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powered their ears. It shocked him into instant and violent action. He stooped, seized his paper suitcase and wooden box, and the next moment went running down the platform, jumped off the end on to the long cinder strip beside the track, and made for the last box car. Just as it clashed forward he swung his bags inside, leaped at the entrance, landed on his stomach across the bottom of the door. In an instant he wriggled, stood up, and began waving his hand at Nessie.

The girl waved back, gasping at this display of activity. For the moment she had been terrified lest he fall under the car and be ground to pieces. But the ease and suppleness with which he had jumped and righted himself sent a thrill through her. It brought to her nerves the wild, passionate power she was losing. It was like so much strength being taken away from her own person; it left her a kind of shell of a girl, as if the stronger, more vital part of her were moving away on the box car.

She waved her handkerchief miserably, blinking her eyes so she could discern Abner’s form in the square black door of the freight car. The youth, the door, the whole train rattled down the track, out of the freight yard, growing smaller and smaller. At the limit of the yard, the engine gave a final shriek, rounded a curve toward the west, and the tiny figure in the small black door was lost to Nessie’s view.

After the train had vanished Nessie still stood wiping her eyes and staring down the track when a voice behind her drawled,

"Girlie, don’t blubber so, when one’s gone leaves room fer another."

In her pain Nessie did not understand the sentence or realize it was addressed to her. She continued wiping her eyes, made an effort to compose her face, and then turned to go home, holding her lips between her teeth.

"Hell," observed the voice behind her, "you ain't none too good to notice a feller. . . ."