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 marry her the most fortunate being in the world. He lived
in Indianapolis and came by train to spend the week-ends at the farm.
The woman prepared for his coming by putting on a white dress and
fastening a rose in her hair. The two people walked about in an orchard
beside the house or went for a ride along the country roads. The
young man, who, Hugh had been told, worked in a bank, wore stiff white
collars, a black suit and a black derby hat.
On the farm Hugh worked in the field with the farmer and ate at table
with his family, but did not get acquainted with them. On Sunday when
the young man came he took the day off and went into a nearby town. The
courtship became a matter very close to him and he lived through
the excitement of the weekly visits as though he had been one of the
principals. The daughter of the house, sensing the fact that the
silent farm hand was stirred by her presence, became interested in him.
Sometimes in the evening as he sat on a little porch before the house,
she came to join him, and sat looking at him with a peculiarly detached
and interested air. She tried to make talk, but Hugh answered all her
advances so briefly and with such a half frightened manner that she gave
up the attempt. One Saturday evening when her sweetheart had come she
took him for a ride in the family carriage, and Hugh concealed himself
in the hay loft of the barn to wait for their return.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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