To her, fresh from trim
farmsteads and rural communities that began setting their houses in
order when Washington wintered at Valley Forge, Hopyard stood forth
sordid and unkempt. And as happens to many a one in like case, a wave of
sickening loneliness engulfed her, and she eyed the speeding Limited as
one eyes a departing friend.
"How could one live in a place like this?" she asked herself.
But she had neither Slave of the Lamp at her beck, nor any Magic Carpet
to transport her elsewhere. At any rate, she reflected, Hopyard was not
her abiding-place. She hoped that her destination would prove more
inviting.
Beside the platform were ranged two touring cars. Three or four of
those who had alighted entered these. Their baggage was piled over the
hoods, buckled on the running boards. The driver of one car approached
her. "Hot Springs?" he inquired tersely.
She affirmed this, and he took her baggage, likewise her trunk check
when she asked how that article would be transported to the lake. She
had some idea of route and means, from her brother's written
instruction, but she thought he might have been there to meet her. At
least he would be at the Springs.
So she was whirled along a country road, jolted in the tonneau between a
fat man from Calgary and a rheumatic dame on her way to take hot sulphur
baths at St. Allwoods. She passed seedy farmhouses, primitive in
construction, and big barns with moss plentifully clinging on roof and
gable. The stretch of charred stumps was left far behind, but in every
field of grain and vegetable and root great butts of fir and cedar rose
amid the crops.
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