"Yessir. One train, and I even got to see it as it went down the tracks. It's up by Hawkhurst, where my cousin live, and it was barely put in there two years ago." Bayard sounds earnest and proud of that train and of all it symbolizes, the stubborn progress of the South toiling away under the North's yoke, as he's been told, as he's internalized and come to accept as the truth. That train carries with it not just cargo but the hopes and dreams of his people, his own among them. "I didn't know those metal things outside had a name. To tell the truth, they unnerve me some, so I've been trying not to look at them. The windows, that is, since they're so high up."

Bayard whistles, long and low. He doesn't know the politics of this place but by now he's aware that the Avoxes are slaves, and badly-kept ones at that. He's heard of other plantations where people are cruel to their Negroes, and it always stirs some deep feeling of injustice in him even if he can't name what it is that bothers him. Perhaps he sees Ringo or Louvinia or Loosh under the lash when he imagines it. "I reckon that man should've kept that sort of behavior behind closed doors."

He seems a little perplexed at having to explain things which seem so obvious to him, but not bothered by it. He's happy for an excuse to chatter. "You know, the tribe people who live yonder past the river? The people we came down South to civilize."