, you should
have seen the look on his face. I thought I would die," one of the
bystanders declared.

Hugh got a job with a carpenter who specialized in the building of barns
and stayed with him all through one fall. Later he went to work as a