Page:Poor White.djvu/180

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thrusting his hands into his pockets, stared also across the field into the darkness. " Nothing keeps me satis- fied," he said. " I hate being in my father's business and I hate going to school. In only two years I'll get the money. Father can't keep it from me. I'll take it and light out. I don't know just what I'll do. I'm going maybe to Europe, that's what I'm going to do. Father wants me to stay here and work in his office. To hell with that. I want to travel. I'll be a sol- dier or something. Anyway I'll get out of here and go somewhere and do something exciting, something alive. You can go with me. We'll cut out together. Haven't you got the nerve? Why don't you be my woman? " Young Metcalf took hold of Clara's shoulder and tried to take her into his arms. For a moment they struggled and then, in disgust, he stepped away from her and again began to scold. Clara walked away across two or three vacant lots and got into a street of workingmen's houses, the man following at her heels. Night had come and the peo- ple in the street facing the factory had already disposed of the evening meal. Children and dogs played in the road and a strong smell of food hung in the air. To the west across the fields, a passenger train ran past going toward the city. Its light made wavering yel- low patches against the bluish black sky. Clara won- dered why she had come to the out of the way place with Frank Metcalf. She did not like him, but there was a restlessness in him that was like the restless thing in herself. He did not want stupidly to accept life, and that fact made him brother to herself. Although he was but twenty-two years old, he had already

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