The water token

An original fiction passage set in the nineteenth century.

The pump handle had been chained to its post. Beside it, a clerk sat with a box of numbered tokens and a book in which he recorded each household’s allowance. The queue reached the corner of the square. Nobody wasted a place by stepping into the shade. Ruth held a bucket between her feet and a token in her fist, watching the clerk’s pen move more freely than the water ever did.

When her turn came, he asked for the household number. She gave it. He found the entry and pointed to a mark beside her father’s name. An allowance had already been collected that morning. Ruth explained that her father was working beyond the village and that whoever had given his name could not have been him. The clerk tapped the mark. It was there, he said, and the book must be followed.

Behind her, somebody sighed. Ruth moved the empty bucket aside but kept her place. She asked the clerk to describe the person who had collected the water. He could not. She asked him to read the signature. There was no signature, only his own mark. His pen stopped above the page. For the first time that afternoon, she could see a space between the rule and the man applying it.

The woman next in line said that Ruth’s father had passed her house before sunrise. Another remembered seeing the stranger at the pump. The clerk took out a fresh token and placed it on the table, refusing to look at either woman. Ruth filled her bucket. As she lifted it, he began asking the next customer to sign the book. The queue moved forward, one small change heavier than before.

“Ruth is presented as determined without being openly aggressive.”

Evaluate how successfully the writer presents this idea. Support your judgement with detailed references to the passage.