I love to watch the motions of vigorous men at work, the easy play of the muscles, the swing of the shoulders, the vigour of stoutly planted legs.

He evidently considered the conversation closed, and I, as--well, as a dusty man of the road--easily dismissed.
(You have no idea, until you try it, what a weight of prejudice the man of the road has to surmount before he is accepted on easy terms by the ordinary members of the human race.) A few other well-intentioned observations on my part having elicited nothing but monosyllabic replies, I put my bag down by the roadside and, going up to the wagon, got out a shovel, and without a word took my place at the other end of the landslide and began to shovel for all I was worth.
I said not a word to the husky road-worker and pretended not to look at him, but I saw him well enough out of the corner of my eye.

He was evidently astonished and interested, as I knew he would be: it was something entirely new on the road.

He didn't quite know whether to be angry, or amused, or sociable.

I caught him looking over at me several times, but I offered no response; then he cleared his throat and said: "Where you from ?" I answered with a monosyllable which I knew he could not quite catch.
Silence again for some time, during which I shovelled valiantly and with great inward amusement.