For a moment Ivan hesitated, and then turned back toward the forge, stripped off his bits of finery, and tried to lose himself in work. Peter passing by on his way to the village for a wagon that was at the repair shop, guessed what had happened and wisely said nothing. The good-hearted never jar a brimming goblet. He would not go too early, thought Ivan, and so the second time he reached the station almost as the train pulled in. This time there were many people, chiefly for the Ridge, and he pushed his way among them wildly; but when the little crowd parted and vanished, Maria was not there! “Six-thirty is the last train up to-night, mostly freight, not often passengers,” chirped the agent. Ivan slunk off behind the station, head down and the old stoop to his shoulders. He had eaten no dinner and his head reeled. Stumbling into the general store close to the station, he bought a hunk of cheese and a small loaf, and going down the road a short way, he climbed up the wooded bank and finding some soft moss, threw himself down and whittling his bread and cheese into mouthfuls, ate from necessity rather than with relish, for all of a sudden he felt strangely and intensely weary. A little nap could do no harm, so coat under head, Ivan fell soddenly asleep, like the wayfarer he had once been. * * * * * The six-thirty train came slowly into the Glen station, for it was both long and heavy with freight cars, a single combination passenger and baggage car being at the very end. This same halted far below the station, where the water-tank made a barrier between the railroad ground and the open fields. Slowly four clumsy, heavy-laden figures in petticoats crawled down the high steps, assisting a little boy in curious trousers, while a good-natured brakeman helped to steady and replace the various bundles that were fastened to head and shoulders. As they huddled together, straightening their garments and belongings, the whistle blew three times shrilly, and the train creaked and moved heavily on. Is there any stillness more intense than that which closes around the countryside after the bustle of a train has ceased? The evensong of the birds and the peeping frogs only serve to deepen silence from the purely human standpoint. The heads of the three elder women were covered by kerchiefs, the little girl was bareheaded, and the boy wore an odd cap, but all alike had an expression of fatigue and resigned anxiety. The elder woman must have been pretty once, but her face was lined and thin with toil and poor feeding, while the other woman, of twenty perhaps, was round-eyed and plump. “Where is he, Maria? Where is Ivan my brother? He leaves us here alone in a strange place at nightfall?” she asked in her foreign tongue. “I can see no houses, it is like a green desert.” “Perhaps it is Siberia, then!” said the girl of twelve, with a shiver.