They looked sorrowfully at one another with their
little dull windows. Above them rose the church, also dark red
like the factory. The belfry, it seemed to her, was lower than
the factory chimneys.
The mother sighed, and adjusted the collar of her dress, which
choked her. She felt sad, but it was a dry sadness like the dust
of the hot day.
"Gee!" mumbled the driver, shaking the reins over the horse. He was
a bow-legged man of uncertain height, with sparse, faded hair on his
face and head, and faded eyes. Swinging from side to side he walked
alongside the wagon. It was evidently a matter of indifference to
him whether he went to the right or the left.
"Gee!" he called in a colorless voice, with a comical forward stride
of his crooked legs clothed in heavy boots, to which clods of mud
were clinging. The mother looked around. The country was as bleak
and dreary as her soul.
"You'll never escape want, no matter where you go, auntie," the
driver said dully. "There's no road leading away from poverty;
all roads lead to it, and none out of it."
Shaking its head dejectedly the horse sank its feet heavily into the
deep sun-dried sand, which crackled softly under its tread.
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