The Portygee (Electronic book text)

Joseph Lincoln was a 20th century writer of short stories, poems, and novels. Lincoln used the fictional town of Cape Cod as the setting for his stories. He believed that his stories should make the reader feel good about themselves and their neighbors. Lincoln's Cape Cod was a haven occupied by individuals of old Yankee stock, who gave the reader a break from the rapid modernization, urbanization, and industrialization going on around him. The Portygee begins at a railway station on a cold dark night in December. "At least that was the opinion of the seventeen-year-old boy whom the down train--on time for once and a wonder--had just deposited upon that platform. He would not have discounted the statement one iota. The South Harniss station platform WAS the most miserable spot on earth and he was the most miserable human being upon it. And this last was probably true, for there were but three other humans upon that platform and, judging by externals, they seemed happy enough. One was the station agent, who was just entering the building preparatory to locking up for the night, and the others were Jim Young, driver of the "depot wagon," and Doctor Holliday, the South Harniss "homeopath," who had been up to a Boston hospital with a patient and was returning home. Jim was whistling "Silver Bells," a tune much in vogue the previous summer, and Doctor Holliday was puffing at a cigar and knocking his feet together to keep them warm while waiting to get into the depot wagon. These were the only people in sight and they were paying no attention whatever to the lonely figure at the other end of the platform."