For a long time the miner's son wondered what power lay in the men
whose figures stood up so boldly in the pages of the books he read. He
tried to think the matter out as he sat in Edith's room or walked by
himself through the streets. In the warehouse he looked with new
curiosity at the men who worked in the great rooms piling and unpiling
apple barrels and the boxes of eggs and fruit When he came into one of
the rooms the men who had been standing in groups idly talking of
their own affairs began to run busily about. They no longer chattered
but as long as he remained worked desperately, furtively watching as
he stood staring at them.
McGregor wondered. He tried to fathom the mystery of the power that
made them willing to work until their bodies were bent and stooped,
that made them unashamed to be afraid and that left them in the end
mere slaves to words and formulas.
The perplexed young man who watched the men in the warehouse began to
think that the passion for reproduction might have something to do
with the matter. Perhaps his constant association with Edith awakened
the thought. His own loins were heavy with the seeds of children and
only his absorption in the thought of finding himself kept him from
devoting himself to the feeding of his lusts.
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