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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7048-8.txt b/7048-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..26401ae --- /dev/null +++ b/7048-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6670 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories +by Sherwood Anderson +#3 in our series by Sherwood Anderson + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories + +Author: Sherwood Anderson + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7048] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on February 28, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRIUMPH OF THE EGG *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by Michelle Shephard, Eric Eldred, +Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + The Triumph Of The Egg + + A Book Of Impressions + From American Life + In Tales And Poems + + By + Sherwood Anderson + + In Clay By + Tennessee Mitchell + + In the fields + Seeds on the air floating. + In the towns + Black smoke for a shroud. + In my breast + Understanding awake. + _Mid American Chants_. + + To + Robert And John Anderson + + + + +Tales are people who sit on the doorstep of the house of my mind. +It is cold outside and they sit waiting. +I look out at a window. + +The tales have cold hands, +Their hands are freezing. + +A short thickly-built tale arises and threshes his arms about. +His nose is red and he has two gold teeth. + +There is an old female tale sitting hunched up in a cloak. + +Many tales come to sit for a few moments on the doorstep + and then go away. +It is too cold for them outside. +The street before the door of the house of my mind is + filled with tales. +They murmur and cry out, they are dying of cold and hunger. + +I am a helpless man--my hands tremble. +I should be sitting on a bench like a tailor. +I should be weaving warm cloth out of the threads of thought. +The tales should be clothed. +They are freezing on the doorstep of the house of my mind. + +I am a helpless man--my hands tremble. +I feel in the darkness but cannot find the doorknob. +I look out at a window. +Many tales are dying in the street before the house of my mind. + + + + + CONTENTS + +THE DUMB MAN +I WANT TO KNOW WHY +SEEDS +THE OTHER WOMAN +THE EGG +UNLIGHTED LAMPS +SENILITY +THE MAN IN THE BROWN COAT +BROTHERS +THE DOOR OF THE TRAP +THE NEW ENGLANDER +WAR +MOTHERHOOD +OUT OF NOWHERE INTO NOTHING +THE MAN WITH THE TRUMPET + + + + + THE DUMB MAN + + +There is a story.--I cannot tell it.--I have no words. The story is +almost forgotten but sometimes I remember. + +The story concerns three men in a house in a street. If I could say the +words I would sing the story. I would whisper it into the ears of +women, of mothers. I would run through the streets saying it over and +over. My tongue would be torn loose--it would rattle against my teeth. + +The three men are in a room in the house. One is young and dandified. +He continually laughs. + +There is a second man who has a long white beard. He is consumed with +doubt but occasionally his doubt leaves him and he sleeps. + +A third man there is who has wicked eyes and who moves nervously about +the room rubbing his hands together. The three men are waiting-- +waiting. + +Upstairs in the house there is a woman standing with her back to a +wall, in half darkness by a window. + +That is the foundation of my story and everything I will ever know is +distilled in it. + +I remember that a fourth man came to the house, a white silent man. +Everything was as silent as the sea at night. His feet on the stone +floor of the room where the three men were made no sound. + +The man with the wicked eyes became like a boiling liquid--he ran back +and forth like a caged animal. The old grey man was infected by his +nervousness--he kept pulling at his beard. + +The fourth man, the white one, went upstairs to the woman. + +There she was--waiting. + +How silent the house was--how loudly all the clocks in the neighborhood +ticked. The woman upstairs craved love. That must have been the story. +She hungered for love with her whole being. She wanted to create in +love. When the white silent man came into her presence she sprang +forward. Her lips were parted. There was a smile on her lips. + +The white one said nothing. In his eyes there was no rebuke, no +question. His eyes were as impersonal as stars. + +Down stairs the wicked one whined and ran back and forth like a little +lost hungry dog. The grey one tried to follow him about but presently +grew tired and lay down on the floor to sleep. He never awoke again. + +The dandified fellow lay on the floor too. He laughed and played with +his tiny black mustache. + +I have no words to tell what happened in my story. I cannot tell the +story. + +The white silent one may have been Death. + +The waiting eager woman may have been Life. + +Both the old grey bearded man and the wicked one puzzle me. I think and +think but cannot understand them. Most of the time however I do not +think of them at all. I keep thinking about the dandified man who +laughed all through my story. + +If I could understand him I could understand everything. I could run +through the world telling a wonderful story. I would no longer be dumb. + +Why was I not given words? Why am I dumb? + +I have a wonderful story to tell but know no way to tell it. + + + + + I WANT TO KNOW WHY + + +We got up at four in the morning, that first day in the east. On the +evening before we had climbed off a freight train at the edge of town, +and with the true instinct of Kentucky boys had found our way across +town and to the race track and the stables at once. Then we knew we +were all right. Hanley Turner right away found a nigger we knew. It was +Bildad Johnson who in the winter works at Ed Becker's livery barn in +our home town, Beckersville. Bildad is a good cook as almost all our +niggers are and of course he, like everyone in our part of Kentucky who +is anyone at all, likes the horses. In the spring Bildad begins to +scratch around. A nigger from our country can flatter and wheedle +anyone into letting him do most anything he wants. Bildad wheedles the +stable men and the trainers from the horse farms in our country around +Lexington. The trainers come into town in the evening to stand around +and talk and maybe get into a poker game. Bildad gets in with them. He +is always doing little favors and telling about things to eat, chicken +browned in a pan, and how is the best way to cook sweet potatoes and +corn bread. It makes your mouth water to hear him. + +When the racing season comes on and the horses go to the races and +there is all the talk on the streets in the evenings about the new +colts, and everyone says when they are going over to Lexington or to +the spring meeting at Churchhill Downs or to Latonia, and the horsemen +that have been down to New Orleans or maybe at the winter meeting at +Havana in Cuba come home to spend a week before they start out again, +at such a time when everything talked about in Beckersville is just +horses and nothing else and the outfits start out and horse racing is +in every breath of air you breathe, Bildad shows up with a job as cook +for some outfit. Often when I think about it, his always going all +season to the races and working in the livery barn in the winter where +horses are and where men like to come and talk about horses, I wish I +was a nigger. It's a foolish thing to say, but that's the way I am +about being around horses, just crazy. I can't help it. + +Well, I must tell you about what we did and let you in on what I'm +talking about. Four of us boys from Beckersville, all whites and sons +of men who live in Beckersville regular, made up our minds we were +going to the races, not just to Lexington or Louisville, I don't mean, +but to the big eastern track we were always hearing our Beckersville +men talk about, to Saratoga. We were all pretty young then. I was just +turned fifteen and I was the oldest of the four. It was my scheme. + +I admit that and I talked the others into trying it. There was Hanley +Turner and Henry Rieback and Tom Tumberton and myself. I had thirty- +seven dollars I had earned during the winter working nights and +Saturdays in Enoch Myer's grocery. Henry Rieback had eleven dollars and +the others, Hanley and Tom had only a dollar or two each. We fixed it +all up and laid low until the Kentucky spring meetings were over and +some of our men, the sportiest ones, the ones we envied the most, had +cut out--then we cut out too. + +I won't tell you the trouble we had beating our way on freights and +all. We went through Cleveland and Buffalo and other cities and saw +Niagara Falls. We bought things there, souvenirs and spoons and cards +and shells with pictures of the falls on them for our sisters and +mothers, but thought we had better not send any of the things home. We +didn't want to put the folks on our trail and maybe be nabbed. + +We got into Saratoga as I said at night and went to the track. Bildad +fed us up. He showed us a place to sleep in hay over a shed and +promised to keep still. Niggers are all right about things like that. +They won't squeal on you. Often a white man you might meet, when you +had run away from home like that, might appear to be all right and give +you a quarter or a half dollar or something, and then go right and give +you away. White men will do that, but not a nigger. You can trust them. +They are squarer with kids. I don't know why. + +At the Saratoga meeting that year there were a lot of men from home. +Dave Williams and Arthur Mulford and Jerry Myers and others. Then there +was a lot from Louisville and Lexington Henry Rieback knew but I +didn't. They were professional gamblers and Henry Rieback's father is +one too. He is what is called a sheet writer and goes away most of the +year to tracks. In the winter when he is home in Beckersville he don't +stay there much but goes away to cities and deals faro. He is a nice +man and generous, is always sending Henry presents, a bicycle and a +gold watch and a boy scout suit of clothes and things like that. + +My own father is a lawyer. He's all right, but don't make much money +and can't buy me things and anyway I'm getting so old now I don't +expect it. He never said nothing to me against Henry, but Hanley Turner +and Tom Tumberton's fathers did. They said to their boys that money so +come by is no good and they didn't want their boys brought up to hear +gamblers' talk and be thinking about such things and maybe embrace +them. + +That's all right and I guess the men know what they are talking about, +but I don't see what it's got to do with Henry or with horses either. +That's what I'm writing this story about. I'm puzzled. I'm getting to +be a man and want to think straight and be O. K., and there's something +I saw at the race meeting at the eastern track I can't figure out. + +I can't help it, I'm crazy about thoroughbred horses. I've always been +that way. When I was ten years old and saw I was growing to be big and +couldn't be a rider I was so sorry I nearly died. Harry Hellinfinger in +Beckersville, whose father is Postmaster, is grown up and too lazy to +work, but likes to stand around in the street and get up jokes on boys +like sending them to a hardware store for a gimlet to bore square holes +and other jokes like that. He played one on me. He told me that if I +would eat a half a cigar I would be stunted and not grow any more and +maybe could be a rider. I did it. When father wasn't looking I took a +cigar out of his pocket and gagged it down some way. It made me awful +sick and the doctor had to be sent for, and then it did no good. I kept +right on growing. It was a joke. When I told what I had done and why +most fathers would have whipped me but mine didn't. + +Well, I didn't get stunted and didn't die. It serves Harry Hellinfinger +right. Then I made up my mind I would like to be a stable boy, but had +to give that up too. Mostly niggers do that work and I knew father +wouldn't let me go into it. No use to ask him. + +If you've never been crazy about thoroughbreds it's because you've +never been around where they are much and don't know any better. +They're beautiful. There isn't anything so lovely and clean and full of +spunk and honest and everything as some race horses. On the big horse +farms that are all around our town Beckersville there are tracks and +the horses run in the early morning. More than a thousand times I've +got out of bed before daylight and walked two or three miles to the +tracks. Mother wouldn't of let me go but father always says, "Let him +alone." So I got some bread out of the bread box and some butter and +jam, gobbled it and lit out. + +At the tracks you sit on the fence with men, whites and niggers, and +they chew tobacco and talk, and then the colts are brought out. It's +early and the grass is covered with shiny dew and in another field a +man is plowing and they are frying things in a shed where the track +niggers sleep, and you know how a nigger can giggle and laugh and say +things that make you laugh. A white man can't do it and some niggers +can't but a track nigger can every time. + +And so the colts are brought out and some are just galloped by stable +boys, but almost every morning on a big track owned by a rich man who +lives maybe in New York, there are always, nearly every morning, a few +colts and some of the old race horses and geldings and mares that are +cut loose. + +It brings a lump up into my throat when a horse runs. I don't mean all +horses but some. I can pick them nearly every time. It's in my blood +like in the blood of race track niggers and trainers. Even when they +just go slop-jogging along with a little nigger on their backs I can +tell a winner. If my throat hurts and it's hard for me to swallow, +that's him. He'll run like Sam Hill when you let him out. If he don't +win every time it'll be a wonder and because they've got him in a +pocket behind another or he was pulled or got off bad at the post or +something. If I wanted to be a gambler like Henry Rieback's father I +could get rich. I know I could and Henry says so too. All I would have +to do is to wait 'til that hurt comes when I see a horse and then bet +every cent. That's what I would do if I wanted to be a gambler, but I +don't. + +When you're at the tracks in the morning--not the race tracks but the +training tracks around Beckersville--you don't see a horse, the kind +I've been talking about, very often, but it's nice anyway. Any +thoroughbred, that is sired right and out of a good mare and trained by +a man that knows how, can run. If he couldn't what would he be there +for and not pulling a plow? + +Well, out of the stables they come and the boys are on their backs and +it's lovely to be there. You hunch down on top of the fence and itch +inside you. Over in the sheds the niggers giggle and sing. Bacon is +being fried and coffee made. Everything smells lovely. Nothing smells +better than coffee and manure and horses and niggers and bacon frying +and pipes being smoked out of doors on a morning like that. It just +gets you, that's what it does. + +But about Saratoga. We was there six days and not a soul from home seen +us and everything came off just as we wanted it to, fine weather and +horses and races and all. We beat our way home and Bildad gave us a +basket with fried chicken and bread and other eatables in, and I had +eighteen dollars when we got back to Beckersville. Mother jawed and +cried but Pop didn't say much. I told everything we done except one +thing. I did and saw that alone. That's what I'm writing about. It got +me upset. I think about it at night. Here it is. + +At Saratoga we laid up nights in the hay in the shed Bildad had showed +us and ate with the niggers early and at night when the race people had +all gone away. The men from home stayed mostly in the grandstand and +betting field, and didn't come out around the places where the horses +are kept except to the paddocks just before a race when the horses are +saddled. At Saratoga they don't have paddocks under an open shed as at +Lexington and Churchill Downs and other tracks down in our country, but +saddle the horses right out in an open place under trees on a lawn as +smooth and nice as Banker Bohon's front yard here in Beckersville. It's +lovely. The horses are sweaty and nervous and shine and the men come +out and smoke cigars and look at them and the trainers are there and +the owners, and your heart thumps so you can hardly breathe. + +Then the bugle blows for post and the boys that ride come running out +with their silk clothes on and you run to get a place by the fence with +the niggers. + +I always am wanting to be a trainer or owner, and at the risk of being +seen and caught and sent home I went to the paddocks before every race. +The other boys didn't but I did. + +We got to Saratoga on a Friday and on Wednesday the next week the big +Mullford Handicap was to be run. Middlestride was in it and Sunstreak. +The weather was fine and the track fast. I couldn't sleep the night +before. + +What had happened was that both these horses are the kind it makes my +throat hurt to see. Middlestride is long and looks awkward and is a +gelding. He belongs to Joe Thompson, a little owner from home who only +has a half dozen horses. The Mullford Handicap is for a mile and +Middlestride can't untrack fast. He goes away slow and is always way +back at the half, then he begins to run and if the race is a mile and a +quarter he'll just eat up everything and get there. + +Sunstreak is different. He is a stallion and nervous and belongs on the +biggest farm we've got in our country, the Van Riddle place that +belongs to Mr. Van Riddle of New York. Sunstreak is like a girl you +think about sometimes but never see. He is hard all over and lovely +too. When you look at his head you want to kiss him. He is trained by +Jerry Tillford who knows me and has been good to me lots of times, lets +me walk into a horse's stall to look at him close and other things. +There isn't anything as sweet as that horse. He stands at the post +quiet and not letting on, but he is just burning up inside. Then when +the barrier goes up he is off like his name, Sunstreak. It makes you +ache to see him. It hurts you. He just lays down and runs like a bird +dog. There can't anything I ever see run like him except Middlestride +when he gets untracked and stretches himself. + +Gee! I ached to see that race and those two horses run, ached and +dreaded it too. I didn't want to see either of our horses beaten. We +had never sent a pair like that to the races before. Old men in +Beckersville said so and the niggers said so. It was a fact. + +Before the race I went over to the paddocks to see. I looked a last +look at Middlestride, who isn't such a much standing in a paddock that +way, then I went to see Sunstreak. + +It was his day. I knew when I see him. I forgot all about being seen +myself and walked right up. All the men from Beckersville were there +and no one noticed me except Jerry Tillford. He saw me and something +happened. I'll tell you about that. + +I was standing looking at that horse and aching. In some way, I can't +tell how, I knew just how Sunstreak felt inside. He was quiet and +letting the niggers rub his legs and Mr. Van Riddle himself put the +saddle on, but he was just a raging torrent inside. He was like the +water in the river at Niagara Falls just before its goes plunk down. +That horse wasn't thinking about running. He don't have to think about +that. He was just thinking about holding himself back 'til the time for +the running came. I knew that. I could just in a way see right inside +him. He was going to do some awful running and I knew it. He wasn't +bragging or letting on much or prancing or making a fuss, but just +waiting. I knew it and Jerry Tillford his trainer knew. I looked up and +then that man and I looked into each other's eyes. Something happened +to me. I guess I loved the man as much as I did the horse because he +knew what I knew. Seemed to me there wasn't anything in the world but +that man and the horse and me. I cried and Jerry Tillford had a shine +in his eyes. Then I came away to the fence to wait for the race. The +horse was better than me, more steadier, and now I know better than +Jerry. He was the quietest and he had to do the running. + +Sunstreak ran first of course and he busted the world's record for a +mile. I've seen that if I never see anything more. Everything came out +just as I expected. Middlestride got left at the post and was way back +and closed up to be second, just as I knew he would. He'll get a +world's record too some day. They can't skin the Beckersville country +on horses. + +I watched the race calm because I knew what would happen. I was sure. +Hanley Turner and Henry Rieback and Tom Tumberton were all more excited +than me. + +A funny thing had happened to me. I was thinking about Jerry Tillford +the trainer and how happy he was all through the race. I liked him that +afternoon even more than I ever liked my own father. I almost forgot +the horses thinking that way about him. It was because of what I had +seen in his eyes as he stood in the paddocks beside Sunstreak before +the race started. I knew he had been watching and working with +Sunstreak since the horse was a baby colt, had taught him to run and be +patient and when to let himself out and not to quit, never. I knew that +for him it was like a mother seeing her child do something brave or +wonderful. It was the first time I ever felt for a man like that. + +After the race that night I cut out from Tom and Hanley and Henry. I +wanted to be by myself and I wanted to be near Jerry Tillford if I +could work it. Here is what happened. + +The track in Saratoga is near the edge of town. It is all polished up +and trees around, the evergreen kind, and grass and everything painted +and nice. If you go past the track you get to a hard road made of +asphalt for automobiles, and if you go along this for a few miles there +is a road turns off to a little rummy-looking farm house set in a yard. + +That night after the race I went along that road because I had seen +Jerry and some other men go that way in an automobile. I didn't expect +to find them. I walked for a ways and then sat down by a fence to +think. It was the direction they went in. I wanted to be as near Jerry +as I could. I felt close to him. Pretty soon I went up the side road--I +don't know why--and came to the rummy farm house. I was just lonesome +to see Jerry, like wanting to see your father at night when you are a +young kid. Just then an automobile came along and turned in. Jerry was +in it and Henry Rieback's father, and Arthur Bedford from home, and +Dave Williams and two other men I didn't know. They got out of the car +and went into the house, all but Henry Rieback's father who quarreled +with them and said he wouldn't go. It was only about nine o'clock, but +they were all drunk and the rummy looking farm house was a place for +bad women to stay in. That's what it was. I crept up along a fence and +looked through a window and saw. + +It's what give me the fantods. I can't make it out. The women in the +house were all ugly mean-looking women, not nice to look at or be near. +They were homely too, except one who was tall and looked a little like +the gelding Middlestride, but not clean like him, but with a hard ugly +mouth. She had red hair. I saw everything plain. I got up by an old +rose bush by an open window and looked. The women had on loose dresses +and sat around in chairs. The men came in and some sat on the women's +laps. The place smelled rotten and there was rotten talk, the kind a +kid hears around a livery stable in a town like Beckersville in the +winter but don't ever expect to hear talked when there are women +around. It was rotten. A nigger wouldn't go into such a place. + +I looked at Jerry Tillford. I've told you how I had been feeling about +him on account of his knowing what was going on inside of Sunstreak in +the minute before he went to the post for the race in which he made a +world's record. + +Jerry bragged in that bad woman house as I know Sunstreak wouldn't +never have bragged. He said that he made that horse, that it was him +that won the race and made the record. He lied and bragged like a fool. +I never heard such silly talk. + +And then, what do you suppose he did! He looked at the woman in there, +the one that was lean and hard-mouthed and looked a little like the +gelding Middlestride, but not clean like him, and his eyes began to +shine just as they did when he looked at me and at Sunstreak in the +paddocks at the track in the afternoon. I stood there by the window-- +gee!--but I wished I hadn't gone away from the tracks, but had stayed +with the boys and the niggers and the horses. The tall rotten looking +woman was between us just as Sunstreak was in the paddocks in the +afternoon. + +Then, all of a sudden, I began to hate that man. I wanted to scream and +rush in the room and kill him. I never had such a feeling before. I was +so mad clean through that I cried and my fists were doubled up so my +finger nails cut my hands. + +And Jerry's eyes kept shining and he waved back and forth, and then he +went and kissed that woman and I crept away and went back to the tracks +and to bed and didn't sleep hardly any, and then next day I got the +other kids to start home with me and never told them anything I seen. + +I been thinking about it ever since. I can't make it out. Spring has +come again and I'm nearly sixteen and go to the tracks mornings same as +always, and I see Sunstreak and Middlestride and a new colt named +Strident I'll bet will lay them all out, but no one thinks so but me +and two or three niggers. + +But things are different. At the tracks the air don't taste as good or +smell as good. It's because a man like Jerry Tillford, who knows what +he does, could see a horse like Sunstreak run, and kiss a woman like +that the same day. I can't make it out. Darn him, what did he want to +do like that for? I keep thinking about it and it spoils looking at +horses and smelling things and hearing niggers laugh and everything. +Sometimes I'm so mad about it I want to fight someone. It gives me the +fantods. What did he do it for? I want to know why. + + + + + SEEDS + + +He was a small man with a beard and was very nervous. I remember how +the cords of his neck were drawn taut. + +For years he had been trying to cure people of illness by the method +called psychoanalysis. The idea was the passion of his life. "I came +here because I am tired," he said dejectedly. "My body is not tired but +something inside me is old and worn-out. I want joy. For a few days or +weeks I would like to forget men and women and the influences that make +them the sick things they are." + +There is a note that comes into the human voice by which you may know +real weariness. It comes when one has been trying with all his heart +and soul to think his way along some difficult road of thought. Of a +sudden he finds himself unable to go on. Something within him stops. A +tiny explosion takes place. He bursts into words and talks, perhaps +foolishly. Little side currents of his nature he didn't know were there +run out and get themselves expressed. It is at such times that a man +boasts, uses big words, makes a fool of himself in general. + +And so it was the doctor became shrill. He jumped up from the steps +where we had been sitting, talking and walked about. "You come from the +West. You have kept away from people. You have preserved yourself--damn +you! I haven't--" His voice had indeed become shrill. "I have entered +into lives. I have gone beneath the surface of the lives of men and +women. Women especially I have studied--our own women, here in +America." + +"You have loved them?" I suggested. + +"Yes," he said. "Yes--you are right there. I have done that. It is the +only way I can get at things. I have to try to love. You see how that +is? It's the only way. Love must be the beginning of things with me." + +I began to sense the depths of his weariness. "We will go swim in the +lake," I urged. + +"I don't want to swim or do any damn plodding thing. I want to run and +shout," he declared. "For awhile, for a few hours, I want to be like a +dead leaf blown by the winds over these hills. I have one desire and +one only--to free myself." + +We walked in a dusty country road. I wanted him to know that I thought +I understood, so I put the case in my own way. + +When he stopped and stared at me I talked. "You are no more and no +better than myself," I declared. "You are a dog that has rolled in +offal, and because you are not quite a dog you do not like the smell of +your own hide." + +In turn my voice became shrill. "You blind fool," I cried impatiently. +"Men like you are fools. You cannot go along that road. It is given to +no man to venture far along the road of lives." + +I became passionately in earnest. "The illness you pretend to cure is +the universal illness," I said. "The thing you want to do cannot be +done. Fool--do you expect love to be understood?" + +We stood in the road and looked at each other. The suggestion of a +sneer played about the corners of his mouth. He put a hand on my +shoulder and shook me. "How smart we are--how aptly we put things!" + +He spat the words out and then turned and walked a little away. "You +think you understand, but you don't understand," he cried. "What you +say can't be done can be done. You're a liar. You cannot be so definite +without missing something vague and fine. You miss the whole point. The +lives of people are like young trees in a forest. They are being choked +by climbing vines. The vines are old thoughts and beliefs planted by +dead men. I am myself covered by crawling creeping vines that choke +me." + +He laughed bitterly. "And that's why I want to run and play," he said. +"I want to be a leaf blown by the wind over hills. I want to die and be +born again, and I am only a tree covered with vines and slowly dying. I +am, you see, weary and want to be made clean. I am an amateur venturing +timidly into lives," he concluded. "I am weary and want to be made +clean. I am covered by creeping crawling things." + + * * * * * + +A woman from Iowa came here to Chicago and took a room in a house on +the west-side. She was about twenty-seven years old and ostensibly she +came to the city to study advanced methods for teaching music. + +A certain young man also lived in the west-side house. His room faced a +long hall on the second floor of the house and the one taken by the +woman was across the hall facing his room. + +In regard to the young man--there is something very sweet in his +nature. He is a painter but I have often wished he would decide to +become a writer. He tells things with understanding and he does not +paint brilliantly. + +And so the woman from Iowa lived in the west-side house and came home +from the city in the evening. She looked like a thousand other women +one sees in the streets every day. The only thing that at all made her +stand out among the women in the crowds was that she was a little lame. +Her right foot was slightly deformed and she walked with a limp. For +three months she lived in the house--where she was the only woman +except the landlady--and then a feeling in regard to her began to grow +up among the men of the house. + +The men all said the same thing concerning her. When they met in the +hallway at the front of the house they stopped, laughed and whispered. +"She wants a lover," they said and winked. "She may not know it but a +lover is what she needs." + +One knowing Chicago and Chicago men would think that an easy want to be +satisfied. I laughed when my friend--whose name is LeRoy--told me the +story, but he did not laugh. He shook his head. "It wasn't so easy," he +said. "There would be no story were the matter that simple." + +LeRoy tried to explain. "Whenever a man approached her she became +alarmed," he said. Men kept smiling and speaking to her. They invited +her to dinner and to the theatre, but nothing would induce her to walk +in the streets with a man. She never went into the streets at night. +When a man stopped and tried to talk with her in the hallway she turned +her eyes to the floor and then ran into her room. Once a young drygoods +clerk who lived there induced her to sit with him on the steps before +the house. + +He was a sentimental fellow and took hold of her hand. When she began +to cry he was alarmed and arose. He put a hand on her shoulder and +tried to explain, but under the touch of his fingers her whole body +shook with terror. "Don't touch me," she cried, "don't let your hands +touch me!" She began to scream and people passing in the street stopped +to listen. The drygoods clerk was alarmed and ran upstairs to his own +room. He bolted the door and stood listening. "It is a trick," he +declared in a trembling voice. "She is trying to make trouble. I did +nothing to her. It was an accident and anyway what's the matter? I only +touched her arm with my fingers." + +Perhaps a dozen times LeRoy has spoken to me of the experience of the +Iowa woman in the west-side house. The men there began to hate her. +Although she would have nothing to do with them she would not let them +alone. In a hundred ways she continually invited approaches that when +made she repelled. When she stood naked in the bathroom facing the +hallway where the men passed up and down she left the door slightly +ajar. There was a couch in the living room down stairs, and when men +were present she would sometimes enter and without saying a word throw +herself down before them. On the couch she lay with lips drawn slightly +apart. Her eyes stared at the ceiling. Her whole physical being seemed +to be waiting for something. The sense of her filled the room. The men +standing about pretended not to see. They talked loudly. Embarrassment +took possession of them and one by one they crept quietly away. + +One evening the woman was ordered to leave the house. Someone, perhaps +the drygoods clerk, had talked to the landlady and she acted at once. +"If you leave tonight I shall like it that much better," LeRoy heard +the elder woman's voice saying. She stood in the hallway before the +Iowa woman's room. The landlady's voice rang through the house. + +LeRoy the painter is tall and lean and his life has been spent in +devotion to ideas. The passions of his brain have consumed the passions +of his body. His income is small and he has not married. Perhaps he has +never had a sweetheart. He is not without physical desire but he is not +primarily concerned with desire. + +On the evening when the Iowa woman was ordered to leave the west-side +house, she waited until she thought the landlady had gone down stairs, +and then went into LeRoy's room. It was about eight o'clock and he sat +by a window reading a book. The woman did not knock but opened the +door. She said nothing but ran across the floor and knelt at his feet. +LeRoy said that her twisted foot made her run like a wounded bird, that +her eyes were burning and that her breath came in little gasps. "Take +me," she said, putting her face down upon his knees and trembling +violently. "Take me quickly. There must be a beginning to things. I +can't stand the waiting. You must take me at once." + +You may be quite sure LeRoy was perplexed by all this. From what he has +said I gathered that until that evening he had hardly noticed the +woman. I suppose that of all the men in the house he had been the most +indifferent to her. In the room something happened. The landlady +followed the woman when she ran to LeRoy, and the two women confronted +him. The woman from Iowa knelt trembling and frightened at his feet. +The landlady was indignant. LeRoy acted on impulse. An inspiration came +to him. Putting his hand on the kneeling woman's shoulder he shook her +violently. "Now behave yourself," he said quickly. "I will keep my +promise." He turned to the landlady and smiled. "We have been engaged +to be married," he said. "We have quarreled. She came here to be near +me. She has been unwell and excited. I will take her away. Please don't +let yourself be annoyed. I will take her away." + +When the woman and LeRoy got out of the house she stopped weeping and +put her hand into his. Her fears had all gone away. He found a room for +her in another house and then went with her into a park and sat on a +bench. + + * * * * * + +Everything LeRoy has told me concerning this woman strengthens my +belief in what I said to the man that day in the mountains. You cannot +venture along the road of lives. On the bench he and the woman talked +until midnight and he saw and talked with her many times later. Nothing +came of it. She went back, I suppose, to her place in the West. + +In the place from which she had come the woman had been a teacher of +music. She was one of four sisters, all engaged in the same sort of +work and, LeRoy says, all quiet capable women. Their father had died +when the eldest girl was not yet ten, and five years later the mother +died also. The girls had a house and a garden. + +In the nature of things I cannot know what the lives of the women were +like but of this one may be quite certain--they talked only of women's +affairs, thought only of women's affairs. No one of them ever had a +lover. For years no man came near the house. + +Of them all only the youngest, the one who came to Chicago, was visibly +affected by the utterly feminine quality of their lives. It did +something to her. All day and every day she taught music to young girls +and then went home to the women. When she was twenty-five she began to +think and to dream of men. During the day and through the evening she +talked with women of women's affairs, and all the time she wanted +desperately to be loved by a man. She went to Chicago with that hope in +mind. LeRoy explained her attitude in the matter and her strange +behavior in the west-side house by saying she had thought too much and +acted too little. "The life force within her became decentralized," he +declared. "What she wanted she could not achieve. The living force +within could not find expression. When it could not get expressed in +one way it took another. Sex spread itself out over her body. It +permeated the very fibre of her being. At the last she was sex +personified, sex become condensed and impersonal. Certain words, the +touch of a man's hand, sometimes even the sight of a man passing in the +street did something to her." + + * * * * * + +Yesterday I saw LeRoy and he talked to me again of the woman and her +strange and terrible fate. + +We walked in the park by the lake. As we went along the figure of the +woman kept coming into my mind. An idea came to me. + +"You might have been her lover," I said. "That was possible. She was +not afraid of you." + +LeRoy stopped. Like the doctor who was so sure of his ability to walk +into lives he grew angry and scolded. For a moment he stared at me and +then a rather odd thing happened. Words said by the other man in the +dusty road in the hills came to LeRoy's lips and were said over again. +The suggestion of a sneer played about the corners of his mouth. "How +smart we are. How aptly we put things," he said. + +The voice of the young man who walked with me in the park by the lake +in the city became shrill. I sensed the weariness in him. Then he +laughed and said quietly and softly, "It isn't so simple. By being sure +of yourself you are in danger of losing all of the romance of life. You +miss the whole point. Nothing in life can be settled so definitely. The +woman--you see--was like a young tree choked by a climbing vine. The +thing that wrapped her about had shut out the light. She was a +grotesque as many trees in the forest are grotesques. Her problem was +such a difficult one that thinking of it has changed the whole current +of my life. At first I was like you. I was quite sure. I thought I +would be her lover and settle the matter." + +LeRoy turned and walked a little away. Then he came back and took hold +of my arm. A passionate earnestness took possession of him. His voice +trembled. "She needed a lover, yes, the men in the house were quite +right about that," he said. "She needed a lover and at the same time a +lover was not what she needed. The need of a lover was, after all, a +quite secondary thing. She needed to be loved, to be long and quietly +and patiently loved. To be sure she is a grotesque, but then all the +people in the world are grotesques. We all need to be loved. What would +cure her would cure the rest of us also. The disease she had is, you +see, universal. We all want to be loved and the world has no plan for +creating our lovers." + +LeRoy's voice dropped and he walked beside me in silence. We turned +away from the lake and walked under trees. I looked closely at him. The +cords of his neck were drawn taut. "I have seen under the shell of life +and I am afraid," he mused. "I am myself like the woman. I am covered +with creeping crawling vine-like things. I cannot be a lover. I am not +subtle or patient enough. I am paying old debts. Old thoughts and +beliefs--seeds planted by dead men--spring up in my soul and choke me." + +For a long time we walked and LeRoy talked, voicing the thoughts that +came into his mind. I listened in silence. His mind struck upon the +refrain voiced by the man in the mountains. "I would like to be a dead +dry thing," he muttered looking at the leaves scattered over the grass. +"I would like to be a leaf blown away by the wind." He looked up and +his eyes turned to where among the trees we could see the lake in the +distance. "I am weary and want to be made clean. I am a man covered by +creeping crawling things. I would like to be dead and blown by the wind +over limitless waters," he said. "I want more than anything else in the +world to be clean." + + + + + THE OTHER WOMAN + + +"I am in love with my wife," he said--a superfluous remark, as I had +not questioned his attachment to the woman he had married. We walked +for ten minutes and then he said it again. I turned to look at him. He +began to talk and told me the tale I am now about to set down. + +The thing he had on his mind happened during what must have been the +most eventful week of his life. He was to be married on Friday +afternoon. On Friday of the week before he got a telegram announcing +his appointment to a government position. Something else happened that +made him very proud and glad. In secret he was in the habit of writing +verses and during the year before several of them had been printed in +poetry magazines. One of the societies that give prizes for what they +think the best poems published during the year put his name at the head +of its list. The story of his triumph was printed in the newspapers of +his home city and one of them also printed his picture. + +As might have been expected he was excited and in a rather highly +strung nervous state all during that week. Almost every evening he went +to call on his fiancée, the daughter of a judge. When he got there the +house was filled with people and many letters, telegrams and packages +were being received. He stood a little to one side and men and women +kept coming up to speak to him. They congratulated him upon his success +in getting the government position and on his achievement as a poet. +Everyone seemed to be praising him and when he went home and to bed he +could not sleep. On Wednesday evening he went to the theatre and it +seemed to him that people all over the house recognized him. Everyone +nodded and smiled. After the first act five or six men and two women +left their seats to gather about him. A little group was formed. +Strangers sitting along the same row of seats stretched their necks and +looked. He had never received so much attention before, and now a fever +of expectancy took possession of him. + +As he explained when he told me of his experience, it was for him an +altogether abnormal time. He felt like one floating in air. When he got +into bed after seeing so many people and hearing so many words of +praise his head whirled round and round. When he closed his eyes a +crowd of people invaded his room. It seemed as though the minds of all +the people of his city were centred on himself. The most absurd fancies +took possession of him. He imagined himself riding in a carriage +through the streets of a city. Windows were thrown open and people ran +out at the doors of houses. "There he is. That's him," they shouted, +and at the words a glad cry arose. The carriage drove into a street +blocked with people. A hundred thousand pairs of eyes looked up at him. +"There you are! What a fellow you have managed to make of yourself!" +the eyes seemed to be saying. + +My friend could not explain whether the excitement of the people was +due to the fact that he had written a new poem or whether, in his new +government position, he had performed some notable act. The apartment +where he lived at that time was on a street perched along the top of a +cliff far out at the edge of his city, and from his bedroom window he +could look down over trees and factory roofs to a river. As he could +not sleep and as the fancies that kept crowding in upon him only made +him more excited, he got out of bed and tried to think. + +As would be natural under such circumstances, he tried to control his +thoughts, but when he sat by the window and was wide awake a most +unexpected and humiliating thing happened. The night was clear and +fine. There was a moon. He wanted to dream of the woman who was to be +his wife, to think out lines for noble poems or make plans that would +affect his career. Much to his surprise his mind refused to do anything +of the sort. + +At a corner of the street where he lived there was a small cigar store +and newspaper stand run by a fat man of forty and his wife, a small +active woman with bright grey eyes. In the morning he stopped there to +buy a paper before going down to the city. Sometimes he saw only the +fat man, but often the man had disappeared and the woman waited on him. +She was, as he assured me at least twenty times in telling me his tale, +a very ordinary person with nothing special or notable about her, but +for some reason he could not explain, being in her presence stirred him +profoundly. During that week in the midst of his distraction she was +the only person he knew who stood out clear and distinct in his mind. +When he wanted so much to think noble thoughts he could think only of +her. Before he knew what was happening his imagination had taken hold +of the notion of having a love affair with the woman. + +"I could not understand myself," he declared, in telling me the story. +"At night, when the city was quiet and when I should have been asleep, +I thought about her all the time. After two or three days of that sort +of thing the consciousness of her got into my daytime thoughts. I was +terribly muddled. When I went to see the woman who is now my wife I +found that my love for her was in no way affected by my vagrant +thoughts. There was but one woman in the world I wanted to live with +and to be my comrade in undertaking to improve my own character and my +position in the world, but for the moment, you see, I wanted this other +woman to be in my arms. She had worked her way into my being. On all +sides people were saying I was a big man who would do big things, and +there I was. That evening when I went to the theatre I walked home +because I knew I would be unable to sleep, and to satisfy the annoying +impulse in myself I went and stood on the sidewalk before the tobacco +shop. It was a two story building, and I knew the woman lived upstairs +with her husband. For a long time I stood in the darkness with my body +pressed against the wall of the building, and then I thought of the two +of them up there and no doubt in bed together. That made me furious. + +"Then I grew more furious with myself. I went home and got into bed, +shaken with anger. There are certain books of verse and some prose +writings that have always moved me deeply, and so I put several books +on a table by my bed. + +"The voices in the books were like the voices of the dead. I did not +hear them. The printed words would not penetrate into my consciousness. +I tried to think of the woman I loved, but her figure had also become +something far away, something with which I for the moment seemed to +have nothing to do. I rolled and tumbled about in the bed. It was a +miserable experience. + +"On Thursday morning I went into the store. There stood the woman +alone. I think she knew how I felt. Perhaps she had been thinking of me +as I had been thinking of her. A doubtful hesitating smile played about +the corners of her mouth. She had on a dress made of cheap cloth and +there was a tear on the shoulder. She must have been ten years older +than myself. When I tried to put my pennies on the glass counter, +behind which she stood, my hand trembled so that the pennies made a +sharp rattling noise. When I spoke the voice that came out of my throat +did not sound like anything that had ever belonged to me. It barely +arose above a thick whisper. 'I want you,' I said. 'I want you very +much. Can't you run away from your husband? Come to me at my apartment +at seven tonight.' + +"The woman did come to my apartment at seven. That morning she didn't +say anything at all. For a minute perhaps we stood looking at each +other. I had forgotten everything in the world but just her. Then she +nodded her head and I went away. Now that I think of it I cannot +remember a word I ever heard her say. She came to my apartment at seven +and it was dark. You must understand this was in the month of October. +I had not lighted a light and I had sent my servant away. + +"During that day I was no good at all. Several men came to see me at my +office, but I got all muddled up in trying to talk with them. They +attributed my rattle-headedness to my approaching marriage and went +away laughing. + +"It was on that morning, just the day before my marriage, that I got a +long and very beautiful letter from my fiancée. During the night before +she also had been unable to sleep and had got out of bed to write the +letter. Everything she said in it was very sharp and real, but she +herself, as a living thing, seemed to have receded into the distance. +It seemed to me that she was like a bird, flying far away in distant +skies, and that I was like a perplexed bare-footed boy standing in the +dusty road before a farm house and looking at her receding figure. I +wonder if you will understand what I mean? + +"In regard to the letter. In it she, the awakening woman, poured out +her heart. She of course knew nothing of life, but she was a woman. She +lay, I suppose, in her bed feeling nervous and wrought up as I had been +doing. She realized that a great change was about to take place in her +life and was glad and afraid too. There she lay thinking of it all. +Then she got out of bed and began talking to me on the bit of paper. +She told me how afraid she was and how glad too. Like most young women +she had heard things whispered. In the letter she was very sweet and +fine. 'For a long time, after we are married, we will forget we are a +man and woman,' she wrote. 'We will be human beings. You must remember +that I am ignorant and often I will be very stupid. You must love me +and be very patient and kind. When I know more, when after a long time +you have taught me the way of life, I will try to repay you. I will +love you tenderly and passionately. The possibility of that is in me or +I would not want to marry at all. I am afraid but I am also happy. O, I +am so glad our marriage time is near at hand!' + +"Now you see clearly enough what a mess I was in. In my office, after I +had read my fiancée's letter, I became at once very resolute and +strong. I remember that I got out of my chair and walked about, proud +of the fact that I was to be the husband of so noble a woman. Right +away I felt concerning her as I had been feeling about myself before I +found out what a weak thing I was. To be sure I took a strong +resolution that I would not be weak. At nine that evening I had planned +to run in to see my fiancée. 'I'm all right now,' I said to myself. +'The beauty of her character has saved me from myself. I will go home +now and send the other woman away.' In the morning I had telephoned to +my servant and told him that I did not want him to be at the apartment +that evening and I now picked up the telephone to tell him to stay at +home. + +"Then a thought came to me. 'I will not want him there in any event,' I +told myself. 'What will he think when he sees a woman coming in my +place on the evening before the day I am to be married?' I put the +telephone down and prepared to go home. 'If I want my servant out of +the apartment it is because I do not want him to hear me talk with the +woman. I cannot be rude to her. I will have to make some kind of an +explanation,' I said to myself. + +"The woman came at seven o'clock, and, as you may have guessed, I let +her in and forgot the resolution I had made. It is likely I never had +any intention of doing anything else. There was a bell on my door, but +she did not ring, but knocked very softly. It seems to me that +everything she did that evening was soft and quiet, but very determined +and quick. Do I make myself clear? When she came I was standing just +within the door where I had been standing and waiting for a half hour. +My hands were trembling as they had trembled in the morning when her +eyes looked at me and when I tried to put the pennies on the counter in +the store. When I opened the door she stepped quickly in and I took her +into my arms. We stood together in the darkness. My hands no longer +trembled. I felt very happy and strong. + +"Although I have tried to make everything clear I have not told you +what the woman I married is like. I have emphasized, you see, the other +woman. I make the blind statement that I love my wife, and to a man of +your shrewdness that means nothing at all. To tell the truth, had I not +started to speak of this matter I would feel more comfortable. It is +inevitable that I give you the impression that I am in love with the +tobacconist's wife. That's not true. To be sure I was very conscious of +her all during the week before my marriage, but after she had come to +me at my apartment she went entirely out of my mind. + +"Am I telling the truth? I am trying very hard to tell what happened to +me. I am saying that I have not since that evening thought of the woman +who came to my apartment. Now, to tell the facts of the case, that is +not true. On that evening I went to my fiancée at nine, as she had +asked me to do in her letter. In a kind of way I cannot explain the +other woman went with me. This is what I mean--you see I had been +thinking that if anything happened between me and the tobacconist's +wife I would not be able to go through with my marriage. 'It is one +thing or the other with me,' I had said to myself. + +"As a matter of fact I went to see my beloved on that evening filled +with a new faith in the outcome of our life together. I am afraid I +muddle this matter in trying to tell it. A moment ago I said the other +woman, the tobacconist's wife, went with me. I do not mean she went in +fact. What I am trying to say is that something of her faith in her own +desires and her courage in seeing things through went with me. Is that +clear to you? When I got to my fiancée's house there was a crowd of +people standing about. Some were relatives from distant places I had +not seen before. She looked up quickly when I came into the room. My +face must have been radiant. I never saw her so moved. She thought her +letter had affected me deeply, and of course it had. Up she jumped and +ran to meet me. She was like a glad child. Right before the people who +turned and looked inquiringly at us, she said the thing that was in her +mind. 'O, I am so happy,' she cried. 'You have understood. We will be +two human beings. We will not have to be husband and wife.' + +"As you may suppose everyone laughed, but I did not laugh. The tears +came into my eyes. I was so happy I wanted to shout. Perhaps you +understand what I mean. In the office that day when I read the letter +my fiancée had written I had said to myself, 'I will take care of the +dear little woman.' There was something smug, you see, about that. In +her house when she cried out in that way, and when everyone laughed, +what I said to myself was something like this: 'We will take care of +ourselves.' I whispered something of the sort into her ears. To tell +you the truth I had come down off my perch. The spirit of the other +woman did that to me. Before all the people gathered about I held my +fiancée close and we kissed. They thought it very sweet of us to be so +affected at the sight of each other. What they would have thought had +they known the truth about me God only knows! + +"Twice now I have said that after that evening I never thought of the +other woman at all. That is partially true but, sometimes in the +evening when I am walking alone in the street or in the park as we are +walking now, and when evening comes softly and quickly as it has come +to-night, the feeling of her comes sharply into my body and mind. After +that one meeting I never saw her again. On the next day I was married +and I have never gone back into her street. Often however as I am +walking along as I am doing now, a quick sharp earthy feeling takes +possession of me. It is as though I were a seed in the ground and the +warm rains of the spring had come. It is as though I were not a man but +a tree. + +"And now you see I am married and everything is all right. My marriage +is to me a very beautiful fact. If you were to say that my marriage is +not a happy one I could call you a liar and be speaking the absolute +truth. I have tried to tell you about this other woman. There is a kind +of relief in speaking of her. I have never done it before. I wonder why +I was so silly as to be afraid that I would give you the impression I +am not in love with my wife. If I did not instinctively trust your +understanding I would not have spoken. As the matter stands I have a +little stirred myself up. To-night I shall think of the other woman. +That sometimes occurs. It will happen after I have gone to bed. My wife +sleeps in the next room to mine and the door is always left open. There +will be a moon to-night, and when there is a moon long streaks of light +fall on her bed. I shall awake at midnight to-night. She will be lying +asleep with one arm thrown over her head. + +"What is it that I am now talking about? A man does not speak of his +wife lying in bed. What I am trying to say is that, because of this +talk, I shall think of the other woman to-night. My thoughts will not +take the form they did during the week before I was married. I will +wonder what has become of the woman. For a moment I will again feel +myself holding her close. I will think that for an hour I was closer to +her than I have ever been to anyone else. Then I will think of the time +when I will be as close as that to my wife. She is still, you see, an +awakening woman. For a moment I will close my eyes and the quick, +shrewd, determined eyes of that other woman will look into mine. My +head will swim and then I will quickly open my eyes and see again the +dear woman with whom I have undertaken to live out my life. Then I will +sleep and when I awake in the morning it will be as it was that evening +when I walked out of my dark apartment after having had the most +notable experience of my life. What I mean to say, you understand is +that, for me, when I awake, the other woman will be utterly gone." + + + + + THE EGG + + +My father was, I am sure, intended by nature to be a cheerful, kindly +man. Until he was thirty-four years old he worked as a farm-hand for a +man named Thomas Butterworth whose place lay near the town of Bidwell, +Ohio. He had then a horse of his own and on Saturday evenings drove +into town to spend a few hours in social intercourse with other farm- +hands. In town he drank several glasses of beer and stood about in Ben +Head's saloon--crowded on Saturday evenings with visiting farm-hands. +Songs were sung and glasses thumped on the bar. At ten o'clock father +drove home along a lonely country road, made his horse comfortable for +the night and himself went to bed, quite happy in his position in life. +He had at that time no notion of trying to rise in the world. + +It was in the spring of his thirty-fifth year that father married my +mother, then a country school-teacher, and in the following spring I +came wriggling and crying into the world. Something happened to the two +people. They became ambitious. The American passion for getting up in +the world took possession of them. + +It may have been that mother was responsible. Being a school-teacher +she had no doubt read books and magazines. She had, I presume, read of +how Garfield, Lincoln, and other Americans rose from poverty to fame +and greatness and as I lay beside her--in the days of her lying-in--she +may have dreamed that I would some day rule men and cities. At any rate +she induced father to give up his place as a farm-hand, sell his horse +and embark on an independent enterprise of his own. She was a tall +silent woman with a long nose and troubled grey eyes. For herself she +wanted nothing. For father and myself she was incurably ambitious. + +The first venture into which the two people went turned out badly. They +rented ten acres of poor stony land on Griggs's Road, eight miles from +Bidwell, and launched into chicken raising. I grew into boyhood on the +place and got my first impressions of life there. From the beginning +they were impressions of disaster and if, in my turn, I am a gloomy man +inclined to see the darker side of life, I attribute it to the fact +that what should have been for me the happy joyous days of childhood +were spent on a chicken farm. + +One unversed in such matters can have no notion of the many and tragic +things that can happen to a chicken. It is born out of an egg, lives +for a few weeks as a tiny fluffy thing such as you will see pictured on +Easter cards, then becomes hideously naked, eats quantities of corn and +meal bought by the sweat of your father's brow, gets diseases called +pip, cholera, and other names, stands looking with stupid eyes at the +sun, becomes sick and dies. A few hens, and now and then a rooster, +intended to serve God's mysterious ends, struggle through to maturity. +The hens lay eggs out of which come other chickens and the dreadful +cycle is thus made complete. It is all unbelievably complex. Most +philosophers must have been raised on chicken farms. One hopes for so +much from a chicken and is so dreadfully disillusioned. Small chickens, +just setting out on the journey of life, look so bright and alert and +they are in fact so dreadfully stupid. They are so much like people +they mix one up in one's judgments of life. If disease does not kill +them they wait until your expectations are thoroughly aroused and then +walk under the wheels of a wagon--to go squashed and dead back to their +maker. Vermin infest their youth, and fortunes must be spent for +curative powders. In later life I have seen how a literature has been +built up on the subject of fortunes to be made out of the raising of +chickens. It is intended to be read by the gods who have just eaten of +the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is a hopeful literature +and declares that much may be done by simple ambitious people who own a +few hens. Do not be led astray by it. It was not written for you. Go +hunt for gold on the frozen hills of Alaska, put your faith in the +honesty of a politician, believe if you will that the world is daily +growing better and that good will triumph over evil, but do not read +and believe the literature that is written concerning the hen. It was +not written for you. + +I, however, digress. My tale does not primarily concern itself with the +hen. If correctly told it will centre on the egg. For ten years my +father and mother struggled to make our chicken farm pay and then they +gave up that struggle and began another. They moved into the town of +Bidwell, Ohio and embarked in the restaurant business. After ten years +of worry with incubators that did not hatch, and with tiny--and in +their own way lovely--balls of fluff that passed on into semi-naked +pullethood and from that into dead hen-hood, we threw all aside and +packing our belongings on a wagon drove down Griggs's Road toward +Bidwell, a tiny caravan of hope looking for a new place from which to +start on our upward journey through life. + +We must have been a sad looking lot, not, I fancy, unlike refugees +fleeing from a battlefield. Mother and I walked in the road. The wagon +that contained our goods had been borrowed for the day from Mr. Albert +Griggs, a neighbor. Out of its sides stuck the legs of cheap chairs and +at the back of the pile of beds, tables, and boxes filled with kitchen +utensils was a crate of live chickens, and on top of that the baby +carriage in which I had been wheeled about in my infancy. Why we stuck +to the baby carriage I don't know. It was unlikely other children would +be born and the wheels were broken. People who have few possessions +cling tightly to those they have. That is one of the facts that make +life so discouraging. + +Father rode on top of the wagon. He was then a bald-headed man of +forty-five, a little fat and from long association with mother and the +chickens he had become habitually silent and discouraged. All during +our ten years on the chicken farm he had worked as a laborer on +neighboring farms and most of the money he had earned had been spent +for remedies to cure chicken diseases, on Wilmer's White Wonder Cholera +Cure or Professor Bidlow's Egg Producer or some other preparations that +mother found advertised in the poultry papers. There were two little +patches of hair on father's head just above his ears. I remember that +as a child I used to sit looking at him when he had gone to sleep in a +chair before the stove on Sunday afternoons in the winter. I had at +that time already begun to read books and have notions of my own and +the bald path that led over the top of his head was, I fancied, +something like a broad road, such a road as Caesar might have made on +which to lead his legions out of Rome and into the wonders of an +unknown world. The tufts of hair that grew above father's ears were, I +thought, like forests. I fell into a half-sleeping, half-waking state +and dreamed I was a tiny thing going along the road into a far +beautiful place where there were no chicken farms and where life was a +happy eggless affair. + +One might write a book concerning our flight from the chicken farm into +town. Mother and I walked the entire eight miles--she to be sure that +nothing fell from the wagon and I to see the wonders of the world. On +the seat of the wagon beside father was his greatest treasure. I will +tell you of that. + +On a chicken farm where hundreds and even thousands of chickens come +out of eggs surprising things sometimes happen. Grotesques are born out +of eggs as out of people. The accident does not often occur--perhaps +once in a thousand births. A chicken is, you see, born that has four +legs, two pairs of wings, two heads or what not. The things do not +live. They go quickly back to the hand of their maker that has for a +moment trembled. The fact that the poor little things could not live +was one of the tragedies of life to father. He had some sort of notion +that if he could but bring into henhood or roosterhood a five-legged +hen or a two-headed rooster his fortune would be made. He dreamed of +taking the wonder about to county fairs and of growing rich by +exhibiting it to other farm-hands. + +At any rate he saved all the little monstrous things that had been born +on our chicken farm. They were preserved in alcohol and put each in its +own glass bottle. These he had carefully put into a box and on our +journey into town it was carried on the wagon seat beside him. He drove +the horses with one hand and with the other clung to the box. When we +got to our destination the box was taken down at once and the bottles +removed. All during our days as keepers of a restaurant in the town of +Bidwell, Ohio, the grotesques in their little glass bottles sat on a +shelf back of the counter. Mother sometimes protested but father was a +rock on the subject of his treasure. The grotesques were, he declared, +valuable. People, he said, liked to look at strange and wonderful +things. + +Did I say that we embarked in the restaurant business in the town of +Bidwell, Ohio? I exaggerated a little. The town itself lay at the foot +of a low hill and on the shore of a small river. The railroad did not +run through the town and the station was a mile away to the north at a +place called Pickleville. There had been a cider mill and pickle +factory at the station, but before the time of our coming they had both +gone out of business. In the morning and in the evening busses came +down to the station along a road called Turner's Pike from the hotel on +the main street of Bidwell. Our going to the out of the way place to +embark in the restaurant business was mother's idea. She talked of it +for a year and then one day went off and rented an empty store building +opposite the railroad station. It was her idea that the restaurant +would be profitable. Travelling men, she said, would be always waiting +around to take trains out of town and town people would come to the +station to await incoming trains. They would come to the restaurant to +buy pieces of pie and drink coffee. Now that I am older I know that she +had another motive in going. She was ambitious for me. She wanted me to +rise in the world, to get into a town school and become a man of the +towns. + +At Pickleville father and mother worked hard as they always had done. +At first there was the necessity of putting our place into shape to be +a restaurant. That took a month. Father built a shelf on which he put +tins of vegetables. He painted a sign on which he put his name in large +red letters. Below his name was the sharp command--"EAT HERE"--that was +so seldom obeyed. A show case was bought and filled with cigars and +tobacco. Mother scrubbed the floor and the walls of the room. I went to +school in the town and was glad to be away from the farm and from the +presence of the discouraged, sad-looking chickens. Still I was not very +joyous. In the evening I walked home from school along Turner's Pike +and remembered the children I had seen playing in the town school yard. +A troop of little girls had gone hopping about and singing. I tried +that. Down along the frozen road I went hopping solemnly on one leg. +"Hippity Hop To The Barber Shop," I sang shrilly. Then I stopped and +looked doubtfully about. I was afraid of being seen in my gay mood. It +must have seemed to me that I was doing a thing that should not be done +by one who, like myself, had been raised on a chicken farm where death +was a daily visitor. + +Mother decided that our restaurant should remain open at night. At ten +in the evening a passenger train went north past our door followed by a +local freight. The freight crew had switching to do in Pickleville and +when the work was done they came to our restaurant for hot coffee and +food. Sometimes one of them ordered a fried egg. In the morning at four +they returned north-bound and again visited us. A little trade began to +grow up. Mother slept at night and during the day tended the restaurant +and fed our boarders while father slept. He slept in the same bed +mother had occupied during the night and I went off to the town of +Bidwell and to school. During the long nights, while mother and I +slept, father cooked meats that were to go into sandwiches for the +lunch baskets of our boarders. Then an idea in regard to getting up in +the world came into his head. The American spirit took hold of him. He +also became ambitious. + +In the long nights when there was little to do father had time to +think. That was his undoing. He decided that he had in the past been an +unsuccessful man because he had not been cheerful enough and that in +the future he would adopt a cheerful outlook on life. In the early +morning he came upstairs and got into bed with mother. She woke and the +two talked. From my bed in the corner I listened. + +It was father's idea that both he and mother should try to entertain +the people who came to eat at our restaurant. I cannot now remember his +words, but he gave the impression of one about to become in some +obscure way a kind of public entertainer. When people, particularly +young people from the town of Bidwell, came into our place, as on very +rare occasions they did, bright entertaining conversation was to be +made. From father's words I gathered that something of the jolly inn- +keeper effect was to be sought. Mother must have been doubtful from the +first, but she said nothing discouraging. It was father's notion that a +passion for the company of himself and mother would spring up in the +breasts of the younger people of the town of Bidwell. In the evening +bright happy groups would come singing down Turner's Pike. They would +troop shouting with joy and laughter into our place. There would be +song and festivity. I do not mean to give the impression that father +spoke so elaborately of the matter. He was as I have said an +uncommunicative man. "They want some place to go. I tell you they want +some place to go," he said over and over. That was as far as he got. My +own imagination has filled in the blanks. + +For two or three weeks this notion of father's invaded our house. We +did not talk much, but in our daily lives tried earnestly to make +smiles take the place of glum looks. Mother smiled at the boarders and +I, catching the infection, smiled at our cat. Father became a little +feverish in his anxiety to please. There was no doubt, lurking +somewhere in him, a touch of the spirit of the showman. He did not +waste much of his ammunition on the railroad men he served at night but +seemed to be waiting for a young man or woman from Bidwell to come in +to show what he could do. On the counter in the restaurant there was a +wire basket kept always filled with eggs, and it must have been before +his eyes when the idea of being entertaining was born in his brain. +There was something pre-natal about the way eggs kept themselves +connected with the development of his idea. At any rate an egg ruined +his new impulse in life. Late one night I was awakened by a roar of +anger coming from father's throat. Both mother and I sat upright in our +beds. With trembling hands she lighted a lamp that stood on a table by +her head. Downstairs the front door of our restaurant went shut with a +bang and in a few minutes father tramped up the stairs. He held an egg +in his hand and his hand trembled as though he were having a chill. +There was a half insane light in his eyes. As he stood glaring at us I +was sure he intended throwing the egg at either mother or me. Then he +laid it gently on the table beside the lamp and dropped on his knees +beside mother's bed. He began to cry like a boy and I, carried away by +his grief, cried with him. The two of us filled the little upstairs +room with our wailing voices. It is ridiculous, but of the picture we +made I can remember only the fact that mother's hand continually +stroked the bald path that ran across the top of his head. I have +forgotten what mother said to him and how she induced him to tell her +of what had happened downstairs. His explanation also has gone out of +my mind. I remember only my own grief and fright and the shiny path +over father's head glowing in the lamp light as he knelt by the bed. + +As to what happened downstairs. For some unexplainable reason I know +the story as well as though I had been a witness to my father's +discomfiture. One in time gets to know many unexplainable things. On +that evening young Joe Kane, son of a merchant of Bidwell, came to +Pickleville to meet his father, who was expected on the ten o'clock +evening train from the South. The train was three hours late and Joe +came into our place to loaf about and to wait for its arrival. The +local freight train came in and the freight crew were fed. Joe was left +alone in the restaurant with father. + +From the moment he came into our place the Bidwell young man must have +been puzzled by my father's actions. It was his notion that father was +angry at him for hanging around. He noticed that the restaurant keeper +was apparently disturbed by his presence and he thought of going out. +However, it began to rain and he did not fancy the long walk to town +and back. He bought a five-cent cigar and ordered a cup of coffee. He +had a newspaper in his pocket and took it out and began to read. "I'm +waiting for the evening train. It's late," he said apologetically. + +For a long time father, whom Joe Kane had never seen before, remained +silently gazing at his visitor. He was no doubt suffering from an +attack of stage fright. As so often happens in life he had thought so +much and so often of the situation that now confronted him that he was +somewhat nervous in its presence. + +For one thing, he did not know what to do with his hands. He thrust one +of them nervously over the counter and shook hands with Joe Kane. "How- +de-do," he said. Joe Kane put his newspaper down and stared at him. +Father's eye lighted on the basket of eggs that sat on the counter and +he began to talk. "Well," he began hesitatingly, "well, you have heard +of Christopher Columbus, eh?" He seemed to be angry. "That Christopher +Columbus was a cheat," he declared emphatically. "He talked of making +an egg stand on its end. He talked, he did, and then he went and broke +the end of the egg." + +My father seemed to his visitor to be beside himself at the duplicity +of Christopher Columbus. He muttered and swore. He declared it was +wrong to teach children that Christopher Columbus was a great man when, +after all, he cheated at the critical moment. He had declared he would +make an egg stand on end and then when his bluff had been called he had +done a trick. Still grumbling at Columbus, father took an egg from the +basket on the counter and began to walk up and down. He rolled the egg +between the palms of his hands. He smiled genially. He began to mumble +words regarding the effect to be produced on an egg by the electricity +that comes out of the human body. He declared that without breaking its +shell and by virtue of rolling it back and forth in his hands he could +stand the egg on its end. He explained that the warmth of his hands and +the gentle rolling movement he gave the egg created a new centre of +gravity, and Joe Kane was mildly interested. "I have handled thousands +of eggs," father said. "No one knows more about eggs than I do." + +He stood the egg on the counter and it fell on its side. He tried the +trick again and again, each time rolling the egg between the palms of +his hands and saying the words regarding the wonders of electricity and +the laws of gravity. When after a half hour's effort he did succeed in +making the egg stand for a moment he looked up to find that his visitor +was no longer watching. By the time he had succeeded in calling Joe +Kane's attention to the success of his effort the egg had again rolled +over and lay on its side. + +Afire with the showman's passion and at the same time a good deal +disconcerted by the failure of his first effort, father now took the +bottles containing the poultry monstrosities down from their place on +the shelf and began to show them to his visitor. "How would you like to +have seven legs and two heads like this fellow?" he asked, exhibiting +the most remarkable of his treasures. A cheerful smile played over his +face. He reached over the counter and tried to slap Joe Kane on the +shoulder as he had seen men do in Ben Head's saloon when he was a young +farm-hand and drove to town on Saturday evenings. His visitor was made +a little ill by the sight of the body of the terribly deformed bird +floating in the alcohol in the bottle and got up to go. Coming from +behind the counter father took hold of the young man's arm and led him +back to his seat. He grew a little angry and for a moment had to turn +his face away and force himself to smile. Then he put the bottles back +on the shelf. In an outburst of generosity he fairly compelled Joe Kane +to have a fresh cup of coffee and another cigar at his expense. Then he +took a pan and filling it with vinegar, taken from a jug that sat +beneath the counter, he declared himself about to do a new trick. "I +will heat this egg in this pan of vinegar," he said. "Then I will put +it through the neck of a bottle without breaking the shell. When the +egg is inside the bottle it will resume its normal shape and the shell +will become hard again. Then I will give the bottle with the egg in it +to you. You can take it about with you wherever you go. People will +want to know how you got the egg in the bottle. Don't tell them. Keep +them guessing. That is the way to have fun with this trick." + +Father grinned and winked at his visitor. Joe Kane decided that the man +who confronted him was mildly insane but harmless. He drank the cup of +coffee that had been given him and began to read his paper again. When +the egg had been heated in vinegar father carried it on a spoon to the +counter and going into a back room got an empty bottle. He was angry +because his visitor did not watch him as he began to do his trick, but +nevertheless went cheerfully to work. For a long time he struggled, +trying to get the egg to go through the neck of the bottle. He put the +pan of vinegar back on the stove, intending to reheat the egg, then +picked it up and burned his fingers. After a second bath in the hot +vinegar the shell of the egg had been softened a little but not enough +for his purpose. He worked and worked and a spirit of desperate +determination took possession of him. When he thought that at last the +trick was about to be consummated the delayed train came in at the +station and Joe Kane started to go nonchalantly out at the door. Father +made a last desperate effort to conquer the egg and make it do the +thing that would establish his reputation as one who knew how to +entertain guests who came into his restaurant. He worried the egg. He +attempted to be somewhat rough with it. He swore and the sweat stood +out on his forehead. The egg broke under his hand. When the contents +spurted over his clothes, Joe Kane, who had stopped at the door, turned +and laughed. + +A roar of anger rose from my father's throat. He danced and shouted a +string of inarticulate words. Grabbing another egg from the basket on +the counter, he threw it, just missing the head of the young man as he +dodged through the door and escaped. + +Father came upstairs to mother and me with an egg in his hand. I do not +know what he intended to do. I imagine he had some idea of destroying +it, of destroying all eggs, and that he intended to let mother and me +see him begin. When, however, he got into the presence of mother +something happened to him. He laid the egg gently on the table and +dropped on his knees by the bed as I have already explained. He later +decided to close the restaurant for the night and to come upstairs and +get into bed. When he did so he blew out the light and after much +muttered conversation both he and mother went to sleep. I suppose I +went to sleep also, but my sleep was troubled. + +I awoke at dawn and for a long time looked at the egg that lay on the +table. I wondered why eggs had to be and why from the egg came the hen +who again laid the egg. The question got into my blood. It has stayed +there, I imagine, because I am the son of my father. At any rate, the +problem remains unsolved in my mind. And that, I conclude, is but +another evidence of the complete and final triumph of the egg--at +least as far as my family is concerned. + + + + + UNLIGHTED LAMPS + + +Mary Cochran went out of the rooms where she lived with her father, +Doctor Lester Cochran, at seven o'clock on a Sunday evening. It was +June of the year nineteen hundred and eight and Mary was eighteen years +old. She walked along Tremont to Main Street and across the railroad +tracks to Upper Main, lined with small shops and shoddy houses, a +rather quiet cheerless place on Sundays when there were few people +about. She had told her father she was going to church but did not +intend doing anything of the kind. She did not know what she wanted to +do. "I'll get off by myself and think," she told herself as she walked +slowly along. The night she thought promised to be too fine to be spent +sitting in a stuffy church and hearing a man talk of things that had +apparently nothing to do with her own problem. Her own affairs were +approaching a crisis and it was time for her to begin thinking +seriously of her future. + +The thoughtful serious state of mind in which Mary found herself had +been induced in her by a conversation had with her father on the +evening before. Without any preliminary talk and quite suddenly and +abruptly he had told her that he was a victim of heart disease and +might die at any moment. He had made the announcement as they stood +together in the Doctor's office, back of which were the rooms in which +the father and daughter lived. + +It was growing dark outside when she came into the office and found him +sitting alone. The office and living rooms were on the second floor of +an old frame building in the town of Huntersburg, Illinois, and as the +Doctor talked he stood beside his daughter near one of the windows that +looked down into Tremont Street. The hushed murmur of the town's +Saturday night life went on in Main Street just around a corner, and +the evening train, bound to Chicago fifty miles to the east, had just +passed. The hotel bus came rattling out of Lincoln Street and went +through Tremont toward the hotel on Lower Main. A cloud of dust kicked +up by the horses' hoofs floated on the quiet air. A straggling group of +people followed the bus and the row of hitching posts on Tremont Street +was already lined with buggies in which farmers and their wives had +driven into town for the evening of shopping and gossip. + +After the station bus had passed three or four more buggies were driven +into the street. From one of them a young man helped his sweetheart to +alight. He took hold of her arm with a certain air of tenderness, and a +hunger to be touched thus tenderly by a man's hand, that had come to +Mary many times before, returned at almost the same moment her father +made the announcement of his approaching death. + +As the Doctor began to speak Barney Smithfield, who owned a livery barn +that opened into Tremont Street directly opposite the building in which +the Cochrans lived, came back to his place of business from his evening +meal. He stopped to tell a story to a group of men gathered before the +barn door and a shout of laughter arose. One of the loungers in the +street, a strongly built young man in a checkered suit, stepped away +from the others and stood before the liveryman. Having seen Mary he was +trying to attract her attention. He also began to tell a story and as +he talked he gesticulated, waved his arms and from time to time looked +over his shoulder to see if the girl still stood by the window and if +she were watching. + +Doctor Cochran had told his daughter of his approaching death in a cold +quiet voice. To the girl it had seemed that everything concerning her +father must be cold and quiet. "I have a disease of the heart," he said +flatly, "have long suspected there was something of the sort the matter +with me and on Thursday when I went into Chicago I had myself examined. +The truth is I may die at any moment. I would not tell you but for one +reason--I will leave little money and you must be making plans for the +future." + +The Doctor stepped nearer the window where his daughter stood with her +hand on the frame. The announcement had made her a little pale and her +hand trembled. In spite of his apparent coldness he was touched and +wanted to reassure her. "There now," he said hesitatingly, "it'll +likely be all right after all. Don't worry. I haven't been a doctor for +thirty years without knowing there's a great deal of nonsense about +these pronouncements on the part of experts. In a matter like this, +that is to say when a man has a disease of the heart, he may putter +about for years." He laughed uncomfortably. "I've even heard it said +that the best way to insure a long life is to contract a disease of the +heart." + +With these words the Doctor had turned and walked out of his office, +going down a wooden stairway to the street. He had wanted to put his +arm about his daughter's shoulder as he talked to her, but never having +shown any feeling in his relations with her could not sufficiently +release some tight thing in himself. + +Mary had stood for a long time looking down into the street. The young +man in the checkered suit, whose name was Duke Yetter, had finished +telling his tale and a shout of laughter arose. She turned to look +toward the door through which her father had passed and dread took +possession of her. In all her life there had never been anything warm +and close. She shivered although the night was warm and with a quick +girlish gesture passed her hand over her eyes. + +The gesture was but an expression of a desire to brush away the cloud +of fear that had settled down upon her but it was misinterpreted by +Duke Yetter who now stood a little apart from the other men before the +livery barn. When he saw Mary's hand go up he smiled and turning +quickly to be sure he was unobserved began jerking his head and making +motions with his hand as a sign that he wished her to come down into +the street where he would have an opportunity to join her. + + * * * * * + +On the Sunday evening Mary, having walked through Upper Main, turned +into Wilmott, a street of workmens' houses. During that year the first +sign of the march of factories westward from Chicago into the prairie +towns had come to Huntersburg. A Chicago manufacturer of furniture had +built a plant in the sleepy little farming town, hoping thus to escape +the labor organizations that had begun to give him trouble in the city. +At the upper end of town, in Wilmott, Swift, Harrison and Chestnut +Streets and in cheap, badly-constructed frame houses, most of the +factory workers lived. On the warm summer evening they were gathered on +the porches at the front of the houses and a mob of children played in +the dusty streets. Red-faced men in white shirts and without collars +and coats slept in chairs or lay sprawled on strips of grass or on the +hard earth before the doors of the houses. The laborers' wives had +gathered in groups and stood gossiping by the fences that separated the +yards. Occasionally the voice of one of the women arose sharp and +distinct above the steady flow of voices that ran like a murmuring +river through the hot little streets. + +In the roadway two children had got into a fight. A thick-shouldered +red-haired boy struck another boy who had a pale sharp-featured face, a +blow on the shoulder. Other children came running. The mother of the +red-haired boy brought the promised fight to an end. "Stop it Johnny, I +tell you to stop it. I'll break your neck if you don't," the woman +screamed. + +The pale boy turned and walked away from his antagonist. As he went +slinking along the sidewalk past Mary Cochran his sharp little eyes, +burning with hatred, looked up at her. + +Mary went quickly along. The strange new part of her native town with +the hubbub of life always stirring and asserting itself had a strong +fascination for her. There was something dark and resentful in her own +nature that made her feel at home in the crowded place where life +carried itself off darkly, with a blow and an oath. The habitual +silence of her father and the mystery concerning the unhappy married +life of her father and mother, that had affected the attitude toward +her of the people of the town, had made her own life a lonely one and +had encouraged in her a rather dogged determination to in some way +think her own way through the things of life she could not understand. + +And back of Mary's thinking there was an intense curiosity and a +courageous determination toward adventure. She was like a little animal +of the forest that has been robbed of its mother by the gun of a +sportsman and has been driven by hunger to go forth and seek food. +Twenty times during the year she had walked alone at evening in the new +and fast growing factory district of her town. She was eighteen and had +begun to look like a woman, and she felt that other girls of the town +of her own age would not have dared to walk in such a place alone. The +feeling made her somewhat proud and as she went along she looked boldly +about. + +Among the workers in Wilmott Street, men and women who had been brought +to town by the furniture manufacturer, were many who spoke in foreign +tongues. Mary walked among them and liked the sound of the strange +voices. To be in the street made her feel that she had gone out of her +town and on a voyage into a strange land. In Lower Main Street or in +the residence streets in the eastern part of town where lived the young +men and women she had always known and where lived also the merchants, +the clerks, the lawyers and the more well-to-do American workmen of +Huntersburg, she felt always a secret antagonism to herself. The +antagonism was not due to anything in her own character. She was sure +of that. She had kept so much to herself that she was in fact but +little known. "It is because I am the daughter of my mother," she told +herself and did not walk often in the part of town where other girls of +her class lived. + +Mary had been so often in Wilmott Street that many of the people had +begun to feel acquainted with her. "She is the daughter of some farmer +and has got into the habit of walking into town," they said. A red- +haired, broad-hipped woman who came out at the front door of one of the +houses nodded to her. On a narrow strip of grass beside another house +sat a young man with his back against a tree. He was smoking a pipe, +but when he looked up and saw her he took the pipe from his mouth. She +decided he must be an Italian, his hair and eyes were so black. "Ne +bella! si fai un onore a passare di qua," he called waving his hand and +smiling. + +Mary went to the end of Wilmott Street and came out upon a country +road. It seemed to her that a long time must have passed since she left +her father's presence although the walk had in fact occupied but a few +minutes. By the side of the road and on top of a small hill there was a +ruined barn, and before the barn a great hole filled with the charred +timbers of what had once been a farmhouse. A pile of stones lay beside +the hole and these were covered with creeping vines. Between the site +of the house and the barn there was an old orchard in which grew a mass +of tangled weeds. + +Pushing her way in among the weeds, many of which were covered with +blossoms, Mary found herself a seat on a rock that had been rolled +against the trunk of an old apple tree. The weeds half concealed her +and from the road only her head was visible. Buried away thus in the +weeds she looked like a quail that runs in the tall grass and that on +hearing some unusual sound, stops, throws up its head and looks sharply +about. + +The doctor's daughter had been to the decayed old orchard many times +before. At the foot of the hill on which it stood the streets of the +town began, and as she sat on the rock she could hear faint shouts and +cries coming out of Wilmott Street. A hedge separated the orchard from +the fields on the hillside. Mary intended to sit by the tree until +darkness came creeping over the land and to try to think out some plan +regarding her future. The notion that her father was soon to die seemed +both true and untrue, but her mind was unable to take hold of the +thought of him as physically dead. For the moment death in relation to +her father did not take the form of a cold inanimate body that was to +be buried in the ground, instead it seemed to her that her father was +not to die but to go away somewhere on a journey. Long ago her mother +had done that. There was a strange hesitating sense of relief in the +thought. "Well," she told herself, "when the time comes I also shall be +setting out, I shall get out of here and into the world." On several +occasions Mary had gone to spend a day with her father in Chicago and +she was fascinated by the thought that soon she might be going there to +live. Before her mind's eye floated a vision of long streets filled +with thousands of people all strangers to herself. To go into such +streets and to live her life among strangers would be like coming out +of a waterless desert and into a cool forest carpeted with tender young +grass. + +In Huntersburg she had always lived under a cloud and now she was +becoming a woman and the close stuffy atmosphere she had always +breathed was becoming constantly more and more oppressive. It was true +no direct question had ever been raised touching her own standing in +the community life, but she felt that a kind of prejudice against her +existed. While she was still a baby there had been a scandal involving +her father and mother. The town of Huntersburg had rocked with it and +when she was a child people had sometimes looked at her with mocking +sympathetic eyes. "Poor child! It's too bad," they said. Once, on a +cloudy summer evening when her father had driven off to the country and +she sat alone in the darkness by his office window, she heard a man and +woman in the street mention her name. The couple stumbled along in the +darkness on the sidewalk below the office window. "That daughter of Doc +Cochran's is a nice girl," said the man. The woman laughed. "She's +growing up and attracting men's attention now. Better keep your eyes in +your head. She'll turn out bad. Like mother, like daughter," the woman +replied. + +For ten or fifteen minutes Mary sat on the stone beneath the tree in +the orchard and thought of the attitude of the town toward herself and +her father. "It should have drawn us together," she told herself, and +wondered if the approach of death would do what the cloud that had for +years hung over them had not done. It did not at the moment seem to her +cruel that the figure of death was soon to visit her father. In a way +Death had become for her and for the time a lovely and gracious figure +intent upon good. The hand of death was to open the door out of her +father's house and into life. With the cruelty of youth she thought +first of the adventurous possibilities of the new life. + +Mary sat very still. In the long weeds the insects that had been +disturbed in their evening song began to sing again. A robin flew into +the tree beneath which she sat and struck a clear sharp note of alarm. +The voices of people in the town's new factory district came softly up +the hillside. They were like bells of distant cathedrals calling people +to worship. Something within the girl's breast seemed to break and +putting her head into her hands she rocked slowly back and forth. Tears +came accompanied by a warm tender impulse toward the living men and +women of Huntersburg. + +And then from the road came a call. "Hello there kid," shouted a voice, +and Mary sprang quickly to her feet. Her mellow mood passed like a puff +of wind and in its place hot anger came. + +In the road stood Duke Yetter who from his loafing place before the +livery barn had seen her set out for the Sunday evening walk and had +followed. When she went through Upper Main Street and into the new +factory district he was sure of his conquest. "She doesn't want to be +seen walking with me," he had told himself, "that's all right. She +knows well enough I'll follow but doesn't want me to put in an +appearance until she is well out of sight of her friends. She's a +little stuck up and needs to be brought down a peg, but what do I care? +She's gone out of her way to give me this chance and maybe she's only +afraid of her dad." + +Duke climbed the little incline out of the road and came into the +orchard, but when he reached the pile of stones covered by vines he +stumbled and fell. He arose and laughed. Mary had not waited for him to +reach her but had started toward him, and when his laugh broke the +silence that lay over the orchard she sprang forward and with her open +hand struck him a sharp blow on the cheek. Then she turned and as he +stood with his feet tangled in the vines ran out to the road. "If you +follow or speak to me I'll get someone to kill you," she shouted. + +Mary walked along the road and down the hill toward Wilmott Street. +Broken bits of the story concerning her mother that had for years +circulated in town had reached her ears. Her mother, it was said, had +disappeared on a summer night long ago and a young town rough, who had +been in the habit of loitering before Barney Smithfield's Livery Barn, +had gone away with her. Now another young rough was trying to make up +to her. The thought made her furious. + +Her mind groped about striving to lay hold of some weapon with which +she could strike a more telling blow at Duke Yetter. In desperation it +lit upon the figure of her father already broken in health and now +about to die. "My father just wants the chance to kill some such fellow +as you," she shouted, turning to face the young man, who having got +clear of the mass of vines in the orchard, had followed her into the +road. "My father just wants to kill someone because of the lies that +have been told in this town about mother." + +Having given way to the impulse to threaten Duke Yetter Mary was +instantly ashamed of her outburst and walked rapidly along, the tears +running from her eyes. With hanging head Duke walked at her heels. "I +didn't mean no harm, Miss Cochran," he pleaded. "I didn't mean no harm. +Don't tell your father. I was only funning with you. I tell you I +didn't mean no harm." + + * * * * * + +The light of the summer evening had begun to fall and the faces of the +people made soft little ovals of light as they stood grouped under the +dark porches or by the fences in Wilmott Street. The voices of the +children had become subdued and they also stood in groups. They became +silent as Mary passed and stood with upturned faces and staring eyes. +"The lady doesn't live very far. She must be almost a neighbor," she +heard a woman's voice saying in English. When she turned her head she +saw only a crowd of dark-skinned men standing before a house. From +within the house came the sound of a woman's voice singing a child to +sleep. + +The young Italian, who had called to her earlier in the evening and who +was now apparently setting out of his own Sunday evening's adventures, +came along the sidewalk and walked quickly away into the darkness. He +had dressed himself in his Sunday clothes and had put on a black derby +hat and a stiff white collar, set off by a red necktie. The shining +whiteness of the collar made his brown skin look almost black. He +smiled boyishly and raised his hat awkwardly but did not speak. + +Mary kept looking back along the street to be sure Duke Yetter had not +followed but in the dim light could see nothing of him. Her angry +excited mood went away. + +She did not want to go home and decided it was too late to go to +church. From Upper Main Street there was a short street that ran +eastward and fell rather sharply down a hillside to a creek and a +bridge that marked the end of the town's growth in that direction. She +went down along the street to the bridge and stood in the failing light +watching two boys who were fishing in the creek. + +A broad-shouldered man dressed in rough clothes came down along the +street and stopping on the bridge spoke to her. It was the first time +she had ever heard a citizen of her home town speak with feeling of her +father. "You are Doctor Cochran's daughter?" he asked hesitatingly. "I +guess you don't know who I am but your father does." He pointed toward +the two boys who sat with fishpoles in their hands on the weed-grown +bank of the creek. "Those are my boys and I have four other children," +he explained. "There is another boy and I have three girls. One of my +daughters has a job in a store. She is as old as yourself." The man +explained his relations with Doctor Cochran. He had been a farm +laborer, he said, and had but recently moved to town to work in the +furniture factory. During the previous winter he had been ill for a +long time and had no money. While he lay in bed one of his boys fell +out of a barn loft and there was a terrible cut in his head. + +"Your father came every day to see us and he sewed up my Tom's head." +The laborer turned away from Mary and stood with his cap in his hand +looking toward the boys. "I was down and out and your father not only +took care of me and the boys but he gave my old woman money to buy the +things we had to have from the stores in town here, groceries and +medicines." The man spoke in such low tones that Mary had to lean +forward to hear his words. Her face almost touched the laborer's +shoulder. "Your father is a good man and I don't think he is very +happy," he went on. "The boy and I got well and I got work here in town +but he wouldn't take any money from me. 'You know how to live with your +children and with your wife. You know how to make them happy. Keep your +money and spend it on them,' that's what he said to me." + +The laborer went on across the bridge and along the creek bank toward +the spot where his two sons sat fishing and Mary leaned on the railing +of the bridge and looked at the slow moving water. It was almost black +in the shadows under the bridge and she thought that it was thus her +father's life had been lived. "It has been like a stream running always +in shadows and never coming out into the sunlight," she thought, and +fear that her own life would run on in darkness gripped her. A great +new love for her father swept over her and in fancy she felt his arms +about her. As a child she had continually dreamed of caresses received +at her father's hands and now the dream came back. For a long time she +stood looking at the stream and she resolved that the night should not +pass without an effort on her part to make the old dream come true. +When she again looked up the laborer had built a little fire of sticks +at the edge of the stream. "We catch bullheads here," he called. "The +light of the fire draws them close to the shore. If you want to come +and try your hand at fishing the boys will lend you one of the poles." + +"O, I thank you, I won't do it tonight," Mary said, and then fearing +she might suddenly begin weeping and that if the man spoke to her again +she would find herself unable to answer, she hurried away. "Good bye!" +shouted the man and the two boys. The words came quite spontaneously +out of the three throats and created a sharp trumpet-like effect that +rang like a glad cry across the heaviness of her mood. + + * * * * * + +When his daughter Mary went out for her evening walk Doctor Cochran sat +for an hour alone in his office. It began to grow dark and the men who +all afternoon had been sitting on chairs and boxes before the livery +barn across the street went home for the evening meal. The noise of +voices grew faint and sometimes for five or ten minutes there was +silence. Then from some distant street came a child's cry. Presently +church bells began to ring. + +The Doctor was not a very neat man and sometimes for several days he +forgot to shave. With a long lean hand he stroked his half grown beard. +His illness had struck deeper than he had admitted even to himself and +his mind had an inclination to float out of his body. Often when he sat +thus his hands lay in his lap and he looked at them with a child's +absorption. It seemed to him they must belong to someone else. He grew +philosophic. "It's an odd thing about my body. Here I've lived in it +all these years and how little use I have had of it. Now it's going to +die and decay never having been used. I wonder why it did not get +another tenant." He smiled sadly over this fancy but went on with it. +"Well I've had thoughts enough concerning people and I've had the use +of these lips and a tongue but I've let them lie idle. When my Ellen +was here living with me I let her think me cold and unfeeling while +something within me was straining and straining trying to tear itself +loose." + +He remembered how often, as a young man, he had sat in the evening in +silence beside his wife in this same office and how his hands had ached +to reach across the narrow space that separated them and touch her +hands, her face, her hair. + +Well, everyone in town had predicted his marriage would turn out badly! +His wife had been an actress with a company that came to Huntersburg +and got stranded there. At the same time the girl became ill and had no +money to pay for her room at the hotel. The young doctor had attended +to that and when the girl was convalescent took her to ride about the +country in his buggy. Her life had been a hard one and the notion of +leading a quiet existence in the little town appealed to her. + +And then after the marriage and after the child was born she had +suddenly found herself unable to go on living with the silent cold man. +There had been a story of her having run away with a young sport, the +son of a saloon keeper who had disappeared from town at the same time, +but the story was untrue. Lester Cochran had himself taken her to +Chicago where she got work with a company going into the far western +states. Then he had taken her to the door of her hotel, had put money +into her hands and in silence and without even a farewell kiss had +turned and walked away. + +The Doctor sat in his office living over that moment and other intense +moments when he had been deeply stirred and had been on the surface so +cool and quiet. He wondered if the woman had known. How many times he +had asked himself that question. After he left her that night at the +hotel door she never wrote. "Perhaps she is dead," he thought for the +thousandth time. + +A thing happened that had been happening at odd moments for more than a +year. In Doctor Cochran's mind the remembered figure of his wife became +confused with the figure of his daughter. When at such moments he tried +to separate the two figures, to make them stand out distinct from each +other, he was unsuccessful. Turning his head slightly he imagined he +saw a white girlish figure coming through a door out of the rooms in +which he and his daughter lived. The door was painted white and swung +slowly in a light breeze that came in at an open window. The wind ran +softly and quietly through the room and played over some papers lying +on a desk in a corner. There was a soft swishing sound as of a woman's +skirts. The doctor arose and stood trembling. "Which is it? Is it you +Mary or is it Ellen?" he asked huskily. + +On the stairway leading up from the street there was the sound of heavy +feet and the outer door opened. The doctor's weak heart fluttered and +he dropped heavily back into his chair. + +A man came into the room. He was a farmer, one of the doctor's +patients, and coming to the centre of the room he struck a match, held +it above his head and shouted. "Hello!" he called. When the doctor +arose from his chair and answered he was so startled that the match +fell from his hand and lay burning faintly at his feet. + +The young farmer had sturdy legs that were like two pillars of stone +supporting a heavy building, and the little flame of the match that +burned and fluttered in the light breeze on the floor between his feet +threw dancing shadows along the walls of the room. The doctor's +confused mind refused to clear itself of his fancies that now began to +feed upon this new situation. + +He forgot the presence of the farmer and his mind raced back over his +life as a married man. The flickering light on the wall recalled +another dancing light. One afternoon in the summer during the first +year after his marriage his wife Ellen had driven with him into the +country. They were then furnishing their rooms and at a farmer's house +Ellen had seen an old mirror, no longer in use, standing against a wall +in a shed. Because of something quaint in the design the mirror had +taken her fancy and the farmer's wife had given it to her. On the drive +home the young wife had told her husband of her pregnancy and the +doctor had been stirred as never before. He sat holding the mirror on +his knees while his wife drove and when she announced the coming of the +child she looked away across the fields. + +How deeply etched, that scene in the sick man's mind! The sun was going +down over young corn and oat fields beside the road. The prairie land +was black and occasionally the road ran through short lanes of trees +that also looked black in the waning light. + +The mirror on his knees caught the rays of the departing sun and sent a +great ball of golden light dancing across the fields and among the +branches of trees. Now as he stood in the presence of the farmer and as +the little light from the burning match on the floor recalled that +other evening of dancing lights, he thought he understood the failure +of his marriage and of his life. On that evening long ago when Ellen +had told him of the coming of the great adventure of their marriage he +had remained silent because he had thought no words he could utter +would express what he felt. There had been a defense for himself built +up. "I told myself she should have understood without words and I've +all my life been telling myself the same thing about Mary. I've been a +fool and a coward. I've always been silent because I've been afraid of +expressing myself--like a blundering fool. I've been a proud man and a +coward. + +"Tonight I'll do it. If it kills me I'll make myself talk to the girl," +he said aloud, his mind coming back to the figure of his daughter. + +"Hey! What's that?" asked the farmer who stood with his hat in his hand +waiting to tell of his mission. + +The doctor got his horse from Barney Smithfield's livery and drove off +to the country to attend the farmer's wife who was about to give birth +to her first child. She was a slender narrow-hipped woman and the child +was large, but the doctor was feverishly strong. He worked desperately +and the woman, who was frightened, groaned and struggled. Her husband +kept coming in and going out of the room and two neighbor women +appeared and stood silently about waiting to be of service. It was past +ten o'clock when everything was done and the doctor was ready to depart +for town. + +The farmer hitched his horse and brought it to the door and the doctor +drove off feeling strangely weak and at the same time strong. How +simple now seemed the thing he had yet to do. Perhaps when he got home +his daughter would have gone to bed but he would ask her to get up and +come into the office. Then he would tell the whole story of his +marriage and its failure sparing himself no humiliation. "There was +something very dear and beautiful in my Ellen and I must make Mary +understand that. It will help her to be a beautiful woman," he thought, +full of confidence in the strength of his resolution. + +He got to the door of the livery barn at eleven o'clock and Barney +Smithfield with young Duke Yetter and two other men sat talking there. +The liveryman took his horse away into the darkness of the barn and the +doctor stood for a moment leaning against the wall of the building. The +town's night watchman stood with the group by the barn door and a +quarrel broke out between him and Duke Yetter, but the doctor did not +hear the hot words that flew back and forth or Duke's loud laughter at +the night watchman's anger. A queer hesitating mood had taken +possession of him. + +There was something he passionately desired to do but could not +remember. Did it have to do with his wife Ellen or Mary his daughter? +The figures of the two women were again confused in his mind and to add +to the confusion there was a third figure, that of the woman he had +just assisted through child birth. Everything was confusion. He started +across the street toward the entrance of the stairway leading to his +office and then stopped in the road and stared about. Barney Smithfield +having returned from putting his horse in the stall shut the door of +the barn and a hanging lantern over the door swung back and forth. It +threw grotesque dancing shadows down over the faces and forms of the +men standing and quarreling beside the wall of the barn. + + * * * * * + +Mary sat by a window in the doctor's office awaiting his return. So +absorbed was she in her own thoughts that she was unconscious of the +voice of Duke Yetter talking with the men in the street. + +When Duke had come into the street the hot anger of the early part of +the evening had returned and she again saw him advancing toward her in +the orchard with the look of arrogant male confidence in his eyes but +presently she forgot him and thought only of her father. An incident of +her childhood returned to haunt her. One afternoon in the month of May +when she was fifteen her father had asked her to accompany him on an +evening drive into the country. The doctor went to visit a sick woman +at a farmhouse five miles from town and as there had been a great deal +of rain the roads were heavy. It was dark when they reached the +farmer's house and they went into the kitchen and ate cold food off a +kitchen table. For some reason her father had, on that evening, +appeared boyish and almost gay. On the road he had talked a little. +Even at that early age Mary had grown tall and her figure was becoming +womanly. After the cold supper in the farm kitchen he walked with her +around the house and she sat on a narrow porch. For a moment her father +stood before her. He put his hands into his trouser pockets and +throwing back his head laughed almost heartily. "It seems strange to +think you will soon be a woman," he said. "When you do become a woman +what do you suppose is going to happen, eh? What kind of a life will +you lead? What will happen to you?" + +The doctor sat on the porch beside the child and for a moment she had +thought he was about to put his arm around her. Then he jumped up and +went into the house leaving her to sit alone in the darkness. + +As she remembered the incident Mary remembered also that on that +evening of her childhood she had met her father's advances in silence. +It seemed to her that she, not her father, was to blame for the life +they had led together. The farm laborer she had met on the bridge had +not felt her father's coldness. That was because he had himself been +warm and generous in his attitude toward the man who had cared for him +in his hour of sickness and misfortune. Her father had said that the +laborer knew how to be a father and Mary remembered with what warmth +the two boys fishing by the creek had called to her as she went away +into the darkness. "Their father has known how to be a father because +his children have known how to give themselves," she thought guiltily. +She also would give herself. Before the night had passed she would do +that. On that evening long ago and as she rode home beside her father +he had made another unsuccessful effort to break through the wall that +separated them. The heavy rains had swollen the streams they had to +cross and when they had almost reached town he had stopped the horse on +a wooden bridge. The horse danced nervously about and her father held +the reins firmly and occasionally spoke to him. Beneath the bridge the +swollen stream made a great roaring sound and beside the road in a long +flat field there was a lake of flood water. At that moment the moon had +come out from behind clouds and the wind that blew across the water +made little waves. The lake of flood water was covered with dancing +lights. "I'm going to tell you about your mother and myself," her +father said huskily, but at that moment the timbers of the bridge began +to crack dangerously and the horse plunged forward. When her father had +regained control of the frightened beast they were in the streets of +the town and his diffident silent nature had reasserted itself. + +Mary sat in the darkness by the office window and saw her father drive +into the street. When his horse had been put away he did not, as was +his custom, come at once up the stairway to the office but lingered in +the darkness before the barn door. Once he started to cross the street +and then returned into the darkness. + +Among the men who for two hours had been sitting and talking quietly a +quarrel broke out. Jack Fisher the town nightwatchman had been telling +the others the story of a battle in which he had fought during the +Civil War and Duke Yetter had begun bantering him. The nightwatchman +grew angry. Grasping his nightstick he limped up and down. The loud +voice of Duke Yetter cut across the shrill angry voice of the victim of +his wit. "You ought to a flanked the fellow, I tell you Jack. Yes sir +'ee, you ought to a flanked that reb and then when you got him flanked +you ought to a knocked the stuffings out of the cuss. That's what I +would a done," Duke shouted, laughing boisterously. "You would a raised +hell, you would," the night watchman answered, filled with ineffectual +wrath. + +The old soldier went off along the street followed by the laughter of +Duke and his companions and Barney Smithfield, having put the doctor's +horse away, came out and closed the barn door. A lantern hanging above +the door swung back and forth. Doctor Cochran again started across the +street and when he had reached the foot of the stairway turned and +shouted to the men. "Good night," he called cheerfully. A strand of +hair was blown by the light summer breeze across Mary's cheek and she +jumped to her feet as though she had been touched by a hand reached out +to her from the darkness. A hundred times she had seen her father +return from drives in the evening but never before had he said anything +at all to the loiterers by the barn door. She became half convinced +that not her father but some other man was now coming up the stairway. + +The heavy dragging footsteps rang loudly on the wooden stairs and Mary +heard her father set down the little square medicine case he always +carried. The strange cheerful hearty mood of the man continued but his +mind was in a confused riot. Mary imagined she could see his dark form +in the doorway. "The woman has had a baby," said the hearty voice from +the landing outside the door. "Who did that happen to? Was it Ellen or +that other woman or my little Mary?" + +A stream of words, a protest came from the man's lips. "Who's been +having a baby? I want to know. Who's been having a baby? Life doesn't +work out. Why are babies always being born?" he asked. + +A laugh broke from the doctor's lips and his daughter leaned forward +and gripped the arms of her chair. "A babe has been born," he said +again. "It's strange eh, that my hands should have helped a baby be +born while all the time death stood at my elbow?" + +Doctor Cochran stamped upon the floor of the landing. "My feet are cold +and numb from waiting for life to come out of life," he said heavily. +"The woman struggled and now I must struggle." + +Silence followed the stamping of feet and the tired heavy declaration +from the sick man's lips. From the street below came another loud shout +of laughter from Duke Yetter. + +And then Doctor Cochran fell backward down the narrow stairs to the +street. There was no cry from him, just the clatter of his shoes upon +the stairs and the terrible subdued sound of the body falling. + +Mary did not move from her chair. With closed eyes she waited. Her +heart pounded. A weakness complete and overmastering had possession of +her and from feet to head ran little waves of feeling as though tiny +creatures with soft hair-like feet were playing upon her body. + +It was Duke Yetter who carried the dead man up the stairs and laid him +on a bed in one of the rooms back of the office. One of the men who had +been sitting with him before the door of the barn followed lifting his +hands and dropping them nervously. Between his fingers he held a +forgotten cigarette the light from which danced up and down in the +darkness. + + + + + SENILITY + + +He was an old man and he sat on the steps of the railroad station in a +small Kentucky town. + +A well dressed man, some traveler from the city, approached and stood +before him. + +The old man became self-conscious. + +His smile was like the smile of a very young child. His face was all +sunken and wrinkled and he had a huge nose. + +"Have you any coughs, colds, consumption or bleeding sickness?" he +asked. In his voice there was a pleading quality. + +The stranger shook his head. The old man arose. + +"The sickness that bleeds is a terrible nuisance," he said. His tongue +protruded from between his teeth and he rattled it about. He put his +hand on the stranger's arm and laughed. + +"Bully, pretty," he exclaimed. "I cure them all--coughs, colds, +consumption and the sickness that bleeds. I take warts from the hand--I +cannot explain how I do it--it is a mystery--I charge nothing--my name +is Tom--do you like me?" + +The stranger was cordial. He nodded his head. The old man became +reminiscent. "My father was a hard man," he declared. "He was like me, +a blacksmith by trade, but he wore a plug hat. When the corn was high +he said to the poor, 'go into the fields and pick' but when the war +came he made a rich man pay five dollars for a bushel of corn." + +"I married against his will. He came to me and he said, 'Tom I do not +like that girl.'" + +"'But I love her,' I said. + +"'I don't,' he said. + +"My father and I sat on a log. He was a pretty man and wore a plug hat. +'I will get the license,' I said. + +"'I will give you no money,' he said. + +"My marriage cost me twenty-one dollars--I worked in the corn--it +rained and the horses were blind--the clerk said, 'Are you over twenty- +one?' I said 'yes' and she said 'yes.' We had chalked it on our shoes. +My father said, 'I give you your freedom.' We had no money. My marriage +cost twenty-one dollars. She is dead." + +The old man looked at the sky. It was evening and the sun had set. The +sky was all mottled with grey clouds. "I paint beautiful pictures and +give them away," he declared. "My brother is in the penitentiary. He +killed a man who called him an ugly name." + +The decrepit old man held his hands before the face of the stranger. He +opened and shut them. They were black with grime. "I pick out warts," +he explained plaintively. "They are as soft as your hands." + +"I play on an accordion. You are thirty-seven years old. I sat beside +my brother in the penitentiary. He is a pretty man with pompadour hair. +'Albert' I said, 'are you sorry you killed a man?' 'No,' he said, 'I am +not sorry. I would kill ten, a hundred, a thousand!'" + +The old man began to weep and to wipe his hands with a soiled +handkerchief. He attempted to take a chew of tobacco and his false +teeth became displaced. He covered his mouth with his hands and was +ashamed. + +"I am old. You are thirty-seven years old but I am older than that," he +whispered. + +"My brother is a bad man--he is full of hate--he is pretty and has +pompadour hair, but he would kill and kill. I hate old age--I am +ashamed that I am old. + +"I have a pretty new wife. I wrote her four letters and she replied. +She came here and we married--I love to see her walk--O, I buy her +pretty clothes. + +"Her foot is not straight--it is twisted--my first wife is dead--I pick +warts off the hand with my fingers and no blood comes--I cure coughs, +colds, consumption and the sickness that bleeds--people can write to me +and I answer the letters--if they send me no money it is no matter--all +is free." + +Again the old man wept and the stranger tried to comfort him. "You are +a happy man?" the stranger asked. + +"Yes," said the old man, "and a good man too. Ask everywhere about me-- +my name is Tom, a blacksmith--my wife walks prettily although she has a +twisted foot--I have bought her a long dress--she is thirty and I am +seventy-five--she has many pairs of shoes--I have bought them for her, +but her foot is twisted--I buy straight shoes-- + +"She thinks I do not know--everybody thinks Tom does not know--I have +bought her a long dress that comes down to the ground--my name is Tom, +a blacksmith--I am seventy-five and I hate old age--I take warts off +the hands and no blood comes--people may write to me and I answer the +letters--all is free." + + + + + THE MAN IN THE BROWN COAT + + + Napoleon went down into a battle riding on a horse. + Alexander went down into a battle riding on a horse. + General Grant got off a horse and walked in a wood. + General Hindenburg stood on a hill. + The moon came up out of a clump of bushes. + + * * * * * + +I am writing a history of the things men do. I have written three such +histories and I am but a young man. Already I have written three +hundred, four hundred thousand words. + +My wife is somewhere in this house where for hours now I have been +sitting and writing. She is a tall woman with black hair, turning a +little grey. Listen, she is going softly up a flight of stairs. All day +she goes softly about, doing the housework in our house. + +I came here to this town from another town in the state of Iowa. My +father was a workman, a house painter. He did not rise in the world as +I have done. I worked my way through college and became an historian. +We own this house in which I sit. This is my room in which I work. +Already I have written three histories of peoples. I have told how +states were formed and battles fought. You may see my books standing +straight up on the shelves of libraries. They stand up like sentries. + +I am tall like my wife and my shoulders are a little stooped. Although +I write boldly I am a shy man. I like being at work alone in this room +with the door closed. There are many books here. Nations march back and +forth in the books. It is quiet here but in the books a great +thundering goes on. + + * * * * * + + Napoleon rides down a hill and into a battle. + General Grant walks in a wood. + Alexander rides down a hill and into a battle. + + * * * * * + +My wife has a serious, almost stern look. Sometimes the thoughts I have +concerning her frighten me. In the afternoon she leaves our house and +goes for a walk. Sometimes she goes to stores, sometimes to visit a +neighbor. There is a yellow house opposite our house. My wife goes out +at a side door and passes along the street between our house and the +yellow house. + +The side door of our house bangs. There is a moment of waiting. My +wife's face floats across the yellow background of a picture. + + * * * * * + + General Pershing rode down a hill and into a battle. + Alexander rode down a hill and into a battle. + + * * * * * + +Little things are growing big in my mind. The window before my desk +makes a little framed place like a picture. Every day I sit staring. I +wait with an odd sensation of something impending. My hand trembles. +The face that floats through the picture does something I don't +understand. The face floats, then it stops. It goes from the right hand +side to the left hand side, then it stops. + +The face comes into my mind and goes out--the face floats in my mind. +The pen has fallen from my fingers. The house is silent. The eyes of +the floating face are turned away from me. + +My wife is a girl who came here to this town from another town in the +state of Ohio. We keep a servant but my wife often sweeps the floors +and she sometimes makes the bed in which we sleep together. We sit +together in the evening but I do not know her. I cannot shake myself +out of myself. I wear a brown coat and I cannot come out of my coat. I +cannot come out of myself. My wife is very gentle and she speaks softly +but she cannot come out of herself. + +My wife has gone out of the house. She does not know that I know every +little thought of her life. I know what she thought when she was a +child and walked in the streets of an Ohio town. I have heard the +voices of her mind. I have heard the little voices. I heard the voice +of fear crying when she was first overtaken with passion and crawled +into my arms. Again I heard the voices of fear when her lips said words +of courage to me as we sat together on the first evening after we were +married and moved into this house. + +It would be strange if I could sit here, as I am doing now, while my +own face floated across the picture made by the yellow house and the +window. It would be strange and beautiful if I could meet my wife, come +into her presence. + +The woman whose face floated across my picture just now knows nothing +of me. I know nothing of her. She has gone off, along a street. The +voices of her mind are talking. I am here in this room, as alone as +ever any man God made. + +It would be strange and beautiful if I could float my face across my +picture. If my floating face could come into her presence, if it could +come into the presence of any man or any woman--that would be a strange +and beautiful thing to have happen. + + * * * * * + + Napoleon went down into a battle riding on a horse. + General Grant went into a wood. + Alexander went down into a battle riding on a horse. + + * * * * * + +I'll tell you what--sometimes the whole life of this world floats in a +human face in my mind. The unconscious face of the world stops and +stands still before me. + +Why do I not say a word out of myself to the others? Why, in all our +life together, have I never been able to break through the wall to my +wife? + +Already I have written three hundred, four hundred thousand words. Are +there no words that lead into life? Some day I shall speak to myself. +Some day I shall make a testament unto myself. + + + + + BROTHERS + + +I am at my house in the country and it is late October. It rains. Back +of my house is a forest and in front there is a road and beyond that +open fields. The country is one of low hills, flattening suddenly into +plains. Some twenty miles away, across the flat country, lies the huge +city Chicago. + +On this rainy day the leaves of the trees that line the road before my +window are falling like rain, the yellow, red and golden leaves fall +straight down heavily. The rain beats them brutally down. They are +denied a last golden flash across the sky. In October leaves should be +carried away, out over the plains, in a wind. They should go dancing +away. + +Yesterday morning I arose at daybreak and went for a walk. There was a +heavy fog and I lost myself in it. I went down into the plains and +returned to the hills, and everywhere the fog was as a wall before me. +Out of it trees sprang suddenly, grotesquely, as in a city street late +at night people come suddenly out of the darkness into the circle of +light under a street lamp. Above there was the light of day forcing +itself slowly into the fog. The fog moved slowly. The tops of trees +moved slowly. Under the trees the fog was dense, purple. It was like +smoke lying in the streets of a factory town. + +An old man came up to me in the fog. I know him well. The people here +call him insane. "He is a little cracked," they say. He lives alone in +a little house buried deep in the forest and has a small dog he carries +always in his arms. On many mornings I have met him walking on the road +and he has told me of men and women who are his brothers and sisters, +his cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers-in-law. It is confusing. He cannot +draw close to people near at hand so he gets hold of a name out of a +newspaper and his mind plays with it. On one morning he told me he was +a cousin to the man named Cox who at the time when I write is a +candidate for the presidency. On another morning he told me that Caruso +the singer had married a woman who was his sister-in-law. "She is my +wife's sister," he said, holding the little dog close. His grey watery +eyes looked appealing up to me. He wanted me to believe. "My wife was a +sweet slim girl," he declared. "We lived together in a big house and in +the morning walked about arm in arm. Now her sister has married Caruso +the singer. He is of my family now." + +As someone had told me the old man had never married, I went away +wondering. One morning in early September I came upon him sitting under +a tree beside a path near his house. The dog barked at me and then ran +and crept into his arms. At that time the Chicago newspapers were +filled with the story of a millionaire who had got into trouble with +his wife because of an intimacy with an actress. The old man told me +that the actress was his sister. He is sixty years old and the actress +whose story appeared in the newspapers is twenty but he spoke of their +childhood together. "You would not realize it to see us now but we were +poor then," he said. "It's true. We lived in a little house on the side +of a hill. Once when there was a storm, the wind nearly swept our house +away. How the wind blew! Our father was a carpenter and he built strong +houses for other people but our own house he did not build very +strong!" He shook his head sorrowfully. "My sister the actress has got +into trouble. Our house is not built very strongly," he said as I went +away along the path. + + * * * * * + +For a month, two months, the Chicago newspapers, that are delivered +every morning in our village, have been filled with the story of a +murder. A man there has murdered his wife and there seems no reason for +the deed. The tale runs something like this-- + +The man, who is now on trial in the courts and will no doubt be hanged, +worked in a bicycle factory where he was a foreman and lived with his +wife and his wife's mother in an apartment in Thirty-second Street. He +loved a girl who worked in the office of the factory where he was +employed. She came from a town in Iowa and when she first came to the +city lived with her aunt who has since died. To the foreman, a heavy +stolid looking man with grey eyes, she seemed the most beautiful woman +in the world. Her desk was by a window at an angle of the factory, a +sort of wing of the building, and the foreman, down in the shop had a +desk by another window. He sat at his desk making out sheets containing +the record of the work done by each man in his department. When he +looked up he could see the girl sitting at work at her desk. The notion +got into his head that she was peculiarly lovely. He did not think of +trying to draw close to her or of winning her love. He looked at her as +one might look at a star or across a country of low hills in October +when the leaves of the trees are all red and yellow gold. "She is a +pure, virginal thing," he thought vaguely. "What can she be thinking +about as she sits there by the window at work." + +In fancy the foreman took the girl from Iowa home with him to his +apartment in Thirty-second Street and into the presence of his wife and +his mother-in-law. All day in the shop and during the evening at home +he carried her figure about with him in his mind. As he stood by a +window in his apartment and looked out toward the Illinois Central +railroad tracks and beyond the tracks to the lake, the girl was there +beside him. Down below women walked in the street and in every woman he +saw there was something of the Iowa girl. One woman walked as she did, +another made a gesture with her hand that reminded of her. All the +women he saw except his wife and his mother-in-law were like the girl +he had taken inside himself. + +The two women in his own house puzzled and confused him. They became +suddenly unlovely and commonplace. His wife in particular was like some +strange unlovely growth that had attached itself to his body. + +In the evening after the day at the factory he went home to his own +place and had dinner. He had always been a silent man and when he did +not talk no one minded. After dinner he with his wife went to a picture +show. There were two children and his wife expected another. They came +into the apartment and sat down. The climb up two flights of stairs had +wearied his wife. She sat in a chair beside her mother groaning with +weariness. + +The mother-in-law was the soul of goodness. She took the place of a +servant in the home and got no pay. When her daughter wanted to go to a +picture show she waved her hand and smiled. "Go on," she said. "I don't +want to go. I'd rather sit here." She got a book and sat reading. The +little boy of nine awoke and cried. He wanted to sit on the po-po. The +mother-in-law attended to that. + +After the man and his wife came home the three people sat in silence +for an hour or two before bed time. The man pretended to read a +newspaper. He looked at his hands. Although he had washed them +carefully grease from the bicycle frames left dark stains under the +nails. He thought of the Iowa girl and of her white quick hands playing +over the keys of a typewriter. He felt dirty and uncomfortable. + +The girl at the factory knew the foreman had fallen in love with her +and the thought excited her a little. Since her aunt's death she had +gone to live in a rooming house and had nothing to do in the evening. +Although the foreman meant nothing to her she could in a way use him. +To her he became a symbol. Sometimes he came into the office and stood +for a moment by the door. His large hands were covered with black +grease. She looked at him without seeing. In his place in her +imagination stood a tall slender young man. Of the foreman she saw only +the grey eyes that began to burn with a strange fire. The eyes +expressed eagerness, a humble and devout eagerness. In the presence of +a man with such eyes she felt she need not be afraid. + +She wanted a lover who would come to her with such a look in his eyes. +Occasionally, perhaps once in two weeks, she stayed a little late at +the office, pretending to have work that must be finished. Through the +window she could see the foreman waiting. When everyone had gone she +closed her desk and went into the street. At the same moment the +foreman came out at the factory door. + +They walked together along the street a half dozen blocks to where she +got aboard her car. The factory was in a place called South Chicago and +as they went along evening was coming on. The streets were lined with +small unpainted frame houses and dirty faced children ran screaming in +the dusty roadway. They crossed over a bridge. Two abandoned coal +barges lay rotting in the stream. + +He went by her side walking heavily and striving to conceal his hands. +He had scrubbed them carefully before leaving the factory but they +seemed to him like heavy dirty pieces of waste matter hanging at his +side. Their walking together happened but a few times and during one +summer. "It's hot," he said. He never spoke to her of anything but the +weather. "It's hot," he said. "I think it may rain." + +She dreamed of the lover who would some time come, a tall fair young +man, a rich man owning houses and lands. The workingman who walked +beside her had nothing to do with her conception of love. She walked +with him, stayed at the office until the others had gone to walk +unobserved with him because of his eyes, because of the eager thing in +his eyes that was at the same time humble, that bowed down to her. In +his presence there was no danger, could be no danger. He would never +attempt to approach too closely, to touch her with his hands. She was +safe with him. + +In his apartment in the evening the man sat under the electric light +with his wife and his mother-in-law. In the next room his two children +were asleep. In a short time his wife would have another child. He had +been with her to a picture show and in a short time they would get into +bed together. + +He would lie awake thinking, would hear the creaking of the springs of +a bed where, in another room, his mother-in-law was crawling between +the sheets. Life was too intimate. He would lie awake eager, expectant +--expecting, what? + +Nothing. Presently one of the children would cry. It wanted to get out +of bed and sit on the po-po. Nothing strange or unusual or lovely would +or could happen. Life was too close, intimate. Nothing that could +happen in the apartment could in any way stir him; the things his wife +might say, her occasional half-hearted outbursts of passion, the +goodness of his mother-in-law who did the work of a servant without +pay-- + +He sat in the apartment under the electric light pretending to read a +newspaper--thinking. He looked at his hands. They were large, +shapeless, a working-man's hands. + +The figure of the girl from Iowa walked about the room. With her he +went out of the apartment and walked in silence through miles of +streets. It was not necessary to say words. He walked with her by a +sea, along the crest of a mountain. The night was clear and silent and +the stars shone. She also was a star. It was not necessary to say +words. + +Her eyes were like stars and her lips were like soft hills rising out +of dim, star lit plains. "She is unattainable, she is far off like the +stars," he thought. "She is unattainable like the stars but unlike the +stars she breathes, she lives, like myself she has being." + +One evening, some six weeks ago, the man who worked as foreman in the +bicycle factory killed his wife and he is now in the courts being tried +for murder. Every day the newspapers are filled with the story. On the +evening of the murder he had taken his wife as usual to a picture show +and they started home at nine. In Thirty-second Street, at a corner +near their apartment building, the figure of a man darted suddenly out +of an alleyway and then darted back again. The incident may have put +the idea of killing his wife into the man's head. + +They got to the entrance to the apartment building and stepped into a +dark hallway. Then quite suddenly and apparently without thought the +man took a knife out of his pocket. "Suppose that man who darted into +the alleyway had intended to kill us," he thought. Opening the knife he +whirled about and struck at his wife. He struck twice, a dozen times-- +madly. There was a scream and his wife's body fell. + +The janitor had neglected to light the gas in the lower hallway. +Afterwards, the foreman, decided, that was the reason he did it, that +and the fact that the dark slinking figure of a man darted out of an +alleyway and then darted back again. "Surely," he told himself, "I +could never have done it had the gas been lighted." + +He stood in the hallway thinking. His wife was dead and with her had +died her unborn child. There was a sound of doors opening in the +apartments above. For several minutes nothing happened. His wife and +her unborn child were dead--that was all. + +He ran upstairs thinking quickly. In the darkness on the lower stairway +he had put the knife back into his pocket and, as it turned out later, +there was no blood on his hands or on his clothes. The knife he later +washed carefully in the bathroom, when the excitement had died down a +little. He told everyone the same story. "There has been a holdup," he +explained. "A man came slinking out of an alleyway and followed me and +my wife home. He followed us into the hallway of the building and there +was no light. The janitor has neglected to light the gas." Well--there +had been a struggle and in the darkness his wife had been killed. He +could not tell how it had happened. "There was no light. The janitor +has neglected to light the gas," he kept saying. + +For a day or two they did not question him specially and he had time to +get rid of the knife. He took a long walk and threw it away into the +river in South Chicago where the two abandoned coal barges lay rotting +under the bridge, the bridge he had crossed when on the summer evenings +he walked to the street car with the girl who was virginal and pure, +who was far off and unattainable, like a star and yet not like a star. + +And then he was arrested and right away he confessed--told everything. +He said he did not know why he killed his wife and was careful to say +nothing of the girl at the office. The newspapers tried to discover the +motive for the crime. They are still trying. Someone had seen him on +the few evenings when he walked with the girl and she was dragged into +the affair and had her picture printed in the papers. That has been +annoying for her as of course she has been able to prove she had +nothing to do with the man. + + * * * * * + +Yesterday morning a heavy fog lay over our village here at the edge of +the city and I went for a long walk in the early morning. As I returned +out of the lowlands into our hill country I met the old man whose +family has so many and such strange ramifications. For a time he walked +beside me holding the little dog in his arms. It was cold and the dog +whined and shivered. In the fog the old man's face was indistinct. It +moved slowly back and forth with the fog banks of the upper air and +with the tops of trees. He spoke of the man who has killed his wife and +whose name is being shouted in the pages of the city newspapers that +come to our village each morning. As he walked beside me he launched +into a long tale concerning a life he and his brother, who has now +become a murderer, once lived together. "He is my brother," he said +over and over, shaking his head. He seemed afraid I would not believe. +There was a fact that must be established. "We were boys together that +man and I," he began again. "You see we played together in a barn back +of our father's house. Our father went away to sea in a ship. That is +the way our names became confused. You understand that. We have +different names, but we are brothers. We had the same father. We played +together in a barn back of our father's house. For hours we lay +together in the hay in the barn and it was warm there." + +In the fog the slender body of the old man became like a little gnarled +tree. Then it became a thing suspended in air. It swung back and forth +like a body hanging on the gallows. The face beseeched me to believe +the story the lips were trying to tell. In my mind everything +concerning the relationship of men and women became confused, a muddle. +The spirit of the man who had killed his wife came into the body of the +little old man there by the roadside. + +It was striving to tell me the story it would never be able to tell in +the court room in the city, in the presence of the judge. The whole +story of mankind's loneliness, of the effort to reach out to +unattainable beauty tried to get itself expressed from the lips of a +mumbling old man, crazed with loneliness, who stood by the side of a +country road on a foggy morning holding a little dog in his arms. + +The arms of the old man held the dog so closely that it began to whine +with pain. A sort of convulsion shook his body. The soul seemed +striving to wrench itself out of the body, to fly away through the fog, +down across the plain to the city, to the singer, the politician, the +millionaire, the murderer, to its brothers, cousins, sisters, down in +the city. The intensity of the old man's desire was terrible and in +sympathy my body began to tremble. His arms tightened about the body of +the little dog so that it cried with pain. I stepped forward and tore +the arms away and the dog fell to the ground and lay whining. No doubt +it had been injured. Perhaps ribs had been crushed. The old man stared +at the dog lying at his feet as in the hallway of the apartment +building the worker from the bicycle factory had stared at his dead +wife. "We are brothers," he said again. "We have different names but we +are brothers. Our father you understand went off to sea." + + * * * * * + +I am sitting in my house in the country and it rains. Before my eyes +the hills fall suddenly away and there are the flat plains and beyond +the plains the city. An hour ago the old man of the house in the forest +went past my door and the little dog was not with him. It may be that +as we talked in the fog he crushed the life out of his companion. It +may be that the dog like the workman's wife and her unborn child is now +dead. The leaves of the trees that line the road before my window are +falling like rain--the yellow, red and golden leaves fall straight +down, heavily. The rain beat them brutally down. They are denied a last +golden flash across the sky. In October leaves should be carried away, +out over the plains, in a wind. They should go dancing away. + + + + + THE DOOR OF THE TRAP + + +Winifred Walker understood some things clearly enough. She understood +that when a man is put behind iron bars he is in prison. Marriage was +marriage to her. + +It was that to her husband Hugh Walker, too, as he found out. Still he +didn't understand. It might have been better had he understood, then he +might at least have found himself. He didn't. After his marriage five +or six years passed like shadows of wind blown trees playing on a wall. +He was in a drugged, silent state. In the morning and evening every day +he saw his wife. Occasionally something happened within him and he +kissed her. Three children were born. He taught mathematics in the +little college at Union Valley, Illinois, and waited. + +For what? He began to ask himself that question. It came to him at +first faintly like an echo. Then it became an insistent question. "I +want answering," the question seemed to say. "Stop fooling along. Give +your attention to me." + +Hugh walked through the streets of the Illinois town. "Well, I'm +married. I have children," he muttered. + +He went home to his own house. He did not have to live within his +income from the little college, and so the house was rather large and +comfortably furnished. There was a negro woman who took care of the +children and another who cooked and did the housework. One of the women +was in the habit of crooning low soft negro songs. Sometimes Hugh +stopped at the house door and listened. He could see through the glass +in the door into the room where his family was gathered. Two children +played with blocks on the floor. His wife sat sewing. The old negress +sat in a rocking chair with his youngest child, a baby, in her arms. +The whole room seemed under the spell of the crooning voice. Hugh fell +under the spell. He waited in silence. The voice carried him far away +somewhere, into forests, along the edges of swamps. There was nothing +very definite about his thinking. He would have given a good deal to be +able to be definite. + +He went inside the house. "Well, here I am," his mind seemed to say, +"here I am. This is my house, these are my children." + +He looked at his wife Winifred. She had grown a little plump since +their marriage. "Perhaps it is the mother in her coming out, she has +had three children," he thought. + +The crooning old negro woman went away, taking the youngest child with +her. He and Winifred held a fragmentary conversation. "Have you been +well to-day, dear?" she asked. "Yes," he answered. + +If the two older children were intent on their play his chain of +thought was not broken. His wife never broke it as the children did +when they came running to pull and tear at him. Throughout the early +evening, after the children went to bed, the surface of the shell of +him was not broken at all. A brother college professor and his wife +came in or he and Winifred went to a neighbor's house. There was talk. +Even when he and Winifred were alone together in the house there was +talk. "The shutters are becoming loose," she said. The house was an old +one and had green shutters. They were continually coming loose and at +night blew back and forth on their hinges making a loud banging noise. + +Hugh made some remark. He said he would see a carpenter about the +shutters. Then his mind began playing away, out of his wife's presence, +out of the house, in another sphere. "I am a house and my shutters are +loose," his mind said. He thought of himself as a living thing inside a +shell, trying to break out. To avoid distracting conversation he got a +book and pretended to read. When his wife had also begun to read he +watched her closely, intently. Her nose was so and so and her eyes so +and so. She had a little habit with her hands. When she became lost in +the pages of a book the hand crept up to her cheek, touched it and then +was put down again. Her hair was not in very good order. Since her +marriage and the coming of the children she had not taken good care of +her body. When she read her body slumped down in the chair. It became +bag-like. She was one whose race had been run. + +Hugh's mind played all about the figure of his wife but did not really +approach the woman who sat before him. It was so with his children. +Sometimes, just for a moment, they were living things to him, things as +alive as his own body. Then for long periods they seemed to go far away +like the crooning voice of the negress. + +It was odd that the negress was always real enough. He felt an +understanding existed between himself and the negress. She was outside +his life. He could look at her as at a tree. Sometimes in the evening +when she had been putting the children to bed in the upper part of the +house and when he sat with a book in his hand pretending to read, the +old black woman came softly through the room, going toward the kitchen. +She did not look at Winifred, but at Hugh. He thought there was a +strange, soft light in her old eyes. "I understand you, my son," her +eyes seemed to say. + +Hugh was determined to get his life cleaned up if he could manage it. +"All right, then," he said, as though speaking to a third person in the +room. He was quite sure there was a third person there and that the +third person was within himself, inside his body. He addressed the +third person. + +"Well, there is this woman, this person I married, she has the air of +something accomplished," he said, as though speaking aloud. Sometimes +it almost seemed to him he had spoken aloud and he looked quickly and +sharply at his wife. She continued reading, lost in her book. "That may +be it," he went on. "She has had these children. They are accomplished +facts to her. They came out of her body, not out of mine. Her body has +done something. Now it rests. If she is becoming a little bag-like, +that's all right." + +He got up and making some trivial excuse got out of the room and out of +the house. In his youth and young manhood the long periods of walking +straight ahead through the country, that had come upon him like +visitations of some recurring disease, had helped. Walking solved +nothing. It only tired his body, but when his body was tired he could +sleep. After many days of walking and sleeping something occurred. The +reality of life was in some queer way re-established in his mind. Some +little thing happened. A man walking in the road before him threw a +stone at a dog that ran barking out of a farm-house. It was evening +perhaps, and he walked in a country of low hills. Suddenly he came out +upon the top of one of the hills. Before him the road dipped down into +darkness but to the west, across fields, there was a farm-house. The +sun had gone down, but a faint glow lit the western horizon. A. woman +came out of the farmhouse and went toward a barn. He could not see her +figure distinctly. She seemed to be carrying something, no doubt a milk +pail; she was going to a barn to milk a cow. + +The man in the road who had thrown the stone at the farm dog had turned +and seen Hugh in the road behind him. He was a little ashamed of having +been afraid of the dog. For a moment he seemed about to wait and speak +to Hugh, and then was overcome with confusion and hurried away. He was +a middle-aged man, but quite suddenly and unexpectedly he looked like a +boy. + +As for the farm woman, dimly seen going toward a distant barn, she also +stopped and looked toward him. It was impossible she should have seen +him. She was dressed in white and he could see her but dimly against +the blackish green of the trees of an orchard behind her. Still she +stood looking and seemed to look directly into his eyes. He had a queer +sensation of her having been lifted by an unseen hand and brought to +him. It seemed to him he knew all about her life, all about the life of +the man who had thrown the stone at the dog. + +In his youth, when life had stepped out of his grasp, Hugh had walked +and walked until several such things had occurred and then suddenly he +was all right again and could again work and live among men. + +After his marriage and after such an evening at home he started walking +rapidly as soon as he left the house. As quickly as possible he got out +of town and struck out along a road that led over the rolling prairie. +"Well, I can't walk for days and days as I did once," he thought. +"There are certain facts in life and I must face facts. Winifred, my +wife, is a fact, and my children are facts. I must get my fingers on +facts. I must live by them and with them. It's the way lives are +lived." + +Hugh got out of town and on to a road that ran between cornfields. He +was an athletic looking man and wore loose fitting clothes. He went +along distraught and puzzled. In a way he felt like a man capable of +taking a man's place in life and in another way he didn't at all. + +The country spread out, wide, in all directions. It was always night +when he walked thus and he could not see, but the realization of +distances was always with him. "Everything goes on and on but I stand +still," he thought. He had been a professor in the little college for +six years. Young men and women had come into a room and he had taught +them. It was nothing. Words and figures had been played with. An effort +had been made to arouse minds. + +For what? + +There was the old question, always coming back, always wanting +answering as a little animal wants food. Hugh gave up trying to answer. +He walked rapidly, trying to grow physically tired. He made his mind +attend to little things in the effort to forget distances. One night he +got out of the road and walked completely around a cornfield. He +counted the stalks in each hill of corn and computed the number of +stalks in a whole field. "It should yield twelve hundred bushels of +corn, that field," he said to himself dumbly, as though it mattered to +him. He pulled a little handful of cornsilk out of the top of an ear of +corn and played with it. He tried to fashion himself a yellow +moustache. "I'd be quite a fellow with a trim yellow moustache," he +thought. + +One day in his class-room Hugh suddenly began to look with new interest +at his pupils. A young girl attracted his attention. She sat beside the +son of a Union Valley merchant and the young man was writing something +on the back of a book. She looked at it and then turned her head away. +The young man waited. + +It was winter and the merchant's son had asked the girl to go with him +to a skating party. Hugh, however, did not know that. He felt suddenly +old. When he asked the girl a question she was confused. Her voice +trembled. + +When the class was dismissed an amazing thing happened. He asked the +merchant's son to stay for a moment and, when the two were alone +together in the room, he grew suddenly and furiously angry. His voice +was, however, cold and steady. "Young man," he said, "you do not come +into this room to write on the back of a book and waste your time. If I +see anything of the kind again I'll do something you don't expect. I'll +throw you out through a window, that's what I'll do." + +Hugh made a gesture and the young man went away, white and silent. Hugh +felt miserable. For several days he thought about the girl who had +quite accidentally attracted his attention. "I'll get acquainted with +her. I'll find out about her," he thought. + +It was not an unusual thing for professors in the college at Union +Valley to take students home to their houses. Hugh decided he would +take the girl to his home. He thought about it several days and late +one afternoon saw her going down the college hill ahead of him. + +The girl's name was Mary Cochran and she had come to the school but a +few months before from a place called Huntersburg, Illinois, no doubt +just such another place as Union Valley. He knew nothing of her except +that her father was dead, her mother too, perhaps. He walked rapidly +down the hill to overtake her. "Miss Cochran," he called, and was +surprised to find that his voice trembled a little. "What am I so eager +about?" he asked himself. A new life began in Hugh Walker's house. It +was good for the man to have some one there who did not belong to him, +and Winifred Walker and the children accepted the presence of the girl. +Winifred urged her to come again. She did come several times a week. + +To Mary Cochran it was comforting to be in the presence of a family of +children. On winter afternoons she took Hugh's two sons and a sled and +went to a small hill near the house. Shouts arose. Mary Cochran pulled +the sled up the hill and the children followed. Then they all came +tearing down together. + +The girl, developing rapidly into womanhood, looked upon Hugh Walker as +something that stood completely outside her own life. She and the man +who had become suddenly and intensely interested in her had little to +say to each other and Winifred seemed to have accepted her without +question as an addition to the household. Often in the afternoon when +the two negro women were busy she went away leaving the two older +children in Mary's charge. + +It was late afternoon and perhaps Hugh had walked home with Mary from +the college. In the spring he worked in the neglected garden. It had +been plowed and planted, but he took a hoe and rake and puttered about. +The children played about the house with the college girl. Hugh did not +look at them but at her. "She is one of the world of people with whom I +live and with whom I am supposed to work here," he thought. "Unlike +Winifred and these children she does not belong to me. I could go to +her now, touch her fingers, look at her and then go away and never see +her again." + +That thought was a comfort to the distraught man. In the evening when +he went out to walk the sense of distance that lay all about him did +not tempt him to walk and walk, going half insanely forward for hours, +trying to break through an intangible wall. + +He thought about Mary Cochran. She was a girl from a country town. She +must be like millions of American girls. He wondered what went on in +her mind as she sat in his class-room, as she walked beside him along +the streets of Union Valley, as she played with the children in the +yard beside his house. + +In the winter, when in the growing darkness of a late afternoon Mary +and the children built a snow man in the yard, he went upstairs and +stood in the darkness to look out a window. The tall straight figure of +the girl, dimly seen, moved quickly about. "Well, nothing has happened +to her. She may be anything or nothing. Her figure is like a young tree +that has not borne fruit," he thought. He went away to his own room and +sat for a long time in the darkness. That night when he left the house +for his evening's walk he did not stay long but hurried home and went +to his own room. He locked the door. Unconsciously he did not want +Winifred to come to the door and disturb his thoughts. Sometimes she +did that. + +All the time she read novels. She read the novels of Robert Louis +Stevenson. When she had read them all she began again. + +Sometimes she came upstairs and stood talking by his door. She told +some tale, repeated some wise saying that had fallen unexpectedly from +the lips of the children. Occasionally she came into the room and +turned out the light. There was a couch by a window. She went to sit on +the edge of the couch. Something happened. It was as it had been before +their marriage. New life came into her figure. He also went to sit on +the couch and she put up her hand and touched his face. + +Hugh did not want that to happen now. He stood within the room for a +moment and then unlocked the door and went to the head of the stairs. +"Be quiet when you come up, Winifred. I have a headache and am going to +try to sleep," he lied. + +When he had gone back to his own room and locked the door again he felt +safe. He did not undress but threw himself on the couch and turned out +the light. + +He thought about Mary Cochran, the school girl, but was sure he thought +about her in a quite impersonal way. She was like the woman going to +milk cows he had seen across hills when he was a young fellow and +walked far and wide over the country to cure the restlessness in +himself. In his life she was like the man who threw the stone at dog. + +"Well, she is unformed; she is like a young tree," he told himself +again. "People are like that. They just grow up suddenly out of +childhood. It will happen to my own children. My little Winifred that +cannot yet say words will suddenly be like this girl. I have not +selected her to think about for any particular reason. For some reason +I have drawn away from life and she has brought me back. It might have +happened when I saw a child playing in the street or an old man going +up a stairway into a house. She does not belong to me. She will go away +out of my sight. Winifred and the children will stay on and on here and +I will stay on and on. We are imprisoned by the fact that we belong to +each other. This Mary Cochran is free, or at least she is free as far +as this prison is concerned. No doubt she will, after a while make a +prison of her own and live in it, but I will have nothing to do with +the matter." + +By the time Mary Cochran was in her third year in the college at Union +Valley she had become almost a fixture in the Walker household. Still +she did not know Hugh. She knew the children better than he did, +perhaps better than their mother. In the fall she and the two boys went +to the woods to gather nuts. In the winter they went skating on a +little pond near the house. + +Winifred accepted her as she accepted everything, the service of the +two negroes, the coming of the children, the habitual silence of her +husband. + +And then quite suddenly and unexpectedly Hugh's silence, that had +lasted all through his married life, was broken up. He walked homeward +with a German who had the chair of modern languages in the school and +got into a violent quarrel. He stopped to speak to men on the street. +When he went to putter about in the garden he whistled and sang. + +One afternoon in the fall he came home and found the whole family +assembled in the living room of the house. The children were playing on +the floor and the negress sat in the chair by the window with his +youngest child in her arms, crooning one of the negro songs. Mary +Cochran was there. She sat reading a book. + +Hugh walked directly toward her and looked over her shoulder. At that +moment Winifred came into the room. He reached forward and snatched the +book out of the girl's hands. She looked up startled. With an oath he +threw it into the fire that burned in an open grate at the side of the +room. A flood of words ran from him. He cursed books and people and +schools. "Damn it all," he said. "What makes you want to read about +life? What makes people want to think about life? Why don't they live? +Why don't they leave books and thoughts and schools alone?" + +He turned to look at his wife who had grown pale and stared at him with +a queer fixed uncertain stare. The old negro woman got up and went +quickly away. The two older children began to cry. Hugh was miserable. +He looked at the startled girl in the chair who also had tears in her +eyes, and at his wife. His fingers pulled nervously at his coat. To the +two women he looked like a boy who had been caught stealing food in a +pantry. "I am having one of my silly irritable spells," he said, +looking at his wife but in reality addressing the girl. "You see I am +more serious than I pretend to be. I was not irritated by your book but +by something else. I see so much that can be done in life and I do so +little." + +He went upstairs to his own room wondering why he had lied to the two +women, why he continually lied to himself. + +Did he lie to himself? He tried to answer the question but couldn't. He +was like one who walks in the darkness of the hallway of a house and +comes to a blank wall. The old desire to run away from life, to wear +himself out physically, came back upon him like a madness. + +For a long time he stood in the darkness inside his own room. The +children stopped crying and the house became quiet again. He could hear +his wife's voice speaking softly and presently the back door of the +house banged and he knew the schoolgirl had gone away. + +Life in the house began again. Nothing happened. Hugh ate his dinner in +silence and went for a long walk. For two weeks Mary Cochran did not +come to his house and then one day he saw her on the college grounds. +She was no longer one of his pupils. "Please do not desert us because +of my rudeness," he said. The girl blushed and said nothing. When he +got home that evening she was in the yard beside the house playing with +the children. He went at once to his own room. A hard smile came and +went on his face. "She isn't like a young tree any more. She is almost +like Winifred. She is almost like a person who belongs here, who +belongs to me and my life," he thought. + + * * * * * + +Mary Cochran's visits to the Walker household came to an end very +abruptly. One evening when Hugh was in his room she came up the +stairway with the two boys. She had dined with the family and was +putting the two boys into their beds. It was a privilege she claimed +when she dined with the Walkers. + +Hugh had hurried upstairs immediately after dining. He knew where his +wife was. She was downstairs, sitting under a lamp, reading one of the +books of Robert Louis Stevenson. + +For a long time Hugh could hear the voices of his children on the floor +above. Then the thing happened. + +Mary Cochran came down the stairway that led past the door of his room. +She stopped, turned back and climbed the stairs again to the room +above. Hugh arose and stepped into the hallway. The schoolgirl had +returned to the children's room because she had been suddenly overtaken +with a hunger to kiss Hugh's oldest boy, now a lad of nine. She crept +into the room and stood for a long time looking at the two boys, who +unaware of her presence had gone to sleep. Then she stole forward and +kissed the boy lightly. When she went out of the room Hugh stood in the +darkness waiting for her. He took hold of her hand and led her down the +stairs to his own room. + +She was terribly afraid and her fright in an odd way pleased him. +"Well," he whispered, "you can't understand now what's going to happen +here but some day you will. I'm going to kiss you and then I'm going to +ask you to go out of this house and never come back." + +He held the girl against his body and kissed her upon the cheeks and +lips. When he led her to the door she was so weak with fright and with +new, strange, trembling desires that she could with difficulty make her +way down the stair and into his wife's presence. "She will lie now," he +thought, and heard her voice coming up the stairs like an echo to his +thoughts. "I have a terrible headache. I must hurry home," he heard her +voice saying. The voice was dull and heavy. It was not the voice of a +young girl. + +"She is no longer like a young tree," he thought. He was glad and proud +of what he had done. When he heard the door at the back of the house +close softly his heart jumped. A strange quivering light came into his +eyes. "She will be imprisoned but I will have nothing to do with it. +She will never belong to me. My hands will never build a prison for +her," he thought with grim pleasure. + + + + + THE NEW ENGLANDER + + +Her name was Elsie Leander and her girlhood was spent on her father's +farm in Vermont. For several generations the Leanders had all lived on +the same farm and had all married thin women, and so she was thin. The +farm lay in the shadow of a mountain and the soil was not very rich. +From the beginning and for several generations there had been a great +many sons and few daughters in the family. The sons had gone west or to +New York City and the daughters had stayed at home and thought such +thoughts as come to New England women who see the sons of their +fathers' neighbors slipping away, one by one, into the West. + +Her father's house was a small white frame affair and when you went out +at the back door, past a small barn and chicken house, you got into a +path that ran up the side of a hill and into an orchard. The trees were +all old and gnarled. At the back of the orchard the hill dropped away +and bare rocks showed. + +Inside the fence a large grey rock stuck high up out of the ground. As +Elsie sat with her back to the rock, with a mangled hillside at her +feet, she could see several large mountains, apparently but a short +distance away, and between herself and the mountains lay many tiny +fields surrounded by neatly built stone walls. Everywhere rocks +appeared. Large ones, too heavy to be moved, stuck out of the ground in +the centre of the fields. The fields were like cups filled with a green +liquid that turned grey in the fall and white in the winter. The +mountains, far off but apparently near at hand, were like giants ready +at any moment to reach out their hands and take the cups one by one and +drink off the green liquid. The large rocks in the fields were like the +thumbs of the giants. + +Elsie had three brothers, born before her, but they had all gone away. +Two of them had gone to live with her uncle in the West and her oldest +brother had gone to New York City where he had married and prospered. +All through his youth and manhood her father had worked hard and had +lived a hard life, but his son in New York City had begun to send money +home, and after that things went better. He still worked every day +about the barn or in the fields but he did not worry about the future. +Elsie's mother did house work in the mornings and in the afternoons sat +in a rocking chair in her tiny living room and thought of her sons +while she crocheted table covers and tidies for the backs of chairs. +She was a silent woman, very thin and with very thin bony hands. She +did not ease herself into a rocking chair but sat down and got up +suddenly, and when she crocheted her back was as straight as the back +of a drill sergeant. + +The mother rarely spoke to the daughter. Sometimes in the afternoons as +the younger woman went up the hillside to her place by the rock at the +back of the orchard, her father came out of the barn and stopped her. +He put a hand on her shoulder and asked her where she was going. "To +the rock," she said and her father laughed. His laughter was like the +creaking of a rusty barn door hinge and the hand he had laid on her +shoulders was thin like her own hands and like her mother's hands. The +father went into the barn shaking his head. "She's like her mother. She +is herself like a rock," he thought. At the head of the path that led +from the house to the orchard there was a great cluster of bayberry +bushes. The New England farmer came out of his barn to watch his +daughter go along the path, but she had disappeared behind the bushes. +He looked away past his house to the fields and to the mountains in the +distance. He also saw the green cup-like fields and the grim mountains. +There was an almost imperceptible tightening of the muscles of his half +worn-out old body. For a long time he stood in silence and then, +knowing from long experience the danger of having thoughts, he went +back into the barn and busied himself with the mending of an +agricultural tool that had been mended many times before. + +The son of the Leanders who went to live in New York City was the +father of one son, a thin sensitive boy who looked like Elsie. The son +died when he was twenty-three years old and some years later the father +died and left his money to the old people on the New England farm. The +two Leanders who had gone west had lived there with their father's +brother, a farmer, until they grew into manhood. Then Will, the +younger, got a job on a railroad. He was killed one winter morning. It +was a cold snowy day and when the freight train he was in charge of as +conductor left the city of Des Moines, he started to run over the tops +of the cars. His feet slipped and he shot down into space. That was the +end of him. + +Of the new generation there was only Elsie and her brother Tom, whom +she had never seen, left alive. Her father and mother talked of going +west to Tom for two years before they came to a decision. Then it took +another year to dispose of the farm and make preparations. During the +whole time Elsie did not think much about the change about to take +place in her life. + +The trip west on the railroad train jolted Elsie out of herself. In +spite of her detached attitude toward life she became excited. Her +mother sat up very straight and stiff in the seat in the sleeping car +and her father walked up and down in the aisle. After a night when the +younger of the two women did not sleep but lay awake with red burning +cheeks and with her thin fingers incessantly picking at the bed clothes +in her berth while the train went through towns and cities, crawled up +the sides of hills and fell down into forest-clad valleys, she got up +and dressed to sit all day looking at a new kind of land. The train ran +for a day and through another sleepless night in a flat land where +every field was as large as a farm in her own country. Towns appeared +and disappeared in a continual procession. The whole land was so unlike +anything she had ever known that she began to feel unlike herself. In +the valley where she had been born and where she had lived all her days +everything had an air of finality. Nothing could be changed. The tiny +fields were chained to the earth. They were fixed in their places and +surrounded by aged stone walls. The fields like the mountains that +looked down at them were as unchangeable as the passing days. She had a +feeling they had always been so, would always be so. + +Elsie sat like her mother, upright in the car seat and with a back like +the back of a drill sergeant. The train ran swiftly along through Ohio +and Indiana. Her thin hands like her mother's hands were crossed and +locked. One passing casually through the car might have thought both +women prisoners handcuffed and bound to their seats. Night came on and +she again got into her berth. Again she lay awake and her thin cheeks +became flushed, but she thought new thoughts. Her hands were no longer +gripped together and she did not pick at the bed clothes. Twice during +the night she stretched herself and yawned, a thing she had never in +her life done before. The train stopped at a town on the prairies, and +as there was something the matter with one of the wheels of the car in +which she lay the trainsmen came with flaming torches to tinker it. +There was a great pounding and shouting. When the train went on its way +she wanted to get out of her berth and run up and down in the aisle of +the car. The fancy had come to her that the men tinkering with the car +wheel were new men out of the new land who with strong hammers had +broken away the doors of her prison. They had destroyed forever the +programme she had made for her life. + +Elsie was filled with joy at the thought that the train was still going +on into the West. She wanted to go on forever in a straight line into +the unknown. She fancied herself no longer on a train and imagined she +had become a winged thing flying through space. Her long years of +sitting alone by the rock on the New England farm had got her into the +habit of expressing her thoughts aloud. Her thin voice broke the +silence that lay over the sleeping car and her father and mother, both +also lying awake, sat up in their berth to listen. + +Tom Leander, the only living male representative of the new generation +of Leanders, was a loosely built man of forty inclined to corpulency. +At twenty he had married the daughter of a neighboring farmer, and when +his wife inherited some money she and Tom moved into the town of Apple +Junction in Iowa where Tom opened a grocery. The venture prospered as +did Tom's matrimonial venture. When his brother died in New York City +and his father, mother, and sister decided to come west Tom was already +the father of a daughter and four sons. + +On the prairies north of town and in the midst of a vast level stretch +of cornfields, there was a partly completed brick house that had +belonged to a rich farmer named Russell who had begun to build the +house intending to make it the most magnificent place in the county, +but when it was almost completed he had found himself without money and +heavily in debt. The farm, consisting of several hundred acres of corn +land, had been split into three farms and sold. No one had wanted the +huge unfinished brick house. For years it had stood vacant, its windows +staring out over the fields that had been planted almost up to the +door. + +In buying the Russell house Tom was moved by two motives. He had a +notion that in New England the Leanders had been rather magnificent +people. His memory of his father's place in the Vermont valley was +shadowy, but in speaking of it to his wife he became very definite. "We +had good blood in us, we Leanders," he said, straightening his +shoulders. "We lived in a big house. We were important people." + +Wanting his father and mother to feel at home in the new place, Tom had +also another motive. He was not a very energetic man and, although he +had done well enough as keeper of a grocery, his success was largely +due to the boundless energy of his wife. She did not pay much attention +to her household and her children, like little animals, had to take +care of themselves, but in any matter concerning the store her word was +law. + +To have his father the owner of the Russell place Tom felt would +establish him as a man of consequence in the eyes of his neighbors. "I +can tell you what, they're used to a big house," he said to his wife. +"I tell you what, my people are used to living in style." + + * * * * * + +The exaltation that had come over Elsie on the train wore away in the +presence of the grey empty Iowa fields, but something of the effect of +it remained with her for months. In the big brick house life went on +much as it had in the tiny New England house where she had always +lived. The Leanders installed themselves in three or four rooms on the +ground floor. After a few weeks the furniture that had been shipped by +freight arrived and was hauled out from town in one of Tom's grocery +wagons. There were three or four acres of ground covered with great +piles of boards the unsuccessful farmer had intended to use in the +building of stables. Tom sent men to haul the boards away and Elsie's +father prepared to plant a garden. They had come west in April and as +soon as they were installed in the house ploughing and planting began +in the fields nearby. The habit of a lifetime returned to the daughter +of the house. In the new place there was no gnarled orchard surrounded +by a half-ruined stone fence. All of the fences in all of the fields +that stretched away out of sight to the north, south, east, and west +were made of wire and looked like spider webs against the blackness of +the ground when it had been freshly ploughed. + +There was however the house itself. It was like an island rising out of +the sea. In an odd way the house, although it was less than ten years +old, was very old. Its unnecessary bigness represented an old impulse +in men. Elsie felt that. At the east side there was a door leading to a +stairway that ran into the upper part of the house that was kept +locked. Two or three stone steps led up to it. Elsie could sit on the +top step with her back against the door and gaze into the distance +without being disturbed. Almost at her feet began the fields that +seemed to go on and on forever. The fields were like the waters of a +sea. Men came to plough and plant. Giant horses moved in a procession +across the prairies. A young man who drove six horses came directly +toward her. She was fascinated. The breasts of the horses as they came +forward with bowed heads seemed like the breasts of giants. The soft +spring air that lay over the fields was also like a sea. The horses +were giants walking on the floor of a sea. With their breasts they +pushed the waters of the sea before them. They were pushing the waters +out of the basin of the sea. The young man who drove them also was a +giant. + + * * * * * + +Elsie pressed her body against the closed door at the top of the steps. +In the garden back of the house she could hear her father at work. He +was raking dry masses of weeds off the ground preparatory to spading it +for a family garden. He had always worked in a tiny confined place and +would do the same thing here. In this vast open place he would work +with small tools, doing little things with infinite care, raising +little vegetables. In the house her mother would crochet little tidies. +She herself would be small. She would press her body against the door +of the house, try to get herself out of sight. Only the feeling that +sometimes took possession of her, and that did not form itself into a +thought would be large. + +The six horses turned at the fence and the outside horse got entangled +in the traces. The driver swore vigorously. Then he turned and started +at the pale New Englander and with another oath pulled the heads of the +horses about and drove away into the distance. The field in which he +was ploughing contained two hundred acres. Elsie did not wait for him +to return but went into the house and sat with folded arms in a room. +The house she thought was a ship floating in a sea on the floor of +which giants went up and down. + +May came and then June. In the great fields work was always going on +and Elsie became somewhat used to the sight of the young man in the +field that came down to the steps. Sometimes when he drove his horses +down to the wire fence he smiled and nodded. + + * * * * * + +In the month of August, when it is very hot, the corn in Iowa fields +grows until the corn stalks resemble young trees. The corn fields +become forests. The time for the cultivating of the corn has passed and +weeds grow thick between the corn rows. The men with their giant horses +have gone away. Over the immense fields silence broods. + +When the time of the laying-by of the crop came that first summer after +Elsie's arrival in the West her mind, partially awakened by the +strangeness of the railroad trip, awakened again. She did not feel like +a staid thin woman with a back like the back of a drill sergeant, but +like something new and as strange as the new land into which she had +come to live. For a time she did not know what was the matter. In the +field the corn had grown so high that she could not see into the +distance. The corn was like a wall and the little bare spot of land on +which her father's house stood was like a house built behind the walls +of a prison. For a time she was depressed, thinking that she had come +west into a wide open country, only to find herself locked up more +closely than ever. + +An impulse came to her. She arose and going down three or four steps +seated herself almost on a level with the ground. + +Immediately she got a sense of release. She could not see over the corn +but she could see under it. The corn had long wide leaves that met over +the rows. The rows became long tunnels running away into infinity. Out +of the black ground grew weeds that made a soft carpet of green. From +above light sifted down. The corn rows were mysteriously beautiful. +They were warm passageways running out into life. She got up from the +steps and, walking timidly to the wire fence that separated her from +the field, put her hand between the wires and took hold of one of the +corn stalks. For some reason after she had touched the strong young +stalk and had held it for a moment firmly in her hand she grew afraid. +Running quickly back to the step she sat down and covered her face with +her hands. Her body trembled. She tried to imagine herself crawling +through the fence and wandering along one of the passageways. The +thought of trying the experiment fascinated but at the same time +terrified. She got quickly up and went into the house. + + * * * * * + +One Saturday night in August Elsie found herself unable to sleep. +Thoughts, more definite than any she had ever known before, came into +her mind. It was a quiet hot night and her bed stood near a window. Her +room was the only one the Leanders occupied on the second floor of the +house. At midnight a little breeze came up from the south and when she +sat up in bed the floor of corn tassels lying below her line of sight +looked in the moonlight like the face of a sea just stirred by a gentle +breeze. + +A murmuring began in the corn and murmuring thoughts and memories awoke +in her mind. The long wide succulent leaves had begun to dry in the +intense heat of the August days and as the wind stirred the corn they +rubbed against each other. A call, far away, as of a thousand voices +arose. She imagined the voices were like the voices of children. They +were not like her brother Tom's children, noisy boisterous little +animals, but something quite different, tiny little things with large +eyes and thin sensitive hands. One after another they crept into her +arms. She became so excited over the fancy that she sat up in bed and +taking a pillow into her arms held it against her breast. The figure of +her cousin, the pale sensitive young Leander who had lived with his +father in New York City and who had died at the age of twenty-three, +came into her mind. It was as though the young man had come suddenly +into the room. She dropped the pillow and sat waiting, intense, +expectant. + +Young Harry Leander had come to visit his cousin on the New England +farm during the late summer of the year before he died. He had stayed +there for a month and almost every afternoon had gone with Elsie to sit +by the rock at the back of the orchard. One afternoon when they had +both been for a long time silent he began to talk. "I want to go live +in the West," he said. "I want to go live in the West. I want to grow +strong and be a man," he repeated. Tears came into his eyes. + +They got up to return to the house, Elsie walking in silence beside the +young man. The moment marked a high spot in her life. A strange +trembling eagerness for something she had not realized in her +experience of life had taken possession of her. They went in silence +through the orchard but when they came to the bayberry bush her cousin +stopped in the path and turned to face her. "I want you to kiss me," he +said eagerly, stepping toward her. + +A fluttering uncertainty had taken possession of Elsie and had been +transmitted to her cousin. After he had made the sudden and unexpected +demand and had stepped so close to her that his breath could be felt on +her cheek, his own cheeks became scarlet and his hand that had taken +her hand trembled. "Well, I wish I were strong. I only wish I were +strong," he said hesitatingly and turning walked away along the path +toward the house. + +And in the strange new house, set like an island in its sea of corn, +Harry Leander's voice seemed to arise again above the fancied voices of +the children that had been coming out of the fields. Elsie got out of +bed and walked up and down in the dim light coming through the window. +Her body trembled violently. "I want you to kiss me," the voice said +again and to quiet it and to quiet also the answering voice in herself +she went to kneel by the bed and taking the pillow again into her arms +pressed it against her face. + + * * * * * + +Tom Leander came with his wife and family to visit his father and +mother on Sundays. The family appeared at about ten o'clock in the +morning. When the wagon turned out of the road that ran past the +Russell place Tom shouted. There was a field between the house and the +road and the wagon could not be seen as it came along the narrow way +through the corn. After Tom had shouted, his daughter Elizabeth, a tall +girl of sixteen, jumped out of the wagon. All five children came +tearing toward the house through the corn. A series of wild shouts +arose on the still morning air. + +The groceryman had brought food from the store. When the horse had been +unhitched and put into a shed he and his wife began to carry packages +into the house. The four Leander boys, accompanied by their sister, +disappeared into the near-by fields. Three dogs that had trotted out +from town under the wagon accompanied the children. Two or three +children and occasionally a young man from a neighboring farm had come +to join in the fun. Elsie's sister-in-law dismissed them all with a +wave of her hand. With a wave of her hand she also brushed Elsie aside. +Fires were lighted and the house reeked with the smell of cooking. +Elsie went to sit on the step at the side of the house. The corn fields +that had been so quiet rang with shouts and with the barking of dogs. + +Tom Leander's oldest child, Elizabeth, was like her mother, full of +energy. She was thin and tall like the women of her father's house but +very strong and alive. In secret she wanted to be a lady but when she +tried her brothers, led by her father and mother, made fun of her. +"Don't put on airs," they said. When she got into the country with no +one but her brothers and two or three neighboring farm boys she herself +became a boy. With the boys she went tearing through the fields, +following the dogs in pursuit of rabbits. Sometimes a young man came +with the children from a near-by farm. Then she did not know what to do +with herself. She wanted to walk demurely along the rows through the +corn but was afraid her brothers would laugh and in desperation outdid +the boys in roughness and noisiness. She screamed and shouted and +running wildly tore her dress on the wire fences as she scrambled over +in pursuit of the dogs. When a rabbit was caught and killed she rushed +in and tore it out of the grasp of the dogs. The blood of the little +dying animal dripped on her clothes. She swung it over her head and +shouted. + +The farm hand who had worked all summer in the field within sight of +Elsie became enamoured of the young woman from town. When the +groceryman's family appeared on Sunday mornings he also appeared but +did not come to the house. When the boys and dogs came tearing through +the fields he joined them. He also was self-conscious and did not want +the boys to know the purpose of his coming and when he and Elizabeth +found themselves alone together he became embarrassed. For a moment +they walked together in silence. In a wide circle about them, in the +forest of the corn, ran the boys and dogs. The young man had something +he wanted to say, but when he tried to find words his tongue became +thick and his lips felt hot and dry. "Well," he began, "let's you and +me--" + +Words failed him and Elizabeth turned and ran after her brothers and +for the rest of the day he could not manage to get her out of their +sight. When he went to join them she became the noisiest member of the +party. A frenzy of activity took possession of her. With hair hanging +down her back, with clothes torn and with cheeks and hands scratched +and bleeding she led her brothers in the endless wild pursuit of the +rabbits. + + * * * * * + +The Sunday in August that followed Elsie Leander's sleepless night was +hot and cloudy. In the morning she was half ill and as soon as the +visitors from town arrived she crept away to sit on the step at the +side of the house. The children ran away into the fields. An almost +overpowering desire to run with them, shouting and playing along the +corn rows took possession of her. She arose and went to the back of the +house. Her father was at work in the garden, pulling weeds from between +rows of vegetables. Inside the house she could hear her sister-in-law +moving about. On the front porch her brother Tom was asleep with his +mother beside him. Elsie went back to the step and then arose and went +to where the corn came down to the fence. She climbed awkwardly over +and went a little way along one of the rows. Putting out her hand she +touched the firm stalks and then, becoming afraid, dropped to her knees +on the carpet of weeds that covered the ground. For a long time she +stayed thus listening to the voices of the children in the distance. + +An hour slipped away. Presently it was time for dinner and her sister- +in-law came to the back door and shouted. There was an answering whoop +from the distance and the children came running through the fields. +They climbed over the fence and ran shouting across her father's +garden. Elsie also arose. She was about to attempt to climb back over +the fence unobserved when she heard a rustling in the corn. Young +Elizabeth Leander appeared. Beside her walked the ploughman who but a +few months earlier had planted the corn in the field where Elsie now +stood. She could see the two people coming slowly along the rows. An +understanding had been established between them. The man reached +through between the corn stalks and touched the hand of the girl who +laughed awkwardly and running to the fence climbed quickly over. In her +hand she held the limp body of a rabbit the dogs had killed. + +The farm hand went away and when Elizabeth had gone into the house +Elsie climbed over the fence. Her niece stood just within the kitchen +door holding the dead rabbit by one leg. The other leg had been torn +away by the dogs. At sight of the New England woman, who seemed to look +at her with hard unsympathetic eyes, she was ashamed and went quickly +into the house. She threw the rabbit upon a table in the parlor and +then ran out of the room. Its blood ran out on the delicate flowers of +a white crocheted table cover that had been made by Elsie's mother. + +The Sunday dinner with all the living Leanders gathered about the table +was gone through in a heavy lumbering silence. When the dinner was over +and Tom and his wife had washed the dishes they went to sit with the +older people on the front porch. Presently they were both asleep. Elsie +returned to the step at the side of the house but when the desire to go +again into the cornfields came sweeping over her she got up and went +indoors. + +The woman of thirty-five tip-toed about the big house like a frightened +child. The dead rabbit that lay on the table in the parlour had become +cold and stiff. Its blood had dried on the white table cover. She went +upstairs but did not go to her own room. A spirit of adventure had hold +of her. In the upper part of the house there were many rooms and in +some of them no glass had been put into the windows. The windows had +been boarded up and narrow streaks of light crept in through the cracks +between the boards. + +Elsie tip-toed up the flight of stairs past the room in which she slept +and opening doors went into other rooms. Dust lay thick on the floors. +In the silence she could hear her brother snoring as he slept in the +chair on the front porch. From what seemed a far away place there came +the shrill cries of the children. The cries became soft. They were like +the cries of unborn children that had called to her out of the fields +on the night before. + +Into her mind came the intense silent figure of her mother sitting on +the porch beside her son and waiting for the day to wear itself out +into night. The thought brought a lump into her throat. She wanted +something and did not know what it was. Her own mood frightened her. In +a windowless room at the back of the house one of the boards over a +window had been broken and a bird had flown in and become imprisoned. + +The presence of the woman frightened the bird. It flew wildly about. +Its beating wings stirred up dust that danced in the air. Elsie stood +perfectly still, also frightened, not by the presence of the bird but +by the presence of life. Like the bird she was a prisoner. The thought +gripped her. She wanted to go outdoors where her niece Elizabeth walked +with the young ploughman through the corn, but was like the bird in the +room--a prisoner. She moved restlessly about. The bird flew back and +forth across the room. It alighted on the window sill near the place +where the board was broken away. She stared into the frightened eyes of +the bird that in turn stared into her eyes. Then the bird flew away, +out through the window, and Elsie turned and ran nervously downstairs +and out into the yard. She climbed over the wire fence and ran with +stooped shoulders along one of the tunnels. + +Elsie ran into the vastness of the cornfields filled with but one +desire. She wanted to get out of her life and into some new and sweeter +life she felt must be hidden away somewhere in the fields. After she +had run a long way she came to a wire fence and crawled over. Her hair +became unloosed and fell down over her shoulders. Her cheeks became +flushed and for the moment she looked like a young girl. When she +climbed over the fence she tore a great hole in the front of her dress. +For a moment her tiny breasts were exposed and then her hand clutched +and held nervously the sides of the tear. In the distance she could +hear the voices of the boys and the barking of the dogs. A summer storm +had been threatening for days and now black clouds had begun to spread +themselves over the sky. As she ran nervously forward, stopping to +listen and then running on again, the dry corn blades brushed against +her shoulders and a fine shower of yellow dust from the corn tassels +fell on her hair. A continued crackling noise accompanied her progress. +The dust made a golden crown about her head. From the sky overhead a +low rumbling sound, like the growling of giant dogs, came to her ears. + +The thought that having at last ventured into the corn she would never +escape became fixed in the mind of the running woman. Sharp pains shot +through her body. Presently she was compelled to stop and sit on the +ground. For a long time she sat with closed eyes. Her dress became +soiled. Little insects that live in the ground under the corn came out +of their holes and crawled over her legs. + +Following some obscure impulse the tired woman threw herself on her +back and lay still with closed eyes. Her fright passed. It was warm and +close in the room-like tunnels. The pain in her side went away. She +opened her eyes and between the wide green corn blades could see +patches of a black threatening sky. She did not want to be alarmed and +so closed her eyes again. Her thin hand no longer gripped the tear in +her dress and her little breasts were exposed. They expanded and +contracted in spasmodic jerks. She threw her hands back over her head +and lay still. + +It seemed to Elsie that hours passed as she lay thus, quiet and passive +under the corn. Deep within her there was a feeling that something was +about to happen, something that would lift her out of herself, that +would tear her away from her past and the past of her people. Her +thoughts were not definite. She lay still and waited as she had waited +for days and months by the rock at the back of the orchard on the +Vermont farm when she was a girl. A deep grumbling noise went on in the +sky overhead but the sky and everything she had ever known seemed very +far away, no part of herself. + +After a long silence, when it seemed to her that she had gone out of +herself as in a dream, Elsie heard a man's voice calling. "Aho, aho, +aho," shouted the voice and after another period of silence there arose +answering voices and then the sound of bodies crashing through the corn +and the excited chatter of children. A dog came running along the row +where she lay and stood beside her. His cold nose touched her face and +she sat up. The dog ran away. The Leander boys passed. She could see +their bare legs flashing in and out across one of the tunnels. Her +brother had become alarmed by the rapid approach of the thunder storm +and wanted to get his family to town. His voice kept calling from the +house and the voices of the children answered from the fields. + +Elsie sat on the ground with her hands pressed together. An odd feeling +of disappointment had possession of her. She arose and walked slowly +along in the general direction taken by the children. She came to a +fence and crawled over, tearing her dress in a new place. One of her +stockings had become unloosed and had slipped down over her shoe top. +The long sharp weeds had scratched her leg so that it was criss-crossed +with red lines, but she was not conscious of any pain. + +The distraught woman followed the children until she came within sight +of her father's house and then stopped and again sat on the ground. +There was another loud crash of thunder and Tom Leander's voice called +again, this time half angrily. The name of the girl Elizabeth was +shouted in loud masculine tones that rolled and echoed like the thunder +along the aisles under the corn. + +And then Elizabeth came into sight accompanied by the young ploughman. +They stopped near Elsie and the man took the girl into his arms. At the +sound of their approach Elsie had thrown herself face downward on the +ground and had twisted herself into a position where she could see +without being seen. When their lips met her tense hands grasped one of +the corn stalks. Her lips pressed themselves into the dust. When they +had gone on their way she raised her head. A dusty powder covered her +lips. + +What seemed another long period of silence fell over the fields. The +murmuring voices of unborn children, her imagination had created in the +whispering fields, became a vast shout. The wind blew harder and +harder. The corn stalks were twisted and bent. Elizabeth went +thoughtfully out of the field and climbing the fence confronted her +father. "Where you been? What you been a doing?" he asked. "Don't you +think we got to get out of here?" + +When Elizabeth went toward the house Elsie followed, creeping on her +hands and knees like a little animal, and when she had come within +sight of the fence surrounding the house she sat on the ground and put +her hands over her face. Something within herself was being twisted and +whirled about as the tops of the corn stalks were now being twisted and +whirled by the wind. She sat so that she did not look toward the house +and when she opened her eyes she could again see along the long +mysterious aisles. + +Her brother with his wife and children went away. By turning her head +Elsie could see them driving at a trot out of the yard back of her +father's house. With the going of the younger woman the farm house in +the midst of the cornfield rocked by the winds seemed the most desolate +place in the world. + +Her mother came out at the back door of the house. She ran to the steps +where she knew her daughter was in the habit of sitting and then in +alarm began to call. It did not occur to Elsie to answer. The voice of +the older woman did not seem to have anything to do with herself. It +was a thin voice and was quickly lost in the wind and in the crashing +sound that arose out of the fields. With her head turned toward the +house Elsie stared at her mother who ran wildly around the house and +then went indoors. The back door of the house went shut with a bang. + +The storm that had been threatening broke with a roar. Broad sheets of +water swept over the cornfields. Sheets of water swept over the woman's +body. The storm that had for years been gathering in her also broke. +Sobs arose out of her throat. She abandoned herself to a storm of grief +that was only partially grief. Tears ran out of her eyes and made +little furrows through the dust on her face. In the lulls that +occasionally came in the storm she raised her head and heard, through +the tangled mass of wet hair that covered her ears and above the sound +of millions of rain-drops that alighted on the earthen floor inside the +house of the corn, the thin voices of her mother and father calling to +her out of the Leander house. + + + + + WAR + + +The story came to me from a woman met on a train. The car was crowded +and I took the seat beside her. There was a man in the offing who +belonged with her--a slender girlish figure of a man in a heavy brown +canvas coat such as teamsters wear in the winter. He moved up and down +in the aisle of the car, wanting my place by the woman's side, but I +did not know that at the time. + +The woman had a heavy face and a thick nose. Something had happened to +her. She had been struck a blow or had a fall. Nature could never have +made a nose so broad and thick and ugly. She had talked to me in very +good English. I suspect now that she was temporarily weary of the man +in the brown canvas coat, that she had travelled with him for days, +perhaps weeks, and was glad of the chance to spend a few hours in the +company of some one else. + +Everyone knows the feeling of a crowded train in the middle of the +night. We ran along through western Iowa and eastern Nebraska. It had +rained for days and the fields were flooded. In the clear night the +moon came out and the scene outside the car-window was strange and in +an odd way very beautiful. + +You get the feeling: the black bare trees standing up in clusters as +they do out in that country, the pools of water with the moon reflected +and running quickly as it does when the train hurries along, the rattle +of the car-trucks, the lights in isolated farm-houses, and occasionally +the clustered lights of a town as the train rushed through it into the +west. + +The woman had just come out of war-ridden Poland, had got out of that +stricken land with her lover by God knows what miracles of effort. She +made me feel the war, that woman did, and she told me the tale that I +want to tell you. + +I do not remember the beginning of our talk, nor can I tell you of how +the strangeness of my mood grew to match her mood until the story she +told became a part of the mystery of the still night outside the car- +window and very pregnant with meaning to me. + +There was a company of Polish refugees moving along a road in Poland in +charge of a German. The German was a man of perhaps fifty, with a +beard. As I got him, he was much such a man as might be professor of +foreign languages in a college in our country, say at Des Moines, Iowa, +or Springfield, Ohio. He would be sturdy and strong of body and given +to the eating of rather rank foods, as such men are. Also he would be a +fellow of books and in his thinking inclined toward the ranker +philosophies. He was dragged into the war because he was a German, and +he had steeped his soul in the German philosophy of might. Faintly, I +fancy, there was another notion in his head that kept bothering him, +and so to serve his government with a whole heart he read books that +would re-establish his feeling for the strong, terrible thing for which +he fought. Because he was past fifty he was not on the battle line, but +was in charge of the refugees, taking them out of their destroyed +village to a camp near a railroad where they could be fed. + +The refugees were peasants, all except the woman in the American train +with me, her lover and her mother, an old woman of sixty-five. They had +been small landowners and the others in their party had worked on their +estate. + +Along a country road in Poland went this party in charge of the German +who tramped heavily along, urging them forward. He was brutal in his +insistence, and the old woman of sixty-five, who was a kind of leader +of the refugees, was almost equally brutal in her constant refusal to +go forward. In the rainy night she stopped in the muddy road and her +party gathered about her. Like a stubborn horse she shook her head and +muttered Polish words. "I want to be let alone, that's what I want. All +I want in the world is to be let alone," she said, over and over; and +then the German came up and putting his hand on her back pushed her +along, so that their progress through the dismal night was a constant +repetition of the stopping, her muttered words, and his pushing. They +hated each other with whole-hearted hatred, that old Polish woman and +the German. + +The party came to a clump of trees on the bank of a shallow stream and +the German took hold of the old woman's arm and dragged her through the +stream while the others followed. Over and over she said the words: "I +want to be let alone. All I want in the world is to be let alone." + +In the clump of trees the German started a fire. With incredible +efficiency he had it blazing high in a few minutes, taking the matches +and even some bits of dry wood from a little rubber-lined pouch carried +in his inside coat pocket. Then he got out tobacco and, sitting down on +the protruding root of a tree, smoked and stared at the refugees, +clustered about the old woman on the opposite side of the fire. + +The German went to sleep. That was what started his trouble. He slept +for an hour and when he awoke the refugees were gone. You can imagine +him jumping up and tramping heavily back through the shallow stream and +along the muddy road to gather his party together again. He would be +angry through and through, but he would not be alarmed. It was only a +matter, he knew, of going far enough back along the road as one goes +back along a road for strayed cattle. + +And then, when the German came up to the party, he and the old woman +began to fight. She stopped muttering the words about being let alone +and sprang at him. One of her old hands gripped his beard and the other +buried itself in the thick skin of his neck. + +The struggle in the road lasted a long time. The German was tired and +not as strong as he looked, and there was that faint thing in him that +kept him from hitting the old woman with his fist. He took hold of her +thin shoulders and pushed, and she pulled. The struggle was like a man +trying to lift himself by his boot straps. The two fought and were full +of the determination that will not stop fighting, but they were not +very strong physically. + +And so their two souls began to struggle. The woman in the train made +me understand that quite clearly, although it may be difficult to get +the sense of it over to you. I had the night and the mystery of the +moving train to help me. It was a physical thing, the fight of the two +souls in the dim light of the rainy night on that deserted muddy road. +The air was full of the struggle and the refugees gathered about and +stood shivering. They shivered with cold and weariness, of course, but +also with something else. In the air everywhere about them they could +feel the vague something going on. The woman said that she would gladly +have given her life to have it stopped, or to have someone strike a +light, and that her man felt the same way. It was like two winds +struggling, she said, like a soft yielding cloud become hard and trying +vainly to push another cloud out of the sky. + +Then the struggle ended and the old woman and the German fell down +exhausted in the road. The refugees gathered about and waited. They +thought something more was going to happen, knew in fact something more +would happen. The feeling they had persisted, you see, and they huddled +together and perhaps whimpered a little. + +What happened is the whole point of the story. The woman in the train +explained it very clearly. She said that the two souls, after +struggling, went back into the two bodies, but that the soul of the old +woman went into the body of the German and the soul of the German into +the body of the old woman. + +After that, of course, everything was quite simple. The German sat down +by the road and began shaking his head and saying he wanted to be let +alone, declared that all he wanted in the world was to be let alone, +and the Polish woman took papers out of his pocket and began driving +her companions back along the road, driving them harshly and brutally +along, and when they grew weary pushing them with her hands. + +There was more of the story after that. The woman's lover, who had been +a school-teacher, took the papers and got out of the country, taking +his sweetheart with him. But my mind has forgotten the details. I only +remember the German sitting by the road and muttering that he wanted to +be let alone, and the old tired mother-in-Poland saying the harsh words +and forcing her weary companions to march through the night back into +their own country. + + + + + MOTHERHOOD + + +Below the hill there was a swamp in which cattails grew. The wind +rustled the dry leaves of a walnut tree that grew on top of the hill. + +She went beyond the tree to where the grass was long and matted. In the +farmhouse a door bangs and in the road before the house a dog barked. + +For a long time there was no sound. Then a wagon came jolting and +bumping over the frozen road. The little noises ran along the ground to +where she was lying on the grass and seemed like fingers playing over +her body. A fragrance arose from her. It took a long time for the wagon +to pass. + +Then another sound broke the stillness. A young man from a neighboring +farm came stealthily across a field and climbed a fence. He also came +to the hill but for a time did not see her lying almost at his feet. He +looked toward the house and stood with hands in pockets, stamping on +the frozen ground like a horse. + +Then he knew she was there. The aroma of her crept into his +consciousness. + +He ran to kneel beside her silent figure. Everything was different than +it had been when they crept to the hill on the other evenings. The time +of talking and waiting was over. She was different. He grew bold and +put his hands on her face, her neck, her breasts, her hips. There was a +strange new firmness and hardness to her body. When he kissed her lips +she did not move and for a moment he was afraid. Then courage came and +he went down to lie with her. + +He had been a farm boy all his life and had plowed many acres of rich +black land. + +He became sure of himself. + +He plowed her deeply. + +He planted the seeds of a son in the warm rich quivering soil. + + * * * * * + +She carried the seeds of a son within herself. On winter evenings she +went along a path at the foot of a small hill and turned up the hill to +a barn where she milked cows. She was large and strong. Her legs went +swinging along. The son within her went swinging along. + +He learned the rhythm of little hills. + +He learned the rhythm of flat places. + +He learned the rhythm of legs walking. + +He learned the rhythm of firm strong hands pulling at the teats of +cows. + + * * * * * + +There was a field that was barren and filled with stones. In the spring +when the warm nights came and when she was big with him she went to the +fields. The heads of little stones stuck out of the ground like the +heads of buried children. The field, washed with moonlight, sloped +gradually downward to a murmuring brook. A few sheep went among the +stones nibbling the sparse grass. + +A thousand children were buried in the barren field. They struggled to +come out of the ground. They struggled to come to her. The brook ran +over stones and its voice cried out. For a long time she stayed in the +field, shaken with sorrow. + +She arose from her seat on a large stone and went to the farmhouse. The +voices of the darkness cried to her as she went along a lane and past a +silent barn. + +Within herself only the one child struggled. When she got into bed his +heels beat upon the walls of his prison. She lay still and listened. +Only one small voice seemed coming to her out of the silence of the +night. + + + + + OUT OF NOWHERE INTO NOTHING. + + + I + +Rosalind Wescott, a tall strong looking woman of twenty-seven, was +walking on the railroad track near the town of Willow Springs, Iowa. It +was about four in the afternoon of a day in August, and the third day +since she had come home to her native town from Chicago, where she was +employed. + +At that time Willow Springs was a town of about three thousand people. +It has grown since. There was a public square with the town hall in the +centre and about the four sides of the square and facing it were the +merchandising establishments. The public square was bare and grassless, +and out of it ran streets of frame houses, long straight streets that +finally became country roads running away into the flat prairie +country. + +Although she had told everyone that she had merely come home for a +short visit because she was a little homesick, and although she wanted +in particular to have a talk with her mother in regard to a certain +matter, Rosalind had been unable to talk with anyone. Indeed she had +found it difficult to stay in the house with her mother and father and +all the time, day and night, she was haunted by a desire to get out of +town. As she went along the railroad tracks in the hot afternoon +sunshine she kept scolding herself. "I've grown moody and no good. If I +want to do it why don't I just go ahead and not make a fuss," she +thought. + +For two miles the railroad tracks, eastward out of Willow Springs, went +through corn fields on a flat plain. Then there was a little dip in the +land and a bridge over Willow Creek. The Creek was altogether dry now +but trees grew along the edge of the grey streak of cracked mud that in +the fall, winter and spring would be the bed of the stream. Rosalind +left the tracks and went to sit under one of the trees. Her cheeks were +flushed and her forehead wet. When she took off her hat her hair fell +down in disorder and strands of it clung to her hot wet face. She sat +in what seemed a kind of great bowl on the sides of which the corn grew +rank. Before her and following the bed of the stream there was a dusty +path along which cows came at evening from distant pastures. A great +pancake formed of cow dung lay nearby. It was covered with grey dust +and over it crawled shiny black beetles. They were rolling the dung +into balls in preparation for the germination of a new generation of +beetles. + +Rosalind had come on the visit to her home town at a time of the year +when everyone wished to escape from the hot dusty place. No one had +expected her and she had not written to announce her coming. One hot +morning in Chicago she had got out of bed and had suddenly begun +packing her bag, and on that same evening there she was in Willow +Springs, in the house where she had lived until her twenty-first year, +among her own people. She had come up from the station in the hotel bus +and had walked into the Wescott house unannounced. Her father was at +the pump by the kitchen door and her mother came into the living room +to greet her wearing a soiled kitchen apron. Everything in the house +was just as it always had been. "I just thought I would come home for a +few days," she said, putting down her bag and kissing her mother. + +Ma and Pa Wescott had been glad to see their daughter. On the evening +of her arrival they were excited and a special supper was prepared. +After supper Pa Wescott went up town as usual, but he stayed only a few +minutes. "I just want to run to the postoffice and get the evening +paper," he said apologetically. Rosalind's mother put on a clean dress +and they all sat in the darkness on the front porch. There was talk, of +a kind. "Is it hot in Chicago now? I'm going to do a good deal of +canning this fall. I thought later I would send you a box of canned +fruit. Do you live in the same place on the North Side? It must be nice +in the evening to be able to walk down to the park by the lake." + + * * * * * + +Rosalind sat under the tree near the railroad bridge two miles from +Willow Springs and watched the tumble bugs at work. Her whole body was +hot from the walk in the sun and the thin dress she wore clung to her +legs. It was being soiled by the dust on the grass under the tree. + +She had run away from town and from her mother's house. All during the +three days of her visit she had been doing that. She did not go from +house to house to visit her old schoolgirl friends, the girls who +unlike herself had stayed in Willow Springs, had got married and +settled down there. When she saw one of these women on the street in +the morning, pushing a baby carriage and perhaps followed by a small +child, she stopped. There was a few minutes of talk. "It's hot. Do you +live in the same place in Chicago? My husband and I hope to take the +children and go away for a week or two. It must be nice in Chicago +where you are so near the lake." Rosalind hurried away. + +All the hours of her visit to her mother and to her home town had been +spent in an effort to hurry away. + +From what? Rosalind defended herself. There was something she had come +from Chicago hoping to be able to say to her mother. Did she really +want to talk with her about things? Had she thought, by again breathing +the air of her home town, to get strength to face life and its +difficulties? + +There was no point in her taking the hot uncomfortable trip from +Chicago only to spend her days walking in dusty country roads or +between rows of cornfields in the stifling heat along the railroad +tracks. + +"I must have hoped. There is a hope that cannot be fulfilled," she +thought vaguely. + +Willow Springs was a rather meaningless, dreary town, one of thousands +of such towns in Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kansas, Iowa, but her +mind made it more dreary. + +She sat under the tree by the dry bed of Willow Creek thinking of the +street in town where her mother and father lived, where she had lived +until she had become a woman. It was only because of a series of +circumstances she did not live there now. Her one brother, ten years +older than herself, had married and moved to Chicago. He had asked her +to come for a visit and after she got to the city she stayed. Her +brother was a traveling salesman and spent a good deal of time away +from home. "Why don't you stay here with Bess and learn stenography," +he asked. "If you don't want to use it you don't have to. Dad can look +out for you all right. I just thought you might like to learn." + + * * * * * + +"That was six years ago," Rosalind thought wearily. "I've been a city +woman for six years." Her mind hopped about. Thoughts came and went. In +the city, after she became a stenographer, something for a time +awakened her. She wanted to be an actress and went in the evening to a +dramatic school. In an office where she worked there was a young man, a +clerk. They went out together, to the theatre or to walk in the park in +the evening. They kissed. + +Her thoughts came sharply back to her mother and father, to her home in +Willow Springs, to the street in which she had lived until her twenty- +first year. + +It was but an end of a street. From the windows at the front of her +mother's house six other houses could be seen. How well she knew the +street and the people in the houses! Did she know them? From her +eighteenth and until her twenty-first year she had stayed at home, +helping her mother with the housework, waiting for something. Other +young women in town waited just as she did. They like herself had +graduated from the town high school and their parents had no intention +of sending them away to college. There was nothing to do but wait. Some +of the young women--their mothers and their mothers' friends still +spoke of them as girls--had young men friends who came to see them on +Sunday and perhaps also on Wednesday or Thursday evenings. Others +joined the church, went to prayer meetings, became active members of +some church organization. They fussed about. + +Rosalind had done none of these things. All through those three trying +years in Willow Springs she had just waited. In the morning there was +the work to do in the house and then, in some way, the day wore itself +away. In the evening her father went up town and she sat with her +mother. Nothing much was said. After she had gone to bed she lay awake, +strangely nervous, eager for something to happen that never would +happen. The noises of the Wescott house cut across her thoughts. What +things went through her mind! + +There was a procession of people always going away from her. Sometimes +she lay on her belly at the edge of a ravine. Well it was not a ravine. +It had two walls of marble and on the marble face of the walls strange +figures were carved. Broad steps led down--always down and away. People +walked along the steps, between the marble walls, going down and away +from her. + +What people! Who were they? Where did they come from? Where were they +going? She was not asleep but wide awake. Her bedroom was dark. The +walls and ceiling of the room receded. She seemed to hang suspended in +space, above the ravine--the ravine with walls of white marble over +which strange beautiful lights played. + +The people who went down the broad steps and away into infinite +distance--they were men and women. Sometime a young girl like herself +but in some way sweeter and purer than herself, passed alone. The young +girl walked with a swinging stride, going swiftly and freely like a +beautiful young animal. Her legs and arms were like the slender top +branches of trees swaying in a gentle wind. She also went down and +away. + +Others followed along the marble steps. Young boys walked alone. A +dignified old man followed by a sweet faced woman passed. What a +remarkable man! One felt infinite power in his old frame. There were +deep wrinkles in his face and his eyes were sad. One felt he knew +everything about life but had kept something very precious alive in +himself. It was that precious thing that made the eyes of the woman who +followed him burn with a strange fire. They also went down along the +steps and away. + +Down and away along the steps went others--how many others, men and +women, boys and girls, single old men, old women who leaned on sticks +and hobbled along. + +In the bed in her father's house as she lay awake Rosalind's head grew +light. She tried to clutch at something, understand something. + +She couldn't. The noises of the house cut across her waking dream. Her +father was at the pump by the kitchen door. He was pumping a pail of +water. In a moment he would bring it into the house and put it on a box +by the kitchen sink. A little of the water would slop over on the +floor. There would be a sound like a child's bare foot striking the +floor. Then her father would go to wind the clock. The day was done. +Presently there would be the sound of his heavy feet on the floor of +the bedroom above and he would get into bed to lie beside Rosalind's +mother. + +The night noises of her father's house had been in some way terrible to +the girl in the years when she was becoming a woman. After chance had +taken her to the city she never wanted to think of them again. Even in +Chicago where the silence of nights was cut and slashed by a thousand +noises, by automobiles whirling through the streets, by the belated +footsteps of men homeward bound along the cement sidewalks after +midnight, by the shouts of quarreling men drunk on summer nights, even +in the great hubbub of noises there was comparative quiet. The +insistent clanging noises of the city nights were not like the homely +insistent noises of her father's house. Certain terrible truths about +life did not abide in them, they did not cling so closely to life and +did not frighten as did the noises in the one house on the quiet street +in the town of Willow Springs. How often, there in the city, in the +midst of the great noises she had fought to escape the little noises! +Her father's feet were on the steps leading into the kitchen. Now he +was putting the pail of water on the box by the kitchen sink. Upstairs +her mother's body fell heavily into bed. The visions of the great +marble-lined ravine down along which went the beautiful people flew +away. There was the little slap of water on the kitchen floor. It was +like a child's bare foot striking the floor. Rosalind wanted to cry +out. Her father closed the kitchen door. Now he was winding the clock. +In a moment his feet would be on the stairs-- + +There were six houses to be seen from the windows of the Wescott house. +In the winter smoke from six brick chimneys went up into the sky. There +was one house, the next one to the Wescott's place, a small frame +affair, in which lived a man who was thirty-five years old when +Rosalind became a woman of twenty-one and went away to the city. The +man was unmarried and his mother, who had been his housekeeper, had +died during the year in which Rosalind graduated from the high school. +After that the man lived alone. He took his dinner and supper at the +hotel, down town on the square, but he got his own breakfast, made his +own bed and swept out his own house. Sometimes he walked slowly along +the street past the Wescott house when Rosalind sat alone on the front +porch. He raised his hat and spoke to her. Their eyes met. He had a +long, hawk-like nose and his hair was long and uncombed. + +Rosalind thought about him sometimes. It bothered her a little that he +sometimes went stealing softly, as though not to disturb her, across +her daytime fancies. + +As she sat that day by the dry creek bed Rosalind thought about the +bachelor, who had now passed the age of forty and who lived on the +street where she had lived during her girlhood. His house was separated +from the Wescott house by a picket fence. Sometimes in the morning he +forgot to pull his blinds and Rosalind, busy with the housework in her +father's house, had seen him walking about in his underwear. It was-- +uh, one could not think of it. + +The man's name was Melville Stoner. He had a small income and did not +have to work. On some days he did not leave his house and go to the +hotel for his meals but sat all day in a chair with his nose buried in +a book. + +There was a house on the street occupied by a widow who raised +chickens. Two or three of her hens were what the people who lived on +the street called 'high flyers.' They flew over the fence of the +chicken yard and escaped and almost always they came at once into the +yard of the bachelor. The neighbors laughed about it. It was +significant, they felt. When the hens had come into the yard of the +bachelor, Stoner, the widow with a stick in her hand ran after them. +Melville Stoner came out of his house and stood on a little porch in +front. The widow ran through the front gate waving her arms wildly and +the hens made a great racket and flew over the fence. They ran down the +street toward the widow's house. For a moment she stood by the Stoner +gate. In the summer time when the windows of the Wescott house were +open Rosalind could hear what the man and woman said to each other. In +Willow Springs it was not thought proper for an unmarried woman to +stand talking to an unmarried man near the door of his bachelor +establishment. The widow wanted to observe the conventions. Still she +did linger a moment, her bare arm resting on the gate post. What bright +eager little eyes she had! "If those hens of mine bother you I wish you +would catch them and kill them," she said fiercely. "I am always glad +to see them coming along the road," Melville Stoner replied, bowing. +Rosalind thought he was making fun of the widow. She liked him for +that. "I'd never see you if you did not have to come here after your +hens. Don't let anything happen to them," he said, bowing again. + +For a moment the man and woman lingered looking into each other's eyes. +From one of the windows of the Wescott house Rosalind watched the +woman. Nothing more was said. There was something about the woman she +had not understood--well the widow's senses were being fed. The +developing woman in the house next door had hated her. + + * * * * * + +Rosalind jumped up from under the tree and climbed up the railroad +embankment. She thanked the gods she had been lifted out of the life of +the town of Willow Springs and that chance had set her down to live in +a city. "Chicago is far from beautiful. People say it is just a big +noisy dirty village and perhaps that's what it is, but there is +something alive there," she thought. In Chicago, or at least during the +last two or three years of her life there, Rosalind felt she had +learned a little something of life. She had read books for one thing, +such books as did not come to Willow Springs, books that Willow Springs +knew nothing about, she had gone to hear the Symphony Orchestra, she +had begun to understand something of the possibility of line and color, +had heard intelligent, understanding men speak of these things. In +Chicago, in the midst of the twisting squirming millions of men and +women there were voices. One occasionally saw men or at least heard of +the existence of men who, like the beautiful old man who had walked +away down the marble stairs in the vision of her girlhood nights, had +kept some precious thing alive in themselves. + +And there was something else--it was the most important thing of all. +For the last two years of her life in Chicago she had spent hours, days +in the presence of a man to whom she could talk. The talks had awakened +her. She felt they had made her a woman, had matured her. + +"I know what these people here in Willow Springs are like and what I +would have been like had I stayed here," she thought. She felt relieved +and almost happy. She had come home at a crisis of her own life hoping +to be able to talk a little with her mother, or if talk proved +impossible hoping to get some sense of sisterhood by being in her +presence. She had thought there was something buried away, deep within +every woman, that at a certain call would run out to other women. Now +she felt that the hope, the dream, the desire she had cherished was +altogether futile. Sitting in the great flat bowl in the midst of the +corn lands two miles from her home town where no breath of air stirred +and seeing the beetles at their work of preparing to propagate a new +generation of beetles, while she thought of the town and its people, +had settled something for her. Her visit to Willow Springs had come to +something after all. + +Rosalind's figure had still much of the spring and swing of youth in +it. Her legs were strong and her shoulders broad. She went swinging +along the railroad track toward town, going westward. The sun had begun +to fall rapidly down the sky. Away over the tops of the corn in one of +the great fields she could see in the distance to where a man was +driving a motor along a dusty road. The wheels of the car kicked up +dust through which the sunlight played. The floating cloud of dust +became a shower of gold that settled down over the fields. "When a +woman most wants what is best and truest in another woman, even in her +own mother, she isn't likely to find it," she thought grimly. "There +are certain things every woman has to find out for herself, there is a +road she must travel alone. It may only lead to some more ugly and +terrible place, but if she doesn't want death to overtake her and live +within her while her body is still alive she must set out on that +road." + +Rosalind walked for a mile along the railroad track and then stopped. A +freight train had gone eastward as she sat under the tree by the creek +bed and now, there beside the tracks, in the grass was the body of a +man. It lay still, the face buried in the deep burned grass. At once +she concluded the man had been struck and killed by the train. The body +had been thrown thus aside. All her thoughts went away and she turned +and started to tiptoe away, stepping carefully along the railroad ties, +making no noise. Then she stopped again. The man in the grass might not +be dead, only hurt, terribly hurt. It would not do to leave him there. +She imagined him mutilated but still struggling for life and herself +trying to help him. She crept back along the ties. The man's legs were +not twisted and beside him lay his hat. It was as though he had put it +there before lying down to sleep, but a man did not sleep with his face +buried in the grass in such a hot uncomfortable place. She drew nearer. +"O, you Mister," she called, "O, you--are you hurt?" + +The man in the grass sat up and looked at her. He laughed. It was +Melville Stoner, the man of whom she had just been thinking and in +thinking of whom she had come to certain settled conclusions regarding +the futility of her visit to Willow Springs. He got to his feet and +picked up his hat. "Well, hello, Miss Rosalind Wescott," he said +heartily. He climbed a small embankment and stood beside her. "I knew +you were at home on a visit but what are you doing out here?" he asked +and then added, "What luck this is! Now I shall have the privilege of +walking home with you. You can hardly refuse to let me walk with you +after shouting at me like that." + +They walked together along the tracks he with his hat in his hand. +Rosalind thought he looked like a gigantic bird, an aged wise old bird, +"perhaps a vulture" she thought. For a time he was silent and then he +began to talk, explaining his lying with his face buried in the grass. +There was a twinkle in his eyes and Rosalind wondered if he was +laughing at her as she had seen him laugh at the widow who owned the +hens. + +He did not come directly to the point and Rosalind thought it strange +that they should walk and talk together. At once his words interested +her. He was so much older than herself and no doubt wiser. How vain she +had been to think herself so much more knowing than all the people of +Willow Springs. Here was this man and he was talking and his talk did +not sound like anything she had ever expected to hear from the lips of +a native of her home town. "I want to explain myself but we'll wait a +little. For years I've been wanting to get at you, to talk with you, +and this is my chance. You've been away now five or six years and have +grown into womanhood. + +"You understand it's nothing specially personal, my wanting to get at +you and understand you a little," he added quickly. "I'm that way about +everyone. Perhaps that's the reason I live alone, why I've never +married or had personal friends. I'm too eager. It isn't comfortable to +others to have me about." + +Rosalind was caught up by this new view point of the man. She wondered. +In the distance along the tracks the houses of the town came into +sight. Melville Stoner tried to walk on one of the iron rails but after +a few steps lost his balance and fell off. His long arms whirled about. +A strange intensity of mood and feeling had come over Rosalind. In one +moment Melville Stoner was like an old man and then he was like a boy. +Being with him made her mind, that had been racing all afternoon, race +faster than ever. + +When he began to talk again he seemed to have forgotten the explanation +he had intended making. "We've lived side by side but we've hardly +spoken to each other," he said. "When I was a young man and you were a +girl I used to sit in the house thinking of you. We've really been +friends. What I mean is we've had the same thoughts." + +He began to speak of life in the city where she had been living, +condemning it. "It's dull and stupid here but in the city you have your +own kind of stupidity too," he declared. "I'm glad I do not live +there." + +In Chicago when she had first gone there to live a thing had sometimes +happened that had startled Rosalind. She knew no one but her brother +and his wife and was sometimes very lonely. When she could no longer +bear the eternal sameness of the talk in her brother's house she went +out to a concert or to the theatre. Once or twice when she had no money +to buy a theatre ticket she grew bold and walked alone in the streets, +going rapidly along without looking to the right or left. As she sat in +the theatre or walked in the street an odd thing sometimes happened. +Someone spoke her name, a call came to her. The thing happened at a +concert and she looked quickly about. All the faces in sight had that +peculiar, half bored, half expectant expression one grows accustomed to +seeing on the faces of people listening to music. In the entire theatre +no one seemed aware of her. On the street or in the park the call had +come when she was utterly alone. It seemed to come out of the air, from +behind a tree in the park. + +And now as she walked on the railroad tracks with Melville Stoner the +call seemed to come from him. He walked along apparently absorbed with +his own thoughts, the thoughts he was trying to find words to express. +His legs were long and he walked with a queer loping gait. The idea of +some great bird, perhaps a sea-bird stranded far inland, stayed in +Rosalind's mind but the call did not come from the bird part of him. +There was something else, another personality hidden away. Rosalind +fancied the call came this time from a young boy, from such another +clear-eyed boy as she had once seen in her waking dreams at night in +her father's house, from one of the boys who walked on the marble +stairway, walked down and away. A thought came that startled her. "The +boy is hidden away in the body of this strange bird-like man," she told +herself. The thought awoke fancies within her. It explained much in the +lives of men and women. An expression, a phrase, remembered from her +childhood when she had gone to Sunday School in Willow Springs, came +back to her mind. "And God spoke to me out of a burning bush." She +almost said the words aloud. + +Melville Stoner loped along, walking on the railroad ties and talking. +He seemed to have forgotten the incident of his lying with his nose +buried in the grass and was explaining his life lived alone in the +house in town. Rosalind tried to put her own thoughts aside and to +listen to his words but did not succeed very well. "I came home here +hoping to get a little closer to life, to get, for a few days, out of +the company of a man so I could think about him. I fancied I could get +what I wanted by being near mother, but that hasn't worked. It would be +strange if I got what I am looking for by this chance meeting with +another man," she thought. Her mind went on recording thoughts. She +heard the spoken words of the man beside her but her own mind went on, +also making words. Something within herself felt suddenly relaxed and +free. Ever since she had got off the train at Willow Springs three days +before there had been a great tenseness. Now it was all gone. She +looked at Melville Stoner who occasionally looked at her. There was +something in his eyes, a kind of laughter--a mocking kind of laughter. +His eyes were grey, of a cold greyness, like the eyes of a bird. + +"It has come into my mind--I have been thinking--well you see you have +not married in the six years since you went to live in the city. It +would be strange and a little amusing if you are like myself, if you +cannot marry or come close to any other person," he was saying. + +Again he spoke of the life he led in his house. "I sometimes sit in my +house all day, even when the weather is fine outside," he said. "You +have no doubt seen me sitting there. Sometimes I forget to eat. I read +books all day, striving to forget myself and then night comes and I +cannot sleep. + +"If I could write or paint or make music, if I cared at all about +expressing what goes on in my mind it would be different. However, I +would not write as others do. I would have but little to say about what +people do. What do they do? In what way does it matter? Well you see +they build cities such as you live in and towns like Willow Springs, +they have built this railroad track on which we are walking, they marry +and raise children, commit murders, steal, do kindly acts. What does it +matter? You see we are walking here in the hot sun. In five minutes +more we will be in town and you will go to your house and I to mine. +You will eat supper with your father and mother. Then your father will +go up town and you and your mother will sit together on the front +porch. There will be little said. Your mother will speak of her +intention to can fruit. Then your father will come home and you will +all go to bed. Your father will pump a pail of water at the pump by the +kitchen door. He will carry it indoors and put it on a box by the +kitchen sink. A little of the water will be spilled. It will make a +soft little slap on the kitchen floor--" + +"Ha!" + +Melville Stoner turned and looked sharply at Rosalind who had grown a +little pale. Her mind raced madly, like an engine out of control. There +was a kind of power in Melville Stoner that frightened her. By the +recital of a few commonplace facts he had suddenly invaded her secret +places. It was almost as though he had come into the bedroom in her +father's house where she lay thinking. He had in fact got into her bed. +He laughed again, an unmirthful laugh. "I'll tell you what, we know +little enough here in America, either in the towns or in the cities," +he said rapidly. "We are all on the rush. We are all for action. I sit +still and think. If I wanted to write I'd do something. I'd tell what +everyone thought. It would startle people, frighten them a little, eh? +I would tell you what you have been thinking this afternoon while you +walked here on this railroad track with me. I would tell you what your +mother has been thinking at the same time and what she would like to +say to you." + +Rosalind's face had grown chalky white and her hands trembled. They got +off the railroad tracks and into the streets of Willow Springs. A +change came over Melville Stoner. Of a sudden he seemed just a man of +forty, a little embarrassed by the presence of the younger woman, a +little hesitant. "I'm going to the hotel now and I must leave you +here," he said. His feet made a shuffling sound on the sidewalk. "I +intended to tell you why you found me lying out there with my face +buried in the grass," he said. A new quality had come into his voice. +It was the voice of the boy who had called to Rosalind out of the body +of the man as they walked and talked on the tracks. "Sometimes I can't +stand my life here," he said almost fiercely and waved his long arms +about. "I'm alone too much. I grow to hate myself. I have to run out of +town." + +The man did not look at Rosalind but at the ground. His big feet +continued shuffling nervously about. "Once in the winter time I thought +I was going insane," he said. "I happened to remember an orchard, five +miles from town where I had walked one day in the late fall when the +pears were ripe. A notion came into my head. It was bitter cold but I +walked the five miles and went into the orchard. The ground was frozen +and covered with snow but I brushed the snow aside. I pushed my face +into the grass. In the fall when I had walked there the ground was +covered with ripe pears. A fragrance arose from them. They were covered +with bees that crawled over them, drunk, filled with a kind of ecstacy. +I had remembered the fragrance. That's why I went there and put my face +into the frozen grass. The bees were in an ecstasy of life and I had +missed life. I have always missed life. It always goes away from me. I +always imagined people walking away. In the spring this year I walked +on the railroad track out to the bridge over Willow Creek. Violets grew +in the grass. At that time I hardly noticed them but today I +remembered. The violets were like the people who walk away from me. A +mad desire to run after them had taken possession of me. I felt like a +bird flying through space. A conviction that something had escaped me +and that I must pursue it had taken possession of me." + +Melville Stoner stopped talking. His face also had grown white and his +hands also trembled. Rosalind had an almost irresistible desire to put +out her hand and touch his hand. She wanted to shout, crying--"I am +here. I am not dead. I am alive." Instead she stood in silence, staring +at him, as the widow who owned the high flying hens had stared. +Melville Stoner struggled to recover from the ecstasy into which he had +been thrown by his own words. He bowed and smiled. "I hope you are in +the habit of walking on railroad tracks," he said. "I shall in the +future know what to do with my time. When you come to town I shall camp +on the railroad tracks. No doubt, like the violets, you have left your +fragrance out there." Rosalind looked at him. He was laughing at her as +he had laughed when he talked to the widow standing at his gate. She +did not mind. When he had left her she went slowly through the streets. +The phrase that had come into her mind as they walked on the tracks +came back and she said it over and over. "And God spoke to me out of a +burning bush." She kept repeating the phrase until she got back into +the Wescott house. + + * * * * * + +Rosalind sat on the front porch of the house where her girlhood had +been spent. Her father had not come home for the evening meal. He was a +dealer in coal and lumber and owned a number of unpainted sheds facing +a railroad siding west of town. There was a tiny office with a stove +and a desk in a corner by a window. The desk was piled high with +unanswered letters and with circulars from mining and lumber companies. +Over them had settled a thick layer of coal dust. All day he sat in his +office looking like an animal in a cage, but unlike a caged animal he +was apparently not discontented and did not grow restless. He was the +one coal and lumber dealer in Willow Springs. When people wanted one of +these commodities they had to come to him. There was no other place to +go. He was content. In the morning as soon as he got to his office he +read the Des Moines paper and then if no one came to disturb him he sat +all day, by the stove in winter and by an open window through the long +hot summer days, apparently unaffected by the marching change of +seasons pictured in the fields, without thought, without hope, without +regret that life was becoming an old worn out thing for him. + +In the Wescott house Rosalind's mother had already begun the canning of +which she had several times spoken. She was making gooseberry jam. +Rosalind could hear the pots boiling in the kitchen. Her mother walked +heavily. With the coming of age she was beginning to grow fat. + +The daughter was weary from much thinking. It had been a day of many +emotions. She took off her hat and laid it on the porch beside her. +Melville Stoner's house next door had windows that were like eyes +staring at her, accusing her. "Well now, you see, you have gone too +fast," the house declared. It sneered at her. "You thought you knew +about people. After all you knew nothing." Rosalind held her head in +her hands. It was true she had misunderstood. The man who lived in the +house was no doubt like other people in Willow Springs. He was not, as +she had smartly supposed, a dull citizen of a dreary town, one who knew +nothing of life. Had he not said words that had startled her, torn her +out of herself? + +Rosalind had an experience not uncommon to tired nervous people. Her +mind, weary of thinking, did not stop thinking but went on faster than +ever. A new plane of thought was reached. Her mind was like a flying +machine that leaves the ground and leaps into the air. + +It took hold upon an idea expressed or implied in something Melville +Stoner had said. "In every human being there are two voices, each +striving to make itself heard." + +A new world of thought had opened itself before her. After all human +beings might be understood. It might be possible to understand her +mother and her mother's life, her father, the man she loved, herself. +There was the voice that said words. Words came forth from lips. They +conformed, fell into a certain mold. For the most part the words had no +life of their own. They had come down out of old times and many of them +were no doubt once strong living words, coming out of the depth of +people, out of the bellies of people. The words had escaped out of a +shut-in place. They had once expressed living truth. Then they had gone +on being said, over and over, by the lips of many people, endlessly, +wearily. + +She thought of men and women she had seen together, that she had heard +talking together as they sat in the street cars or in apartments or +walked in a Chicago park. Her brother, the traveling salesman, and his +wife had talked half wearily through the long evenings she had spent +with them in their apartment. It was with them as with the other +people. A thing happened. The lips said certain words but the eyes of +the people said other words. Sometimes the lips expressed affection +while hatred shone out of the eyes. Sometimes it was the other way +about. What a confusion! + +It was clear there was something hidden away within people that could +not get itself expressed except accidentally. One was startled or +alarmed and then the words that fell from the lips became pregnant +words, words that lived. + +The vision that had sometimes visited her in her girlhood as she lay in +bed at night came back. Again she saw the people on the marble +stairway, going down and away, into infinity. Her own mind began to +make words that struggled to get themselves expressed through her lips. +She hungered for someone to whom to say the words and half arose to go +to her mother, to where her mother was making gooseberry jam in the +kitchen, and then sat down again. "They were going down into the hall +of the hidden voices," she whispered to herself. The words excited and +intoxicated her as had the words from the lips of Melville Stoner. She +thought of herself as having quite suddenly grown amazingly, +spiritually, even physically. She felt relaxed, young, wonderfully +strong. She imagined herself as walking, as had the young girl she had +seen in the vision, with swinging arms and shoulders, going down a +marble stairway--down into the hidden places in people, into the hall +of the little voices. "I shall understand after this, what shall I not +understand?" she asked herself. + +Doubt came and she trembled a little. As she walked with him on the +railroad track Melville Stoner had gone down within herself. Her body +was a house, through the door of which he had walked. He had known +about the night noises in her father's house--her father at the well +by the kitchen door, the slap of the spilled water on the floor. Even +when she was a young girl and had thought herself alone in the bed in +the darkness in the room upstairs in the house before which she now +sat, she had not been alone. The strange bird-like man who lived in the +house next door had been with her, in her room, in her bed. Years later +he had remembered the terrible little noises of the house and had known +how they had terrified her. + +There was something terrible in his knowledge too. He had spoken, given +forth his knowledge, but as he did so there was laughter in his eyes, +perhaps a sneer. + +In the Wescott house the sounds of housekeeping went on. A man who had +been at work in a distant field, who had already begun his fall +plowing, was unhitching his horses from the plow. He was far away, +beyond the street's end, in a field that swelled a little out of the +plain. Rosalind stared. The man was hitching the horses to a wagon. She +saw him as through the large end of a telescope. He would drive the +horses away to a distant farmhouse and put them into a barn. Then he +would go into a house where there was a woman at work. Perhaps the +woman like her mother would be making gooseberry jam. He would grunt as +her father did when at evening he came home from the little hot office +by the railroad siding. "Hello," he would say, flatly, indifferently, +stupidly. Life was like that. + +Rosalind became weary of thinking. The man in the distant field had got +into his wagon and was driving away. In a moment there would be nothing +left of him but a thin cloud of dust that floated in the air. In the +house the gooseberry jam had boiled long enough. Her mother was +preparing to put it into glass jars. The operation produced a new +little side current of sounds. She thought again of Melville Stoner. +For years he had been sitting, listening to sounds. There was a kind of +madness in it. + +She had got herself into a half frenzied condition. "I must stop it," +she told herself. "I am like a stringed instrument on which the strings +have been tightened too much." She put her face into her hands, +wearily. + +And then a thrill ran through her body. There was a reason for Melville +Stoner's being what he had become. There was a locked gateway leading +to the marble stairway that led down and away, into infinity, into the +hall of the little voices and the key to the gateway was love. Warmth +came back into Rosalind's body. "Understanding need not lead to +weariness," she thought. Life might after all be a rich, a triumphant +thing. She would make her visit to Willow Springs count for something +significant in her life. For one thing she would really approach her +mother, she would walk into her mother's life. "It will be my first +trip down the marble stairway," she thought and tears came to her eyes. +In a moment her father would be coming home for the evening meal but +after supper he would go away. The two women would be alone together. +Together they would explore a little into the mystery of life, they +would find sisterhood. The thing she had wanted to talk about with +another understanding woman could be talked about then. There might yet +be a beautiful outcome to her visit to Willow Springs and to her +mother. + + + II + +The story of Rosalind's six years in Chicago is the story of thousands +of unmarried women who work in offices in the city. Necessity had not +driven her to work nor kept her at her task and she did not think of +herself as a worker, one who would always be a worker. For a time after +she came out of the stenographic school she drifted from office to +office, acquiring always more skill, but with no particular interest in +what she was doing. It was a way to put in the long days. Her father, +who in addition to the coal and lumber yards owned three farms, sent +her a hundred dollars a month. The money her work brought was spent for +clothes so that she dressed better than the women she worked with. + +Of one thing she was quite sure. She did not want to return to Willow +Springs to live with her father and mother, and after a time she knew +she could not continue living with her brother and his wife. For the +first time she began seeing the city that spread itself out before her +eyes. When she walked at the noon hour along Michigan Boulevard or went +into a restaurant or in the evening went home in the street car she saw +men and women together. It was the same when on Sunday afternoons in +the summer she walked in the park or by the lake. On a street car she +saw a small round-faced woman put her hand into the hand of her male +companion. Before she did it she looked cautiously about. She wanted to +assure herself of something. To the other women in the car, to Rosalind +and the others the act said something. It was as though the woman's +voice had said aloud, "He is mine. Do not draw too close to him." + +There was no doubt that Rosalind was awakening out of the Willow +Springs torpor in which she had lived out her young womanhood. The city +had at least done that for her. The city was wide. It flung itself out. +One had but to let his feet go thump, thump upon the pavements to get +into strange streets, see always new faces. + +On Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday one did not work. In the +summer it was a time to go to places--to the park, to walk among the +strange colorful crowds in Halsted Street, with a half dozen young +people from the office, to spend a day on the sand dunes at the foot of +Lake Michigan. One got excited and was hungry, hungry, always hungry-- +for companionship. That was it. One wanted to possess something--a man +--to take him along on jaunts, be sure of him, yes--own him. + +She read books--always written by men or by manlike women. There was an +essential mistake in the viewpoint of life set forth in the books. The +mistake was always being made. In Rosalind's time it grew more +pronounced. Someone had got hold of a key with which the door to the +secret chamber of life could be unlocked. Others took the key and +rushed in. The secret chamber of life was filled with a noisy vulgar +crowd. All the books that dealt with life at all dealt with it through +the lips of the crowd that had newly come into the sacred place. The +writer had hold of the key. It was his time to be heard. "Sex," he +cried. "It is by understanding sex I will untangle the mystery." + +It was all very well and sometimes interesting but one grew tired of +the subject. + +She lay abed in her room at her brother's house on a Sunday night in +the summer. During the afternoon she had gone for a walk and on a +street on the Northwest Side had come upon a religious procession. The +Virgin was being carried through the streets. The houses were decorated +and women leaned out at the windows of houses. Old priests dressed in +white gowns waddled along. Strong young men carried the platform on +which the Virgin rested. The procession stopped. Someone started a +chant in a loud clear voice. Other voices took it up. Children ran +about gathering in money. All the time there was a loud hum of ordinary +conversation going on. Women shouted across the street to other women. +Young girls walked on the sidewalks and laughed softly as the young men +in white, clustered about the Virgin, turned to stare at them. On every +street corner merchants sold candies, nuts, cool drinks-- + +In her bed at night Rosalind put down the book she had been reading. +"The worship of the Virgin is a form of sex expression," she read. + +"Well what of it? If it be true what does it matter?" + +She got out of bed and took off her nightgown. She was herself a +virgin. What did that matter? She turned herself slowly about, looking +at her strong young woman's body. It was a thing in which sex lived. It +was a thing upon which sex in others might express itself. What did it +matter? + +There was her brother sleeping with his wife in another room near at +hand. In Willow Springs, Iowa, her father was at just this moment +pumping a pail of water at the well by the kitchen door. In a moment he +would carry it into the kitchen to set it on the box by the kitchen +sink. + +Rosalind's cheeks were flushed. She made an odd and lovely figure +standing nude before the glass in her room there in Chicago. She was so +much alive and yet not alive. Her eyes shone with excitement. She +continued to turn slowly round and round twisting her head to look at +her naked back. "Perhaps I am learning to think," she decided. There +was some sort of essential mistake in people's conception of life. +There was something she knew and it was of as much importance as the +things the wise men knew and put into books. She also had found out +something about life. Her body was still the body of what was called a +virgin. What of it? "If the sex impulse within it had been gratified in +what way would my problem be solved? I am lonely now. It is evident +that after that had happened I would still be lonely." + + + III + +Rosalind's life in Chicago had been like a stream that apparently turns +back toward its source. It ran forward, then stopped, turned, twisted. +At just the time when her awakening became a half realized thing she +went to work at a new place, a piano factory on the Northwest Side +facing a branch of the Chicago River. She became secretary to a man who +was treasurer of the company. He was a slender, rather small man of +thirty-eight with thin white restless hands and with gray eyes that +were clouded and troubled. For the first time she became really +interested in the work that ate up her days. Her employer was charged +with the responsibility of passing upon the credit of the firm's +customers and was unfitted for the task. He was not shrewd and within a +short time had made two costly mistakes by which the company had lost +money. "I have too much to do. My time is too much taken up with +details. I need help here," he had explained, evidently irritated, and +Rosalind had been engaged to relieve him of details. + +Her new employer, named Walter Sayers, was the only son of a man who in +his time had been well known in Chicago's social and club life. +Everyone had thought him wealthy and he had tried to live up to +people's estimate of his fortune. His son Walter had wanted to be a +singer and had expected to inherit a comfortable fortune. At thirty he +had married and three years later when his father died he was already +the father of two children. + +And then suddenly he had found himself quite penniless. He could sing +but his voice was not large. It wasn't an instrument with which one +could make money in any dignified way. Fortunately his wife had some +money of her own. It was her money, invested in the piano manufacturing +business, that had secured him the position as treasurer of the +company. With his wife he withdrew from social life and they went to +live in a comfortable house in a suburb. + +Walter Sayers gave up music, apparently surrendered even his interest +in it. Many men and women from his suburb went to hear the orchestra on +Friday afternoons but he did not go. "What's the use of torturing +myself and thinking of a life I cannot lead?" he said to himself. To +his wife he pretended a growing interest in his work at the factory. +"It's really fascinating. It's a game, like moving men back and forth +on a chess board. I shall grow to love it," he said. + +He had tried to build up interest in his work but had not been +successful. Certain things would not get into his consciousness. +Although he tried hard he could not make the fact that profit or loss +to the company depended upon his judgment seem important to himself. It +was a matter of money lost or gained and money meant nothing to him. +"It's father's fault," he thought. "While he lived money never meant +anything to me. I was brought up wrong. I am ill prepared for the +battle of life." He became too timid and lost business that should have +come to the company quite naturally. Then he became too bold in the +extension of credit and other losses followed. + +His wife was quite happy and satisfied with her life. There were four +or five acres of land about the suburban house and she became absorbed +in the work of raising flowers and vegetables. For the sake of the +children she kept a cow. With a young negro gardener she puttered about +all day, digging in the earth, spreading manure about the roots of +bushes and shrubs, planting and transplanting. In the evening when he +had come home from his office in his car she took him by the arm and +led him eagerly about. The two children trotted at their heels. She +talked glowingly. They stood at a low spot at the foot of the garden +and she spoke of the necessity of putting in tile. The prospect seemed +to excite her. "It will be the best land on the place when it's +drained," she said. She stooped and with a trowel turned over the soft +black soil. An odor arose. "See! Just see how rich and black it is!" +she exclaimed eagerly. "It's a little sour now because water has stood +on it." She seemed to be apologizing as for a wayward child. "When it's +drained I shall use lime to sweeten it," she added. She was like a +mother leaning over the cradle of a sleeping babe. Her enthusiasm +irritated him. + +When Rosalind came to take the position in his office the slow fires of +hatred that had been burning beneath the surface of Walter Savers' life +had already eaten away much of his vigor and energy. His body sagged in +the office chair and there were heavy sagging lines at the corners of +his mouth. Outwardly he remained always kindly and cheerful but back of +the clouded, troubled eyes the fires of hatred burned slowly, +persistently. It was as though he was trying to awaken from a troubled +dream that gripped him, a dream that frightened a little, that was +unending. He had contracted little physical habits. A sharp paper +cutter lay on his desk. As he read a letter from one of the firm's +customers he took it up and jabbed little holes in the leather cover of +his desk. When he had several letters to sign he took up his pen and +jabbed it almost viciously into the inkwell. Then before signing he +jabbed it in again. Sometimes he did the thing a dozen times in +succession. + +Sometimes the things that went on beneath the surface of Walter Sayers +frightened him. In order to do what he called "putting in his Saturday +afternoons and Sundays" he had taken up photography. The camera took +him away from his own house and the sight of the garden where his wife +and the negro were busy digging, and into the fields and into stretches +of woodland at the edge of the suburban village. Also it took him away +from his wife's talk, from her eternal planning for the garden's +future. Here by the house tulip bulbs were to be put in in the fall. +Later there would be a hedge of lilac bushes shutting off the house +from the road. The men who lived in the other houses along the suburban +street spent their Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings tinkering +with motor cars. On Sunday afternoons they took their families driving, +sitting up very straight and silent at the driving wheel. They consumed +the afternoon in a swift dash over country roads. The car ate up the +hours. Monday morning and the work in the city was there, at the end of +the road. They ran madly toward it. + +For a time the use of the camera made Walter Sayers almost happy. The +study of light, playing on the trunk of a tree or over the grass in a +field appealed to some instinct within. It was an uncertain delicate +business. He fixed himself a dark room upstairs in the house and spent +his evenings there. One dipped the films into the developing liquid, +held them to the light and then dipped them again. The little nerves +that controlled the eyes were aroused. One felt oneself being enriched, +a little-- + +One Sunday afternoon he went to walk in a strip of woodland and came +out upon the slope of a low hill. He had read somewhere that the low +hill country southwest of Chicago, in which his suburb lay, had once +been the shore of Lake Michigan. The low hills sprang out of the flat +land and were covered with forests. Beyond them the flat lands began +again. The prairies went on indefinitely, into infinity. People's lives +went on so. Life was too long. It was to be spent in the endless doing +over and over of an unsatisfactory task. He sat on the slope and looked +out across the land. + +He thought of his wife. She was back there, in the suburb in the hills, +in her garden making things grow. It was a noble sort of thing to be +doing. One shouldn't be irritated. + +Well he had married her expecting to have money of his own. Then he +would have worked at something else. Money would not have been involved +in the matter and success would not have been a thing one must seek. He +had expected his own life would be motivated. No matter how much or how +hard he worked he would not have been a great singer. What did that +matter? There was a way to live--a way of life in which such things did +not matter. The delicate shades of things might be sought after. Before +his eyes, there on the grass covered flat lands, the afternoon light +was playing. It was like a breath, a vapor of color blown suddenly from +between red lips out over the grey dead burned grass. Song might be +like that. The beauty might come out of himself, out of his own body. + +Again he thought of his wife and the sleeping light in his eyes flared +up, it became a flame. He felt himself being mean, unfair. It didn't +matter. Where did the truth lie? Was his wife, digging in her garden, +having always a succession of small triumphs, marching forward with the +seasons--well, was she becoming a little old, lean and sharp, a little +vulgarized? + +It seemed so to him. There was something smug in the way in which she +managed to fling green growing flowering things over the black land. It +was obvious the thing could be done and that there was satisfaction in +doing it. It was a little like running a business and making money by +it. There was a deep seated vulgarity involved in the whole matter. His +wife put her hands into the black ground. They felt about, caressed the +roots of the growing things. She laid hold of the slender trunk of a +young tree in a certain way--as though she possessed it. + +One could not deny that the destruction of beautiful things was +involved. Weeds grew in the garden, delicate shapely things. She +plucked them out without thought. He had seen her do it. + +As for himself, he also had been pulled out of something. Had he not +surrendered to the fact of a wife and growing children? Did he not +spend his days doing work he detested? The anger within him burned +bright. The fire came into his conscious self. Why should a weed that +is to be destroyed pretend to a vegetable existence? As for puttering +about with a camera--was it not a form of cheating? He did not want to +be a photographer. He had once wanted to be a singer. + +He arose and walked along the hillside, still watching the shadows play +over the plains below. At night--in bed with his wife--well, was she +not sometimes with him as she was in the garden? Something was plucked +out of him and another thing grew in its place--something she wanted to +have grow. Their love making was like his puttering with a camera--to +make the weekends pass. She came at him a little too determinedly-- +sure. She was plucking delicate weeds in order that things she had +determined upon--"vegetables," he exclaimed in disgust--in order that +vegetables might grow. Love was a fragrance, the shading of a tone over +the lips, out of the throat. It was like the afternoon light on the +burned grass. Keeping a garden and making flowers grow had nothing to +do with it. + +Walter Sayers' fingers twitched. The camera hung by a strap over his +shoulder. He took hold of the strap and walked to a tree. He swung the +box above his head and brought it down with a thump against the tree +trunk. The sharp breaking sound--the delicate parts of the machine +being broken--was sweet to his ears. It was as though a song had come +suddenly from between his lips. Again he swung the box and again +brought it down against the tree trunk. + + + IV + +Rosalind at work in Walter Sayers' office was from the beginning +something different, apart from the young woman from Iowa who had been +drifting from office to office, moving from rooming house to rooming +house on Chicago's North Side, striving feebly to find out something +about life by reading books, going to the theatre and walking alone in +the streets. In the new place her life at once began to have point and +purpose, but at the same time the perplexity that was later to send her +running to Willow Springs and to the presence of her mother began to +grow in her. + +Walter Sayers' office was a rather large room on the third floor of the +factory whose walls went straight up from the river's edge. In the +morning Rosalind arrived at eight and went into the office and closed +the door. In a large room across a narrow hallway and shut off from her +retreat by two thick, clouded-glass partitions was the company's +general office. It contained the desks of salesmen, several clerks, a +bookkeeper and two stenographers. Rosalind avoided becoming acquainted +with these people. She was in a mood to be alone, to spend as many +hours as possible alone with her own thoughts. + +She got to the office at eight and her employer did not arrive until +nine-thirty or ten. For an hour or two in the morning and in the late +afternoon she had the place to herself. Immediately she shut the door +into the hallway and was alone she felt at home. Even in her father's +house it had never been so. She took off her wraps and walked about the +room touching things, putting things to rights. During the night a +negro woman had scrubbed the floor and wiped the dust off her +employer's desk but she got a cloth and wiped the desk again. Then she +opened the letters that had come in and after reading arranged them in +little piles. She wanted to spend a part of her wages for flowers and +imagined clusters of flowers arranged in small hanging baskets along +the grey walls. "I'll do that later, perhaps," she thought. + +The walls of the room enclosed her. "What makes me so happy here?" she +asked herself. As for her employer--she felt she scarcely knew him. He +was a shy man, rather small-- + +She went to a window and stood looking out. Near the factory a bridge +crossed the river and over it went a stream of heavily loaded wagons +and motor trucks. The sky was grey with smoke. In the afternoon, after +her employer had gone for the day, she would stand again by the window. +As she stood thus she faced westward and in the afternoon saw the sun +fall down the sky. It was glorious to be there alone during the late +hours of the afternoon. What a tremendous thing this city in which she +had come to live! For some reason after she went to work for Walter +Sayers the city seemed, like the room in which she worked, to have +accepted her, taken her into itself. In the late afternoon the rays of +the departing sun fell across great banks of clouds. The whole city +seemed to reach upwards. It left the ground and ascended into the air. +There was an illusion produced. Stark grim factory chimneys, that all +day were stiff cold formal things sticking up into the air and belching +forth black smoke, were now slender upreaching pencils of light and +wavering color. The tall chimneys detached themselves from the +buildings and sprang into the air. The factory in which Rosalind stood +had such a chimney. It also was leaping upward. She felt herself being +lifted, an odd floating sensation was achieved. With what a stately +tread the day went away, over the city! The city, like the factory +chimneys yearned after it, hungered for it. + +In the morning gulls came in from Lake Michigan to feed on the sewage +floating in the river below. The river was the color of chrysoprase. +The gulls floated above it as sometimes in the evening the whole city +seemed to float before her eyes. They were graceful, living, free +things. They were triumphant. The getting of food, even the eating of +sewage was done thus gracefully, beautifully. The gulls turned and +twisted in the air. They wheeled and floated and then fell downward to +the river in a long curve, just touching, caressing the surface of the +water and then rising again. + +Rosalind raised herself on her toes. At her back beyond the two glass +partitions were other men and women, but there, in that room, she was +alone. She belonged there. What an odd feeling she had. She also +belonged to her employer, Walter Sayers. She scarcely knew the man and +yet she belonged to him. She threw her arms above her head, trying +awkwardly to imitate some movement of the birds. + +Her awkwardness shamed her a little and she turned and walked about the +room. "I'm twenty-five years old and it's a little late to begin trying +to be a bird, to be graceful," she thought. She resented the slow +stupid heavy movements of her father and mother, the movements she had +imitated as a child. "Why was I not taught to be graceful and beautiful +in mind and body, why in the place I came from did no one think it +worth while to try to be graceful and beautiful?" she whispered to +herself. + +How conscious of her own body Rosalind was becoming! She walked across +the room, trying to go lightly and gracefully. In the office beyond the +glass partitions someone spoke suddenly and she was startled. She +laughed foolishly. For a long time after she went to work in the office +of Walter Sayers she thought the desire in herself to be physically +more graceful and beautiful and to rise also out of the mental +stupidity and sloth of her young womanhood was due to the fact that the +factory windows faced the river and the western sky, and that in the +morning she saw the gulls feeding and in the afternoon the sun going +down through the smoke clouds in a riot of colors. + + + V + +On the August evening as Rosalind sat on the porch before her father's +house in Willow Springs, Walter Sayers came home from the factory by +the river and to his wife's suburban garden. When the family had dined +he came out to walk in the paths with the two children, boys, but they +soon tired of his silence and went to join their mother. The young +negro came along a path by the kitchen door and joined the party. +Walter went to sit on a garden seat that was concealed behind bushes. +He lighted a cigarette but did not smoke. The smoke curled quietly up +through his fingers as it burned itself out. + +Closing his eyes Walter sat perfectly still and tried not to think. The +soft evening shadows began presently to close down and around him. For +a long time he sat thus motionless, like a carved figure placed on the +garden bench. He rested. He lived and did not live. The intense body, +usually so active and alert, had become a passive thing. It was thrown +aside, on to the bench, under the bush, to sit there, waiting to be +reinhabited. + +This hanging suspended between consciousness and unconsciousness was a +thing that did not happen often. There was something to be settled +between himself and a woman and the woman had gone away. His whole plan +of life had been disturbed. Now he wanted to rest. The details of his +life were forgotten. As for the woman he did not think of her, did not +want to think of her. It was ridiculous that he needed her so much. He +wondered if he had ever felt that way about Cora, his wife. Perhaps he +had. Now she was near him, but a few yards away. It was almost dark but +she with the negro remained at work, digging in the ground--somewhere +near--caressing the soil, making things grow. + +When his mind was undisturbed by thoughts and lay like a lake in the +hills on a quiet summer evening little thoughts did come. "I want you +as a lover--far away. Keep yourself far away." The words trailed +through his mind as the smoke from the cigarette trailed slowly upwards +through his fingers. Did the words refer to Rosalind Wescott? She had +been gone from him three days. Did he hope she would never come back or +did the words refer to his wife? + +His wife's voice spoke sharply. One of the children in playing about, +had stepped on a plant. "If you are not careful I shall have to make +you stay out of the garden altogether." She raised her voice and +called, "Marian!" A maid came from the house and took the children +away. They went along the path toward the house protesting. Then they +ran back to kiss their mother. There was a struggle and then +acceptance. The kiss was acceptance of their fate--to obey. "O, +Walter," the mother's voice called, but the man on the bench did not +answer. Tree toads began to cry. "The kiss is acceptance. Any physical +contact with another is acceptance," he reflected. + +The little voices within Walter Sayers were talking away at a great +rate. Suddenly he wanted to sing. He had been told that his voice was +small, not of much account, that he would never be a singer. It was +quite true no doubt but here, in the garden on the quiet summer night, +was a place and a time for a small voice. It would be like the voice +within himself that whispered sometimes when he was quiet, relaxed. One +evening when he had been with the woman, Rosalind, when he had taken +her into the country in his car, he had suddenly felt as he did now. +They sat together in the car that he had run into a field. For a long +time they had remained silent. Some cattle came and stood nearby, their +figures soft in the night. Suddenly he had felt like a new man in a new +world and had begun to sing. He sang one song over and over, then sat +in silence for a time and after that drove out of the field and through +a gate into the road. He took the woman back to her place in the city. + +In the quiet of the garden on the summer evening he opened his lips to +sing the same song. He would sing with the tree toad hidden away in the +fork of a tree somewhere. He would lift his voice up from the earth, up +into the branches, of trees, away from the ground in which people were +digging, his wife and the young negro. + +The song did not come. His wife began speaking and the sound of her +voice took away the desire to sing. Why had she not, like the other +woman, remained silent? + +He began playing a game. Sometimes, when he was alone the thing +happened to him that had now happened. His body became like a tree or a +plant. Life ran through it unobstructed. He had dreamed of being a +singer but at such a moment he wanted also to be a dancer. That would +have been sweetest of all things--to sway like the tops of young trees +when a wind blew, to give himself as grey weeds in a sunburned field +gave themself to the influence of passing shadows, changing color +constantly, becoming every moment something new, to live in life and in +death too, always to live, to be unafraid of life, to let it flow +through his body, to let the blood flow through his body, not to +struggle, to offer no resistance, to dance. + +Walter Sayers' children had gone into the house with the nurse girl +Marian. It had become too dark for his wife to dig in the garden. It +was August and the fruitful time of the year for farms and gardens had +come, but his wife had forgotten fruitfulness. She was making plans for +another year. She came along the garden path followed by the negro. "We +will set out strawberry plants there," she was saying. The soft voice +of the young negro murmured his assent. It was evident the young man +lived in her conception of the garden. His mind sought out her desire +and gave itself. + +The children Walter Sayers had brought into life through the body of +his wife Cora had gone into the house and to bed. They bound him to +life, to his wife, to the garden where he sat, to the office by the +riverside in the city. + +They were not his children. Suddenly he knew that quite clearly. His +own children were quite different things. "Men have children just as +women do. The children come out of their bodies. They play about," he +thought. It seemed to him that children, born of his fancy, were at +that very moment playing about the bench where he sat. Living things +that dwelt within him and that had at the same time the power to depart +out of him were now running along paths, swinging from the branches of +trees, dancing in the soft light. + +His mind sought out the figure of Rosalind Wescott. She had gone away, +to her own people in Iowa. There had been a note at the office saying +she might be gone for several days. Between himself and Rosalind the +conventional relationship of employer and employee had long since been +swept quite away. It needed something in a man he did not possess to +maintain that relationship with either men or women. + +At the moment he wanted to forget Rosalind. In her there was a struggle +going on. The two people had wanted to be lovers and he had fought +against that. They had talked about it. "Well," he said, "it will not +work out. We will bring unnecessary unhappiness upon ourselves." + +He had been honest enough in fighting off the intensification of their +relationship. "If she were here now, in this garden with me, it +wouldn't matter. We could be lovers and then forget about being +lovers," he told himself. + +His wife came along the path and stopped nearby. She continued talking +in a low voice, making plans for another year of gardening. The negro +stood near her, his figure making a dark wavering mass against the +foliage of a low growing bush. His wife wore a white dress. He could +see her figure quite plainly. In the uncertain light it looked girlish +and young. She put her hand up and took hold of the body of a young +tree. The hand became detached from her body. The pressure of her +leaning body made the young tree sway a little. The white hand moved +slowly back and forth in space. + +Rosalind Wescott had gone home to tell her mother of her love. In her +note she had said nothing of that but Walter Sayers knew that was the +object of her visit to the Iowa town. It was on odd sort of thing to +try to do--to tell people of love, to try to explain it to others. + +The night was a thing apart from Walter Sayers, the male being sitting +in silence in the garden. Only the children of his fancy understood it. +The night was a living thing. It advanced upon him, enfolded him. +"Night is the sweet little brother of Death," he thought. + +His wife stood very near. Her voice was soft and low and the voice of +the negro when he answered her comments on the future of the garden was +soft and low. There was music in the negro's voice, perhaps a dance in +it. Walter remembered about him. + +The young negro had been in trouble before he came to the Sayers. He +had been an ambitious young black and had listened to the voices of +people, to the voices that filled the air of America, rang through the +houses of America. He had wanted to get on in life and had tried to +educate himself. The black had wanted to be a lawyer. + +How far away he had got from his own people, from the blacks of the +African forests! He had wanted to be a lawyer in a city in America. +What a notion! + +Well he had got into trouble. He had managed to get through college and +had opened a law office. Then one evening he went out to walk and +chance led him into a street where a woman, a white woman, had been +murdered an hour before. The body of the woman was found and then he +was found walking in the street. Mrs. Sayers' brother, a lawyer, had +saved him from being punished as a murderer and after the trial, and +the young negro's acquittal, had induced his sister to take him as +gardener. His chances as a professional man in the city were no good. +"He has had a terrible experience and has just escaped by a fluke" the +brother had said. Cora Sayers had taken the young man. She had bound +him to herself, to her garden. + +It was evident the two people were bound together. One cannot bind +another without being bound. His wife had no more to say to the negro +who went away along the path that led to the kitchen door. He had a +room in a little house at the foot of the garden. In the room he had +books and a piano. Sometimes in the evening he sang. He was going now +to his place. By educating himself he had cut himself off from his own +people. + +Cora Sayers went into the house and Walter sat alone. After a time the +young negro came silently down the path. He stopped by the tree where a +moment before the white woman had stood talking to him. He put his hand +on the trunk of the young tree where her hand had been and then went +softly away. His feet made no sound on the garden path. + +An hour passed. In his little house at the foot of the garden the negro +began to sing softly. He did that sometimes in the middle of the night. +What a life he had led too! He had come away from his black people, +from the warm brown girls with the golden colors playing through the +blue black of their skins and had worked his way through a Northern +college, had accepted the patronage of impertinent people who wanted to +uplift the black race, had listened to them, had bound himself to them, +had tried to follow the way of life they had suggested. + +Now he was in the little house at the foot of the Sayers' garden. +Walter remembered little things his wife had told him about the man. +The experience in the court room had frightened him horribly and he did +not want to go off the Sayers' place. Education, books had done +something to him. He could not go back to his own people. In Chicago, +for the most part, the blacks lived crowded into a few streets on the +South Side. "I want to be a slave," he had said to Cora Sayers. "You +may pay me money if it makes you feel better but I shall have no use +for it. I want to be your slave. I would be happy if I knew I would +never have to go off your place." + +The black sang a low voiced song. It ran like a little wind on the +surface of a pond. It had no words. He had remembered the song from his +father who had got it from his father. In the South, in Alabama and +Mississippi the blacks sang it when they rolled cotton bales onto the +steamers in the rivers. They had got it from other rollers of cotton +bales long since dead. Long before there were any cotton bales to roll +black men in boats on rivers in Africa had sung it. Young blacks in +boats floated down rivers and came to a town they intended to attack at +dawn. There was bravado in singing the song then. It was addressed to +the women in the town to be attacked and contained both a caress and a +threat. "In the morning your husbands and brothers and sweethearts we +shall kill. Then we shall come into your town to you. We shall hold you +close. We shall make you forget. With our hot love and our strength we +shall make you forget." That was the old significance of the song. + +Walter Sayers remembered many things. On other nights when the negro +sang and when he lay in his room upstairs in the house, his wife came +to him. There were two beds in their room. She sat upright in her bed. +"Do you hear, Walter?" she asked. She came to sit on his bed, sometimes +she crept into his arms. In the African villages long ago when the song +floated up from the river men arose and prepared for battle. The song +was a defiance, a taunt. That was all gone now. The young negro's house +was at the foot of the garden and Walter with his wife lay upstairs in +the larger house situated on high ground. It was a sad song, filled +with race sadness. There was something in the ground that wanted to +grow, buried deep in the ground. Cora Sayers understood that. It +touched something instinctive in her. Her hand went out and touched, +caressed her husband's face, his body. The song made her want to hold +him tight, possess him. + +The night was advancing and it grew a little cold in the garden. The +negro stopped singing. Walter Sayers arose and went along the path +toward the house but did not enter. Instead he went through a gate into +the road and along the suburban streets until he got into the open +country. There was no moon but the stars shone brightly. For a time he +hurried along looking back as though afraid of being followed, but when +he got out into a broad flat meadow he went more slowly. For an hour he +walked and then stopped and sat on a tuft of dry grass. For some reason +he knew he could not return to his house in the suburb that night. In +the morning he would go to the office and wait there until Rosalind +came. Then? He did not know what he would do then. "I shall have to +make up some story. In the morning I shall have to telephone Cora and +make up some silly story," he thought. It was an absurd thing that he, +a grown man, could not spend a night abroad, in the fields without the +necessity of explanations. The thought irritated him and he arose and +walked again. Under the stars in the soft night and on the wide flat +plains the irritation soon went away and he began to sing softly, but +the song he sang was not the one he had repeated over and over on that +other night when he sat with Rosalind in the car and the cattle came. +It was the song the negro sang, the river song of the young black +warriors that slavery had softened and colored with sadness. On the +lips of Walter Sayers the song had lost much of its sadness. He walked +almost gaily along and in the song that flowed from his lips there was +a taunt, a kind of challenge. + + + VI + +At the end of the short street on which the Wescotts lived in Willow +Springs there was a cornfield. When Rosalind was a child it was a +meadow and beyond was an orchard. + +On summer afternoons the child often went there to sit alone on the +banks of a tiny stream that wandered away eastward toward Willow Creek, +draining the farmer's fields on the way. The creek had made a slight +depression in the level contour of the land and she sat with her back +against an old apple tree and with her bare feet almost touching the +water. Her mother did not permit her to run bare footed through the +streets but when she got into the orchard she took her shoes off. It +gave her a delightful naked feeling. + +Overhead and through the branches the child could see the great sky. +Masses of white clouds broke into fragments and then the fragments came +together again. The sun ran in behind one of the cloud masses and grey +shadows slid silently over the face of distant fields. The world of her +child life, the Wescott household, Melville Stoner sitting in his +house, the cries of other children who lived in her street, all the +life she knew went far away. To be there in that silent place was like +lying awake in bed at night only in some way sweeter and better. There +were no dull household sounds and the air she breathed was sweeter, +cleaner. The child played a little game. All the apple trees in the +orchard were old and gnarled and she had given all the trees names. +There was one fancy that frightened her a little but was delicious too. +She fancied that at night when she had gone to bed and was asleep and +when all the town of Willow Springs had gone to sleep the trees came +out of the ground and walked about. The grasses beneath the trees, the +bushes that grew beside the fence--all came out of the ground and ran +madly here and there. They danced wildly. The old trees, like stately +old men, put their heads together and talked. As they talked their +bodies swayed slightly--back and forth, back and forth. The bushes and +flowering weeds ran in great circles among the little grasses. The +grasses hopped straight up and down. + +Sometimes when she sat with her back against the tree on warm bright +afternoons the child Rosalind had played the game of dancing-life until +she grew afraid and had to give it up. Nearby in the fields men were +cultivating corn. The breasts of the horses and their wide strong +shoulders pushed the young corn aside and made a low rustling sound. +Now and then a man's voice was raised in a shout. "Hi, there you Joe! +Get in there Frank!" The widow of the hens owned a little woolly dog +that occasionally broke into a spasm of barking, apparently without +cause, senseless, eager, barking. Rosalind shut all the sounds out. She +closed her eyes and struggled, trying to get into the place beyond +human sounds. After a time her desire was accomplished. There was a low +sweet sound like the murmuring of voices far away. Now the thing was +happening. With a kind of tearing sound the trees came up to stand on +top of the ground. They moved with stately tread toward each other. Now +the mad bushes and the flowering weeds came running, dancing madly, now +the joyful grasses hopped. Rosalind could not stay long in her world of +fancy. It was too mad, too joyful. She opened her eyes and jumped to +her feet. Everything was all right. The trees stood solidly rooted in +the ground, the weeds and bushes had gone back to their places by the +fence, the grasses lay asleep on the ground. She felt that her father +and mother, her brother, everyone she knew would not approve of her +being there among them. The world of dancing life was a lovely but a +wicked world. She knew. Sometimes she was a little mad herself and then +she was whipped or scolded. The mad world of her fancy had to be put +away. It frightened her a little. Once after the thing appeared she +cried, went down to the fence crying. A man who was cultivating corn +came along and stopped his horses. "What's the matter?" he asked +sharply. She couldn't tell him so she told a lie. "A bee stung me," she +said. The man laughed. "It'll get well. Better put on your shoes," he +advised. + +The time of the marching trees and the dancing grasses was in +Rosalind's childhood. Later when she had graduated from the Willow +Springs High School and had the three years of waiting about the +Wescott house before she went to the city she had other experiences in +the orchard. Then she had been reading novels and had talked with other +young women. She knew many things that after all she did not know. In +the attic of her mother's house there was a cradle in which she and her +brother had slept when they were babies. One day she went up there and +found it. Bedding for the cradle was packed away in a trunk and she +took it out. She arranged the cradle for the reception of a child. Then +after she did it she was ashamed. Her mother might come up the attic +stairs and see it. She put the bedding quickly back into the trunk and +went down stairs, her cheeks burning with shame. + +What a confusion! One day she went to the house of a schoolgirl friend +who was about to be married. Several other girls came and they were all +taken into a bedroom where the bride's trousseau was laid out on a bed. +What soft lovely things! All the girls went forward and stood over +them, Rosalind among them. Some of the girls were shy, others bold. +There was one, a thin girl who had no breasts. Her body was flat like a +door and she had a thin sharp voice and a thin sharp face. She began to +cry out strangely. "How sweet, how sweet, how sweet," she cried over +and over. The voice was not like a human voice. It was like something +being hurt, an animal in the forest, far away somewhere by itself, +being hurt. Then the girl dropped to her knees beside the bed and began +to weep bitterly. She declared she could not bear the thought of her +schoolgirl friend being married. "Don't do it! O, Mary don't do it!" +she pleaded. The other girls laughed but Rosalind couldn't stand it. +She hurried out of the house. + +That was one thing that had happened to Rosalind and there were other +things. Once she saw a young man on the street. He clerked in a store +and Rosalind did not know him. However her fancy played with the +thought that she had married him. Her own thoughts made her ashamed. + +Everything shamed her. When she went into the orchard on summer +afternoons she sat with her back against the apple tree and took off +her shoes and stockings just as she had when she was a child, but the +world of her childhood fancy was gone, nothing could bring it back. + +Rosalind's body was soft but all her flesh was firm and strong. She +moved away from the tree and lay on the ground. She pressed her body +down into the grass, into the firm hard ground. It seemed to her that +her mind, her fancy, all the life within her, except just her physical +life, went away. The earth pressed upwards against her body. Her body +was pressed against the earth. There was darkness. She was imprisoned. +She pressed against the walls of her prison. Everything was dark and +there was in all the earth silence. Her fingers clutched a handful of +the grasses, played in the grasses. + +Then she grew very still but did not sleep. There was something that +had nothing to do with the ground beneath her or the trees or the +clouds in the sky, that seemed to want to come to her, come into her, a +kind of white wonder of life. + +The thing couldn't happen. She opened her eyes and there was the sky +overhead and the trees standing silently about. She went again to sit +with her back against one of the trees. She thought with dread of the +evening coming on and the necessity of going out of the orchard and to +the Wescott house. She was weary. It was the weariness that made her +appear to others a rather dull stupid young woman. Where was the wonder +of life? It was not within herself, not in the ground. It must be in +the sky overhead. Presently it would be night and the stars would come +out. Perhaps the wonder did not really exist in life. It had something +to do with God. She wanted to ascend upwards, to go at once up into +God's house, to be there among the light strong men and women who had +died and left dullness and heaviness behind them on the earth. Thinking +of them took some of her weariness away and sometimes she went out of +the orchard in the late afternoon walking almost lightly. Something +like grace seemed to have come into her tall strong body. + + * * * * * + +Rosalind had gone away from the Wescott house and from Willow Springs, +Iowa, feeling that life was essentially ugly. In a way she hated life +and people. In Chicago sometimes it was unbelievable how ugly the world +had become. She tried to shake off the feeling but it clung to her. She +walked through the crowded streets and the buildings were ugly. A sea +of faces floated up to her. They were the faces of dead people. The +dull death that was in them was in her also. They too could not break +through the walls of themselves to the white wonder of life. After all +perhaps there was no such thing as the white wonder of life. It might +be just a thing of the mind. There was something essentially dirty +about life. The dirt was on her and in her. Once as she walked at +evening over the Rush Street bridge to her room on the North Side she +looked up suddenly and saw the chrysoprase river running inland from +the lake. Near at hand stood a soap factory. The men of the city had +turned the river about, made it flow inland from the lake. Someone had +erected a great soap factory there near the river's entrance to the +city, to the land of men. Rosalind stopped and stood looking along the +river toward the lake. Men and women, wagons, automobiles rushed past +her. They were dirty. She was dirty. "The water of an entire sea and +millions of cakes of soap will not wash me clean," she thought. The +dirtiness of life seemed a part of her very being and an almost +overwhelming desire to climb upon the railing of the bridge and leap +down into the chrysoprase river swept over her. Her body trembled +violently and putting down her head and staring at the flooring of the +bridge she hurried away. + + * * * * * + +And now Rosalind, a grown woman, was in the Wescott house at the supper +table with her father and mother. None of the three people ate. They +fussed about with the food Ma Wescott had prepared. Rosalind looked at +her mother and thought of what Melville Stoner had said. + +"If I wanted to write I'd do something. I'd tell what everyone thought. +It would startle people, frighten them a little, eh? I would tell what +you have been thinking this afternoon while you walked here on this +railroad track with me. I would tell what your mother has been thinking +at the same time and what she would like to say to you." + +What had Rosalind's mother been thinking all through the three days +since her daughter had so unexpectedly come home from Chicago? What did +mothers think in regard to the lives led by their daughters? Had +mothers something of importance to say to daughters and if they did +when did the time come when they were ready to say it? + +She looked at her mother sharply. The older woman's face was heavy and +sagging. She had grey eyes like Rosalind's but they were dull like the +eyes of a fish lying on a slab of ice in the window of a city meat +market. The daughter was a little frightened by what she saw in her +mother's face and something caught in her throat. There was an +embarrassing moment. A strange sort of tenseness came into the air of +the room and all three people suddenly got up from the table. + +Rosalind went to help her mother with the dishes and her father sat in +a chair by a window and read a paper. The daughter avoided looking +again into her mother's face. "I must gather myself together if I am to +do what I want to do," she thought. It was strange--in fancy she saw +the lean bird-like face of Melville Stoner and the eager tired face of +Walter Sayers floating above the head of her mother who leaned over the +kitchen sink, washing the dishes. Both of the men's faces sneered at +her. "You think you can but you can't. You are a young fool," the men's +lips seemed to be saying. + +Rosalind's father wondered how long his daughter's visit was to last. +After the evening meal he wanted to clear out of the house, go up town, +and he had a guilty feeling that in doing so he was being discourteous +to his daughter. While the two women washed the dishes he put on his +hat and going into the back yard began chopping wood. Rosalind went to +sit on the front porch. The dishes were all washed and dried but for a +half hour her mother would putter about in the kitchen. She always did +that. She would arrange and rearrange, pick up dishes and put them down +again. She clung to the kitchen. It was as though she dreaded the hours +that must pass before she could go upstairs and to bed and asleep, to +fall into the oblivion of sleep. + +When Henry Wescott came around the corner of the house and confronted +his daughter he was a little startled. He did not know what was the +matter but he felt uncomfortable. For a moment he stopped and looked at +her. Life radiated from her figure. A fire burned in her eyes, in her +grey intense eyes. Her hair was yellow like cornsilk. She was, at the +moment, a complete, a lovely daughter of the cornlands, a being to be +loved passionately, completely by some son of the cornlands--had there +been in the land a son as alive as this daughter it had thrown aside. +The father had hoped to escape from the house unnoticed. "I'm going up +town a little while," he said hesitatingly. Still he lingered a moment. +Some old sleeping thing awoke in him, was awakened in him by the +startling beauty of his daughter. A little fire flared up among the +charred rafters of the old house that was his body. "You look pretty, +girly," he said sheepishly and then turned his back to her and went +along the path to the gate and the street. + +Rosalind followed her father to the gate and stood looking as he went +slowly along the short street and around a corner. The mood induced in +her by her talk with Melville Stoner had returned. Was it possible that +her father also felt as Melville Stoner sometimes did? Did loneliness +drive him to the door of insanity and did he also run through the night +seeking some lost, some hidden and half forgotten loveliness? + +When her father had disappeared around the corner she went through the +gate and into the street. "I'll go sit by the tree in the orchard until +mother has finished puttering about the kitchen," she thought. + +Henry Wescott went along the streets until he came to the square about +the court house and then went into Emanuel Wilson's Hardware Store. Two +or three other men presently joined him there. Every evening he sat +among these men of his town saying nothing. It was an escape from his +own house and his wife. The other men came for the same reason. A faint +perverted kind of male fellowship was achieved. One of the men of the +party, a little old man who followed the housepainters trade, was +unmarried and lived with his mother. He was himself nearing the age of +sixty but his mother was still alive. It was a thing to be wondered +about. When in the evening the house painter was a trifle late at the +rendezvous a mild flurry of speculation arose, floated in the air for a +moment and then settled like dust in an empty house. Did the old house +painter do the housework in his own house, did he wash the dishes, cook +the food, sweep and make the beds or did his feeble old mother do these +things? Emanuel Wilson told a story he had often told before. In a town +in Ohio where he had lived as a young man he had once heard a tale. +There was an old man like the house painter whose mother was also still +alive and lived with him. They were very poor and in the winter had not +enough bedclothes to keep them both warm. They crawled into a bed +together. It was an innocent enough matter, just like a mother taking +her child into her bed. + +Henry Wescott sat in the store listening to the tale Emanuel Wilson +told for the twentieth time and thought about his daughter. Her beauty +made him feel a little proud, a little above the men who were his +companions. He had never before thought of his daughter as a beautiful +woman. Why had he never before noticed her beauty? Why had she come +from Chicago, there by the lake, to Willow Springs, in the hot month of +August? Had she come home from Chicago because she really wanted to see +her father and mother? For a moment he was ashamed of his own heavy +body, of his shabby clothes and his unshaven face and then the tiny +flame that had flared up within him burned itself out. The house +painter came in and the faint flavor of male companionship to which he +clung so tenaciously was reestablished. + +In the orchard Rosalind sat with her back against the tree in the same +spot where her fancy had created the dancing life of her childhood and +where as a young woman graduate of the Willow Springs High School she +had come to try to break through the wall that separated her from life. +The sun had disappeared and the grey shadows of night were creeping +over the grass, lengthening the shadows cast by the trees. The orchard +had long been neglected and many of the trees were dead and without +foliage. The shadows of the dead branches were like long lean arms that +reached out, felt their way forward over the grey grass. Long lean +fingers reached and clutched. There was no wind and the night would be +dark and without a moon, a hot dark starlit night of the plains. + +In a moment more it would be black night. Already the creeping shadows +on the grass were barely discernible. Rosalind felt death all about +her, in the orchard, in the town. Something Walter Sayers had once said +to her came sharply back into her mind. "When you are in the country +alone at night sometime try giving yourself to the night, to the +darkness, to the shadows cast by trees. The experience, if you really +give yourself to it, will tell you a startling story. You will find +that, although the white men have owned the land for several +generations now and although they have built towns everywhere, dug coal +out of the ground, covered the land with railroads, towns and cities, +they do not own an inch of the land in the whole continent. It still +belongs to a race who in their physical life are now dead. The red men, +although they are practically all gone still own the American +continent. Their fancy has peopled it with ghosts, with gods and +devils. It is because in their time they loved the land. The proof of +what I say is to be seen everywhere. We have given our towns no +beautiful names of our own because we have not built the towns +beautifully. When an American town has a beautiful name it was stolen +from another race, from a race that still owns the land in which we +live. We are all strangers here. When you are alone at night in the +country, anywhere in America, try giving yourself to the night. You +will find that death only resides in the conquering whites and that +life remains in the red men who are gone." + +The spirits of the two men, Walter Sayers and Melville Stoner, +dominated the mind of Rosalind. She felt that. It was as though they +were beside her, sitting beside her on the grass in the orchard. She +was quite certain that Melville Stoner had come back to his house and +was now sitting within sound of her voice, did she raise her voice to +call. What did they want her of her? Had she suddenly begun to love two +men, both older than herself? The shadows of the branches of trees made +a carpet on the floor of the orchard, a soft carpet spun of some +delicate material on which the footsteps of men could make no sound. +The two men were coming toward her, advancing over the carpet. Melville +Stoner was near at hand and Walter Sayers was coming from far away, out +of the distance. The spirit of him was creeping toward her. The two men +were in accord. They came bearing some male knowledge of life, +something they wanted to give her. + +She arose and stood by the tree, trembling. Into what a state she had +got herself! How long would it endure? Into what knowledge of life and +death was she being led? She had come home on a simple mission. She +loved Walter Sayers, wanted to offer herself to him but before doing so +had felt the call to come home to her mother. She had thought she would +be bold and would tell her mother the story of her love. She would tell +her and then take what the older woman offered. If her mother +understood and sympathized, well that would be a beautiful thing to +have happen. If her mother did not understand--at any rate she would +have paid some old debt, would have been true to some old, unexpressed +obligation. + +The two men--what did they want of her? What had Melville Stoner to do +with the matter? She put the figure of him out of her mind. In the +figure of the other man, Walter Sayers, there was something less +aggressive, less assertive. She clung to that. + +She put her arm about the trunk of the old apple tree and laid her +cheek against its rough bark. Within herself she was so intense, so +excited that she wanted to rub her cheeks against the bark of the tree +until the blood came, until physical pain came to counteract the +tenseness within that had become pain. + +Since the meadow between the orchard and the street end had been +planted to corn she would have to reach the street by going along a +lane, crawling under a wire fence and crossing the yard of the widowed +chicken raiser. A profound silence reigned over the orchard and when +she had crawled under the fence and reached the widow's back yard she +had to feel her way through a narrow opening between a chicken house +and a barn by running her fingers forward over the rough boards. + +Her mother sat on the porch waiting and on the narrow porch before his +house next door sat Melville Stoner. She saw him as she hurried past +and shivered slightly. "What a dark vulture-like thing he is! He lives +off the dead, off dead glimpses of beauty, off dead old sounds heard at +night," she thought. When she got to the Wescott house she threw +herself down on the porch and lay on her back with her arms stretched +above her head. Her mother sat on a rocking chair beside her. There was +a street lamp at the corner at the end of the street and a little light +came through the branches of trees and lighted her mother's face. How +white and still and death-like it was. When she had looked Rosalind +closed her eyes. "I mustn't. I shall lose courage," she thought. + +There was no hurry about delivering the message she had come to +deliver. It would be two hours before her father came home. The silence +of the village street was broken by a hubbub that arose in the house +across the street. Two boys playing some game ran from room to room +through the house, slamming doors, shouting. A baby began to cry and +then a woman's voice protested. "Quit it! Quit it!" the voice called. +"Don't you see you have wakened the baby? Now I shall have a time +getting him to sleep again." + +Rosalind's fingers closed and her hands remained clenched. "I came home +to tell you something. I have fallen in love with a man and can't marry +him. He is a good many years older than myself and is already married. +He has two children. I love him and I think he loves me--I know he +does. I want him to have me too. I wanted to come home and tell you +before it happened," she said speaking in a low clear voice. She +wondered if Melville Stoner could hear her declaration. + +Nothing happened. The chair in which Rosalind's mother sat had been +rocking slowly back and forth and making a slight creaking sound. The +sound continued. In the house across the street the baby stopped +crying. The words Rosalind had come from Chicago to say to her mother +were said and she felt relieved and almost happy. The silence between +the two women went on and on. Rosalind's mind wandered away. Presently +there would be some sort of reaction from her mother. She would be +condemned. Perhaps her mother would say nothing until her father came +home and would then tell him. She would be condemned as a wicked woman, +ordered to leave the house. It did not matter. + +Rosalind waited. Like Walter Sayers, sitting in his garden, her mind +seemed to float away, out of her body. It ran away from her mother to +the man she loved. + +One evening, on just such another quiet summer evening as this one, she +had gone into the country with Walter Sayers. Before that he had talked +to her, at her, on many other evenings and during long hours in the +office. He had found in her someone to whom he could talk, to whom he +wanted to talk. What doors of life he had opened for her! The talk had +gone on and on. In her presence the man was relieved, he relaxed out of +the tenseness that had become the habit of this body. He had told her +of how he had wanted to be a singer and had given up the notion. "It +isn't my wife's fault nor the children's fault," he had said. "They +could have lived without me. The trouble is I could not have lived +without them. I am a defeated man, was intended from the first to be a +defeated man and I needed something to cling to, something with which +to justify my defeat. I realize that now. I am a dependent. I shall +never try to sing now because I am one who has at least one merit. I +know defeat. I can accept defeat." + +That is what Walter Sayers had said and then on the summer evening in +the country as she sat beside him in his car he had suddenly begun to +sing. He had opened a farm gate and had driven the car silently along a +grass covered lane and into a meadow. The lights had been put out and +the car crept along. When it stopped some cattle came and stood nearby. + +Then he began to sing, softly at first and with increasing boldness as +he repeated the song over and over. Rosalind was so happy she had +wanted to cry out. "It is because of myself he can sing now," she had +thought proudly. How intensely, at the moment she loved the man, and +yet perhaps the thing she felt was not love after all. There was pride +in it. It was for her a moment of triumph. He had crept up to her out +of a dark place, out of the dark cave of defeat. It had been her hand +reached down that had given him courage. + +She lay on her back, at her mother's feet, on the porch of the Wescott +house trying to think, striving to get her own impulses clear in her +mind. She had just told her mother that she wanted to give herself to +the man, Walter Sayers. Having made the statement she already wondered +if it could be quite true. She was a woman and her mother was a woman. +What would her mother have to say to her? What did mothers say to +daughters? The male element in life--what did it want? Her own desires +and impulses were not clearly realized within herself. Perhaps what she +wanted in life could be got in some sort of communion with another +woman, with her mother. What a strange and beautiful thing it would be +if mothers could suddenly begin to sing to their daughters, if out of +the darkness and silence of old women song could come. + +Men confused Rosalind, they had always confused her. On that very +evening her father for the first time in years had really looked at +her. He had stopped before her as she sat on the porch and there had +been something in his eyes. A fire had burned in his old eyes as it had +sometimes burned in the eyes of Walter. Was the fire intended to +consume her quite? Was it the fate of women to be consumed by men and +of men to be consumed by women? + +In the orchard, an hour before she had distinctly felt the two men, +Melville Stoner and Walter Sayers coming toward her, walking silently +on the soft carpet made of the dark shadows of trees. + +They were again coming toward her. In their thoughts they approached +nearer and nearer to her, to the inner truth of her. The street and the +town of Willow Springs were covered with a mantle of silence. Was it +the silence of death? Had her mother died? Did her mother sit there now +a dead thing in the chair beside her? + +The soft creaking of the rocking chair went on and on. Of the two men +whose spirits seemed hovering about one, Melville Stoner, was bold and +cunning. He was too close to her, knew too much of her. He was +unafraid. The spirit of Walter Sayers was merciful. He was gentle, a +man of understanding. She grew afraid of Melville Stoner. He was too +close to her, knew too much of the dark, stupid side of her life. She +turned on her side and stared into the darkness toward the Stoner house +remembering her girlhood. The man was too physically close. The faint +light from the distant street lamp that had lighted her mother's face +crept between branches of trees and over the tops of bushes and she +could see dimly the figure of Melville Stoner sitting before his house. +She wished it were possible with a thought to destroy him, wipe him +out, cause him to cease to exist. He was waiting. When her mother had +gone to bed and when she had gone upstairs to her own room to lie awake +he would invade her privacy. Her father would come home, walking with +dragging footsteps along the sidewalk. He would come into the Wescott +house and through to the back door. He would pump the pail of water at +the pump and bring it into the house to put it on the box by the +kitchen sink. Then he would wind the clock. He would-- + +Rosalind stirred uneasily. Life in the figure of Melville Stoner had +her, it gripped her tightly. She could not escape. He would come into +her bedroom and invade her secret thoughts. There was no escape for +her. She imagined his mocking laughter ringing through the silent +house, the sound rising above the dreadful commonplace sounds of +everyday life there. She did not want that to happen. The sudden death +of Melville Stoner would bring sweet silence. She wished it possible +with a thought to destroy him, to destroy all men. She wanted her +mother to draw close to her. That would save her from the men. Surely, +before the evening had passed her mother would have something to say, +something living and true. + +Rosalind forced the figure of Melville Stoner out of her mind. It was +as though she had got out of her bed in the room upstairs and had taken +the man by the arm to lead him to the door. She had put him out of the +room and had closed the door. + +Her mind played her a trick. Melville Stoner had no sooner gone out of +her mind than Walter Sayers came in. In imagination she was with Walter +in the car on the summer evening in the pasture and he was singing. The +cattle with their soft broad noses and the sweet grass-flavored breaths +were crowding in close. + +There was sweetness in Rosalind's thoughts now. She rested and waited, +waited for her mother to speak. In her presence Walter Sayers had +broken his long silence and soon the old silence between mother and +daughter would also be broken. + +The singer who would not sing had begun to sing because of her +presence. Song was the true note of life, it was the triumph of life +over death. + +What sweet solace had come to her that time when Walter Sayers sang! +How life had coursed through her body! How alive she had suddenly +become! It was at that moment she had decided definitely, finally, that +she wanted to come closer to the man, that she wanted with him the +ultimate physical closeness--to find in physical expression through him +what in his song he was finding through her. + +It was in expressing physically her love of the man she would find the +white wonder of life, the wonder of which, as a clumsy and crude girl, +she had dreamed as she lay on the grass in the orchard. Through the +body of the singer she would approach, touch the white wonder of life. +"I shall willingly sacrifice everything else on the chance that may +happen," she thought. + +How peaceful and quiet the summer night had become! How clearly now she +understood life! The song Walter Sayers had sung in the field, in the +presence of the cattle was in a tongue she had not understood, but now +she understood everything, even the meaning of the strange foreign +words. + +The song was about life and death. What else was there to sing about? +The sudden knowledge of the content of the song had not come out of her +own mind. The spirit of Walter was coming toward her. It had pushed the +mocking spirit of Melville Stoner aside. What things had not the mind +of Walter Sayers already done to her mind, to the awakening woman +within her. Now it was telling her the story of the song. The words of +the song itself seemed to float down the silent street of the Iowa +town. They described the sun going down in the smoke clouds of a city +and the gulls coming from a lake to float over the city. + +Now the gulls floated over a river. The river was the color of +chrysoprase. She, Rosalind Wescott, stood on a bridge in the heart of +the city and she had become entirely convinced of the filth and +ugliness of life. She was about to throw herself into the river, to +destroy herself in an effort to make herself clean. + +It did not matter. Strange sharp cries came from the birds. The cries +of the birds were like the voice of Melville Stoner. They whirled and +turned in the air overhead. In a moment more she would throw herself +into the river and then the birds would fall straight down in a long +graceful line. The body of her would be gone, swept away by the stream, +carried away to decay but what was really alive in herself would arise +with the birds, in the long graceful upward line of the flight of the +birds. + +Rosalind lay tense and still on the porch at her mother's feet. In the +air above the hot sleeping town, buried deep in the ground beneath all +towns and cities, life went on singing, it persistently sang. The song +of life was in the humming of bees, in the calling of tree toads, in +the throats of negroes rolling cotton bales on a boat in a river. + +The song was a command. It told over and over the story of life and of +death, life forever defeated by death, death forever defeated by life. + + * * * * * + +The long silence of Rosalind's mother was broken and Rosalind tried to +tear herself away from the spirit of the song that had begun to sing +itself within her-- + +The sun sank down into the western sky over a city-- + + Life defeated by death, + Death defeated by life. + +The factory chimneys had become pencils of light-- + + Life defeated by death, + Death defeated by life. + +The rocking chair in which Rosalind's mother sat kept creaking. Words +came haltingly from between her white lips. The test of Ma Wescott's +life had come. Always she had been defeated. Now she must triumph in +the person of Rosalind, the daughter who had come out of her body. To +her she must make clear the fate of all women. Young girls grew up +dreaming, hoping, believing. There was a conspiracy. Men made words, +they wrote books and sang songs about a thing called love. Young girls +believed. They married or entered into close relationships with men +without marriage. On the marriage night there was a brutal assault and +after that the woman had to try to save herself as best she could. She +withdrew within herself, further and further within herself. Ma Wescott +had stayed all her life hidden away within her own house, in the +kitchen of her house. As the years passed and after the children came +her man had demanded less and less of her. Now this new trouble had +come. Her daughter was to have the same experience, to go through the +experience that had spoiled life for her. + +How proud she had been of Rosalind, going out into the world, making +her own way. Her daughter dressed with a certain air, walked with a +certain air. She was a proud, upstanding, triumphant thing. She did not +need a man. + +"God, Rosalind, don't do it, don't do it," she muttered over and over. + +How much she had wanted Rosalind to keep clear and clean! Once she also +had been a young woman, proud, upstanding. Could anyone think she had +ever wanted to become Ma Wescott, fat, heavy and old? All through her +married life she had stayed in her own house, in the kitchen of her own +house, but in her own way she had watched, she had seen how things went +with women. Her man had known how to make money, he had always housed +her comfortably. He was a slow, silent man but in his own way he was as +good as any of the men of Willow Springs. Men worked for money, they +ate heavily and then at night they came home to the woman they had +married. + +Before she married, Ma Wescott had been a farmer's daughter. She had +seen things among the beasts, how the male pursued the female. There +was a certain hard insistence, cruelty. Life perpetuated itself that +way. The time of her own marriage was a dim, terrible time. Why had she +wanted to marry? She tried to tell Rosalind about it. "I saw him on the +Main Street of town here, one Saturday evening when I had come to town +with father, and two weeks after that I met him again at a dance out in +the country," she said. She spoke like one who has been running a long +distance and who has some important, some immediate message to deliver. +"He wanted me to marry him and I did it. He wanted me to marry him and +I did it." + +She could not get beyond the fact of her marriage. Did her daughter +think she had no vital thing to say concerning the relationship of men +and women? All through her married life she had stayed in her husband's +house, working as a beast might work, washing dirty clothes, dirty +dishes, cooking food. + +She had been thinking, all through the years she had been thinking. +There was a dreadful lie in life, the whole fact of life was a lie. + +She had thought it all out. There was a world somewhere unlike the +world in which she lived. It was a heavenly place in which there was no +marrying or giving in marriage, a sexless quiet windless place where +mankind lived in a state of bliss. For some unknown reason mankind had +been thrown out of that place, had been thrown down upon the earth. It +was a punishment for an unforgivable sin, the sin of sex. + +The sin had been in her as well as in the man she had married. She had +wanted to marry. Why else did she do it? Men and women were condemned +to commit the sin that destroyed them. Except for a few rare sacred +beings no man or woman escaped. + +What thinking she had done! When she had just married and after her man +had taken what he wanted of her he slept heavily but she did not sleep. +She crept out of bed and going to a window looked at the stars. The +stars were quiet. With what a slow stately tread the moon moved across +the sky. The stars did not sin. They did not touch one another. Each +star was a thing apart from all other stars, a sacred inviolate thing. +On the earth, under the stars everything was corrupt, the trees, +flowers, grasses, the beasts of the field, men and women. They were all +corrupt. They lived for a moment and then fell into decay. She herself +was falling into decay. Life was a lie. Life perpetuated itself by the +lie called love. The truth was that life itself came out of sin, +perpetuated itself only by sin. + +"There is no such thing as love. The word is a lie. The man you are +telling me about wants you for the purpose of sin," she said and +getting heavily up went into the house. + +Rosalind heard her moving about in the darkness. She came to the screen +door and stood looking at her daughter lying tense and waiting on the +porch. The passion of denial was so strong in her that she felt choked. +To the daughter it seemed that her mother standing in the darkness +behind her had become a great spider, striving to lead her down into +some web of darkness. "Men only hurt women," she said, "they can't help +wanting to hurt women. They are made that way. The thing they call love +doesn't exist. It's a lie." + +"Life is dirty. Letting a man touch her dirties a woman." Ma Wescott +fairly screamed forth the words. They seemed torn from her, from some +deep inner part of her being. Having said them she moved off into the +darkness and Rosalind heard her going slowly toward the stairway that +led to the bedroom above. She was weeping in the peculiar half choked +way in which old fat women weep. The heavy feet that had begun to mount +the stair stopped and there was silence. Ma Wescott had said nothing of +what was in her mind. She had thought it all out, what she wanted to +say to her daughter. Why would the words not come? The passion for +denial within her was not satisfied. "There is no love. Life is a lie. +It leads to sin, to death and decay," she called into the darkness. + +A strange, almost uncanny thing happened to Rosalind. The figure of her +mother went out of her mind and she was in fancy again a young girl and +had gone with other young girls to visit a friend about to be married. +With the others she stood in a room where white dresses lay on a bed. +One of her companions, a thin, flat breasted girl fell on her knees +beside the bed. A cry arose. Did it come from the girl or from the old +tired defeated woman within the Wescott house? "Don't do it. O, +Rosalind don't do it," pleaded a voice broken with sobs. + +The Wescott house had become silent like the street outside and like +the sky sprinkled with stars into which Rosalind gazed. The tenseness +within her relaxed and she tried again to think. There was a thing that +balanced, that swung backward and forward. Was it merely her heart +beating? Her mind cleared. + +The song that had come from the lips of Walter Sayers was still singing +within her-- + + Life the conqueror over death, + Death the conqueror over life. + +She sat up and put her head into her hands. "I came here to Willow +Springs to put myself to a test. Is it the test of life and death?" she +asked herself. Her mother had gone up the stairway, into the darkness +of the bedroom above. + +The song singing within Rosalind went on-- + + Life the conqueror over death, + Death the conqueror over life. + +Was the song a male thing, the call of the male to the female, a lie, +as her mother had said? It did not sound like a lie. The song had come +from the lips of the man Walter and she had left him and had come to +her mother. Then Melville Stoner, another male, had come to her. In him +also was singing the song of life and death. When the song stopped +singing within one did death come? Was death but denial? The song was +singing within herself. What a confusion! + +After her last outcry Ma Wescott had gone weeping up the stairs and to +her own room and to bed. After a time Rosalind followed. She threw +herself onto her own bed without undressing. Both women lay waiting. +Outside in the darkness before his house sat Melville Stoner, the male, +the man who knew of all that had passed between mother and daughter. +Rosalind thought of the bridge over the river near the factory in the +city and of the gulls floating in the air high above the river. She +wished herself there, standing on the bridge. "It would be sweet now to +throw my body down into the river," she thought. She imagined herself +falling swiftly and the swifter fall of the birds down out of the sky. +They were swooping down to pick up the life she was ready to drop, +sweeping swiftly and beautifully down. That was what the song Walter +had sung was about. + + * * * * * + +Henry Wescott came home from his evening at Emanuel Wilson's store. He +went heavily through the house to the back door and the pump. There was +the slow creaking sound of the pump working and then he came into the +house and put the pail of water on the box by the kitchen sink. A +little of the water spilled. There was a soft little slap--like a +child's bare feet striking the floor-- + +Rosalind arose. The dead cold weariness that had settled down upon her +went away. Cold dead hands had been gripping her. Now they were swept +aside. Her bag was in a closet but she had forgotten it. Quickly she +took off her shoes and holding them in her hands went out into the hall +in her stockinged feet. Her father came heavily up the stairs past her +as she stood breathless with her body pressed against the wall in the +hallway. + +How quick and alert her mind had become! There was a train Eastward +bound toward Chicago that passed through Willow Springs at two in the +morning. She would not wait for it. She would walk the eight miles to +the next town to the east. That would get her out of town. It would +give her something to do. "I need to be moving now," she thought as she +ran down the stairs and went silently out of the house. + +She walked on the grass beside the sidewalk to the gate before Melville +Stoner's house and he came down to the gate to meet her. He laughed +mockingly. "I fancied I might have another chance to walk with you +before the night was gone," he said bowing. Rosalind did not know how +much of the conversation between herself and her mother he had heard. +It did not matter. He knew all Ma Wescott had said, all she could say +and all Rosalind could say or understand. The thought was infinitely +sweet to Rosalind. It was Melville Stoner who lifted the town of Willow +Springs up out of the shadow of death. Words were unnecessary. With him +she had established the thing beyond words, beyond passion--the +fellowship in living, the fellowship in life. + +They walked in silence to the town's edge and then Melville Stoner put +out his hand. "You'll come with me?" she asked, but he shook his head +and laughed. "No," he said, "I'll stay here. My time for going passed +long ago. I'll stay here until I die. I'll stay here with my thoughts." + +He turned and walked away into the darkness beyond the round circle of +light cast by the last street lamp on the street that now became a +country road leading to the next town to the east. Rosalind stood to +watch him go and something in his long loping gait again suggested to +her mind the figure of a gigantic bird. "He is like the gulls that +float above the river in Chicago," she thought. "His spirit floats +above the town of Willow Springs. When the death in life comes to the +people here he swoops down, with his mind, plucking out the beauty of +them." + +She walked at first slowly along the road between corn fields. The +night was a vast quiet place into which she could walk in peace. A +little breeze rustled the corn blades but there were no dreadful +significant human sounds, the sounds made by those who lived physically +but who in spirit were dead, had accepted death, believed only in +death. The corn blades rubbed against each other and there was a low +sweet sound as though something was being born, old dead physical life +was being torn away, cast aside. Perhaps new life was coming into the +land. + +Rosalind began to run. She had thrown off the town and her father and +mother as a runner might throw off a heavy and unnecessary garment. She +wished also to throw off the garments that stood between her body and +nudity. She wanted to be naked, new born. Two miles out of town a +bridge crossed Willow Creek. It was now empty and dry but in the +darkness she imagined it filled with water, swift running water, water +the color of chrysoprase. She had been running swiftly and now she +stopped and stood on the bridge her breath coming in quick little +gasps. + +After a time she went on again, walking until she had regained her +breath and then running again. Her body tingled with life. She did not +ask herself what she was going to do, how she was to meet the problem +she had come to Willow Springs half hoping to have solved by a word +from her mother. She ran. Before her eyes the dusty road kept coming up +to her out of darkness. She ran forward, always forward into a faint +streak of light. The darkness unfolded before her. There was joy in the +running and with every step she took she achieved a new sense of +escape. A delicious notion came into her mind. As she ran she thought +the light under her feet became more distinct. It was, she thought, as +though the darkness had grown afraid in her presence and sprang aside, +out of her path. There was a sensation of boldness. She had herself +become something that within itself contained light. She was a creator +of light. At her approach darkness grew afraid and fled away into the +distance. When that thought came she found herself able to run without +stopping to rest and half wished she might run on forever, through the +land, through towns and cities, driving darkness away with her +presence. + +I stated it as definitely as I could. I was in a room with them. + +They had tongues like me, and hair and eyes. + +I got up out of my chair and said it as definitely as I could. + +Their eyes wavered. Something slipped out of their grasp. Had I been +white and strong and young enough I might have plunged through walls, +gone outward into nights and days, gone into prairies, into distances-- +gone outward to the doorstep of the house of God, gone to God's throne +room with their hands in mine. + +What I am trying to say is this-- + +By God I made their minds flee out of them. + +Their minds came out of them as clear and straight as anything could +be. + +I said they might build temples to their lives. + +I threw my words at faces floating in a street. + +I threw my words like stones, like building stones. + +I scattered words in alleyways like seeds. + +I crept at night and threw my words in empty rooms of houses in a +street. + +I said that life was life, that men in streets and cities might build +temples to their souls. + +I whispered words at night into a telephone. + +I told my people life was sweet, that men might live. + +I said a million temples might be built, that doorsteps might be +cleansed. + +At their fleeing harried minds I hurled a stone. + +I said they might build temples to themselves. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories +by Sherwood Anderson + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRIUMPH OF THE EGG *** + +This file should be named 7048-8.txt or 7048-8.zip + +This eBook was produced by Michelle Shephard, Eric Eldred, +Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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