Red Garrity slouched through the wide gates of the Wharton Smelter Company and glanced indolently up and down the street. His application for a job had just been turned down by the superintendent, but that did not trouble him over much. He was used to it. In fact anything else would have surprised him after the caustic comment which had followed his last self determined vacation. He was a good worker—when he worked. But his habit of taking days off whenever he felt in the mood did not commend him to many employers of labor.
“Bum outfit to work for, anyhow,” he yawned, feeling in his pocket for a cigarette.
He neither found one nor the means of purchasing a fresh supply, and for the first time he looked annoyed. He would certainly have to land a job to-morrow and get some kale, he thought, as he strolled up the street toward Shrimp McGowan’s abode. He decided to try a certain wood working concern where he was little known, and dismissed the subject from his mind.
Shrimp was at home and responded to his yodel. As he slouched down the steps, yawning and blinking in the bright sunlight, a look of contempt came into Garrity’s eyes.
“Watcher been doing?” he demanded. “Sleeping?”
McGowan gaped again and nodded. “Nothing else to do,” he drawled.
Garrity sniffed scornfully and stifled a longing for Chick Conners, to whom he had not spoken for weeks. Whatever failings the latter youth might have, at least he had always been up and doing and ready for excursions of any sort Red might suggest.
“Well, there’s something doing now,” the latter remarked briefly. “We’re going out on the river road.”
Shrimp showed no signs of delight at the prospect, but after a weak protest he yielded—as he always did. He could not understand Red’s partiality for these country walks. It never occurred to him that the woods and fields and river could hold a subtle charm for this domineering boy who constantly belittled them in words and talked boastingly and regretfully of the lights and bustle and crowded excitements of the city. Indeed, Garrity had never really admitted as much even to himself, and in the old days he and Chick had always been at odds regarding the relative merits of town and country.
The road they took followed the windings of the Monhegan River. Overhead the sky was cloudless. The air was warm and mellow, yet with a tonic freshness in it which stirred the blood. The trees were beginning to turn, and their reds and yellows contrasted strongly with the dark bulk of pine and hemlock. Across the distant hills lay a faint, mellow Autumn haze.