THE next morning a new lock was on the office door and the key lay on the president’s desk when he came in. He glanced at it sharply. “What’s that?”  
“I ’ve had a new lock put on; the old one was never very good,” said the boy.
 
The man took up the key and slipped it on to his key-ring without comment. A hundred times a day the boy did things without consulting him. If he saw any special significance in this new caution, his face gave no sign and his hand, as it slipped the ring into his pocket, trembled no more than usual. But his glance, as it fell on the boy through the day, held a quiet content.
 
Just how wrong things had been going for the last few weeks only the president of the road knew. It seemed almost as if there were a concerted plan to harrow him—some hidden power, that chose maliciously his weakest spot, at the moment when he was most off his guard. Yet he could never lay his finger on a thing or a person that proved it. He only felt, helplessly enmeshed by circumstance—he, who had always driven others, chuckling at their discomfiture! But with the boy to help—Ah, what could he not do—with the boy! His face lost its driven look. The new awnings shaded the glare from the windows. It was almost comfortable in the little office.
 
As for the boy, he was watching over Simeon with new care. Not only did what he had seen the night before make him cautious, but Simeon’s whole attitude troubled him. There was something about the man—broken, hesitant—that had never been there before. He had always been nervous, crabbed, but not like this. It was as if the spring had snapped—or weakened helplessly under the long strain. One could not tell, at any moment, whether it would respond to the demands made on it. Now and then he recovered himself and spoke and acted like his old self. But again he would relapse into uncertainty, a kind of vague fretfulness and indecision, more trying than open collapse. It was when he spoke of the road and its future that he grew most like himself. ... Quietly the boy took it in—his change of purpose—and his heart moved to it in gentle understanding. Little by little, Simeon revealed himself—a word here, a word there—never by full explanation—watching all the time the thought reflected in the boy’s eyes, and strengthening his courage in the clear look as it grew and deepened.
 
The boy threw himself into the work, body and soul. It was good to be in the stir of things once more. He liked to feel the steady pound of the engine under him, as it drove to its work—to see the clear track and the shining country.... He drew his breath full and deep, and worked night and day, righting the things that had gone wrong, gathering details into his hands.
 
Simeon Tetlow could plan an edifice that in a night should overtop the world. But even while he planned, he let slip a myriad details—things that fluttered and fell and went wrong and threatened the structure at its proudest foment. The boy gathered them up one by one, little things of no account, things too minute for Simeon’s notice—and held them fast.
 
The office felt the change. The road felt it—vaguely. There was the same driving power in the little office, high up in the roof, but steadied and controlled—less smoke and wrath and ringing of bells in the orders that came down from the office and a freer, heavier swing to the big engine as it took the track.
 
It was absorbing work, and two weeks went by before the boy saw a chance to break away. There had been letters from his mother every day, full of detail—pictures of Caleb packing the dishes with clumsy fingers, or clearing out the cellar, happy and important, in spite of the parting from the squashes. John had smiled as he read the letters, but he had caught the note of courage beneath and sent it back to her full of cheer.... The moving would not be hard—with all that father had been doing. Three days would be enough for everything and he had their new home ready for them, a little house—seven rooms with a garden stretching to the side and back, for Caleb to dig in.
 
“I can raise a few things this year,” Caleb had said when he heard it—“Lettuce and parsley and reddishes, maybe. And next year we ’ll have a real garden. I’m going to take up some roots of daffydils and some jonquils and a stalk of that flowering shrub by the walk.”
 
He was occupied with this new hope when John arrived—pottering about with hoe and trowel—and they left him to his garden, while inside the house John tied up furniture and packed boxes, with watchful eye upon his mother that she should not overtax her strength before the journey. She had been a little restless the first day of his homecoming, going from room to room with long pauses for rest—a kind of slow pilgrimage—touching the familiar things softly, her thin hands lingering on them as if she might not see them again in the new home.
 
The boy watched a little anxiously. ............