The snuff-colored station and the woman in the black hood slipped away,
and were seen no more. The boy, after scratching a peep-hole through the
frost-work on his window, and taking a last survey through it of the
snow-covered fields he was leaving, produced a large blue-spotted
handkerchief from the pocket of his trousers, and retired with it into
the privacy of his own feelings.
He was a rather delicate-looking boy, with large gray eyes and soft
brown hair, and was evidently not much in the habit of traveling.
Perhaps this was the first time he had ever left home, thought Bressant,
in the idleness of his inactive mind. His mother was a widow; her dark
dress and black hood, and pale, over-worked face looked like it.
Besides, if the boy had had a father, of course he would have been down
to see him off. Probably there were sisters, too; the boy looked somehow
as if he had been brought up with sisters; but they would not have
followed him down to the station; they kissed him good-by at the
house-door, leaving it to his mother to see the very last of him. For be
had resolved to go forth into the world and make his fortune, not to
encumber his poor mother with his support any longer. He was going,
probably, to New York, to be a clerk or an errand-boy in some dry-goods
store, or banking-house, or insurance-office.
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