 Section 1 of Winesburg, OH. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Stuart Wills. Winesburg, OH. By Sherwood Anderson. Section 1. The Book of the Grotesque The writer, an old man with a white moustache, had some difficulty getting into bed. The windows of the house in which he lived were high, and he wanted to look at the trees when he awoke in the morning. A carpenter came to fix the bed so that it would be on a level with the window. Quite a fuss was made about the matter. The carpenter, who had been a soldier in the Civil War, came into the writer's room and sat down to talk of building a platform for the purpose of raising the bed. The writer had cigars lying about, and the carpenter smoked. For a time the two men talked of the raising of the bed, and then they talked of other things. The soldier got on the subject of the war. The writer, in fact, led him to that subject. The carpenter had once been a prisoner in Andersonville Prison, and had lost a brother. The brother had died of starvation, and whenever the carpenter got upon that subject, he cried. He, like the old writer, had a white moustache, and when he cried he puckered up his lips, and the moustache bobbed up and down. The weeping old man with the cigar in his mouth was ludicrous. The plan the writer had for the raising of his bed was forgotten, and later the carpenter did it in his own way, and the writer, who was past sixty, had to help himself with a chair when he went to bed at night. In his bed the writer rolled over on his side, and lay quite still. For years he had been beset with notions concerning his heart. He was a hard smoker, and his heart fluttered. The idea had got into his mind that he would sometime die unexpectedly, and always when he got into bed he thought of that. It did not alarm him. The effect, in fact, was quite a special thing, and not easily explained. It made him more alive there in bed than at any other time. Perfectly still he lay, and his body was old and not of much use anymore, but something inside him was altogether young. He was like a pregnant woman, only that the thing inside him was not a baby, but a youth. No, it wasn't a youth. It was a woman, young, and wearing a coat of mail like a knight. It is absurd, you see, to try to tell what was inside the old writer as he lay on his high bed and listened to the fluttering of his heart. The thing to get at is what the writer, or the young thing within the writer, was thinking about. The old writer, like all of the people in the world, had got during his long life a great many notions in his head. He had once been quite handsome, and a number of women had been in love with him. And then, of course, he had known people, many people, known them in a peculiarly intimate way that was different from the way in which you and I know people. At least that is what the writer thought, and the thought pleased him. Why quarrel with an old man concerning his thoughts. In the bed the writer had a dream, that was not a dream. As he grew somewhat sleepy, but was still conscious, figures began to appear before his eyes. He imagined the young, indescribable thing within himself was driving a long procession of figures before his eyes. You see, the interest in all this lies in the figures that went before the eyes of the writer. They were all grotesques. All of the men and women the writer had ever known had become grotesques. The grotesques were not all horrible. Some were amusing, some almost beautiful, and one, a woman all drawn out of shape, hurt the old man by her grotesqueness. When she passed he made a noise like a small dog whimpering. Had you come into the room you might have supposed the old man had unpleasant dreams, or perhaps indigestion. For an hour the procession of grotesques passed before the eyes of the old man, and then, although it was a painful thing to do, he crept out of bed, and began to write. Some one of the grotesques had made a deep impression on his mind, and he wanted to describe it. At his desk the writer worked for an hour. In the end he wrote a book, which he called The Book of the Grotesque. It was never published, but I saw it once, and it made an indelible impression on my mind. The book had one central thought that is very strange and has always remained with me. By remembering it I have been able to understand many people and things that I was never able to understand before. The thought was involved, but a simple statement of it would be something like this. Then in the beginning, when the world was young, there were a great many thoughts, but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself, and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts. All about in the world were the truths, and they were all beautiful. The old man had listed hundreds of the truths in his book. I will not try to tell you all of them. There was the truth of virginity, and the truth of passion, the truth of wealth and of poverty, of thrift and of profligacy, of carelessness and abandon. Hundreds and hundreds were the truths, and they were all beautiful. And then the people came along, each as he appeared snatched up one of the truths, and some who were quite strong snatched up a dozen of them. It was the truths that made the people grotesques. The old man had quite an elaborate theory concerning the matter. It was his notion that the moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque, and the truth he embraced became a falsehood. You can see for yourself how the old man, who had spent all of his life writing, and was filled with words, would write hundreds of pages concerning this matter. The subject would become so big in his mind that he himself would be in danger of becoming a grotesque. He didn't, I suppose, for the same reason that he never published the book. It was the young thing inside him that saved the old man. Concerning the old carpenter who fixed the bed for the writer, I only mentioned him, because he, like many of what are called very common people, became the nearest thing to what is understandable and lovable of all the grotesques in the writer's book. End of Section 1. Section 2 of Winesburg, Ohio. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Stuart Wills. Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. Section 2. Hands. Upon the half-decade veranda of a small frame-house that stood near the edge of a ravine near the town of Winesburg, Ohio, a fat little old man walked nervously up and down. Across a long field that had been seeded for clover, but that had produced only a dense crop of yellow mustard weeds, he could see the public highway, along which went a wagon filled with berry pickers returning from the fields. The berry pickers, youths and maidens, laughed and shouted boisterously. A boy clad in a blue shirt leaped from the wagon and attempted to drag after him one of the maidens, who screamed and protested shrilly. The feet of the boy in the road kicked up a cloud of dust that floated across the face of the departing sun. Over the long field came a thin, girlish voice. Oh, you wing-biddle-bomb! Comb your hair! It's falling into your eyes! Commanded the voice to the man, who was bald and whose nervous little hands fiddled about the bare white forehead as though arranging a mass of tangled locks. Wing-biddle-bomb, forever frightened and beset by a ghostly band of doubts, did not think of himself as in any way a part of the life of the town where he had lived for twenty years. Among all the people of Winesburg, but one had come close to him. With George Willard, son of Tom Willard, the proprietor of the new Willard House, he had formed something like a friendship. George Willard was the reporter on the Winesburg Eagle, and sometimes in the evenings he walked out along the highway to wing-biddle-bomb's house. Now, as the old man walked up and down on the veranda, his hands moving nervously about, he was hoping that George Willard would come and spend the evening with him. After the wagon containing the berry-pickers had passed, he went across the field, through the tall mustard-weeds, and climbing a rail fence, peered anxiously along the road to the town. For a moment he stood thus, rubbing his hands together, and looking up and down the road, and then fear overcoming him, ran back to walk again upon the porch of his own house. In the presence of George Willard, wing-biddle-bomb, who for twenty years had been the town mystery, lost something of his timidity, and his shadowy personality, submerged in a sea of doubts, came forth to look at the world. With the young reporter at his side, he ventured in the light of day into Main Street, or strode up and down on the rickety front porch of his own house, talking excitedly. The voice that had been low and trembling became shrill and loud, the bent figure straightened. With a kind of wriggle like a fish returned to the brook by the fisherman, biddle-bomb the silent began to talk, striving to put into words the ideas that had been accumulated by his mind during long years of silence. Wing-biddle-bomb talked much with his hands. The slender, expressive fingers, forever active, forever striving to conceal themselves in his pockets, or behind his back, came forth and became the piston rods of his machinery of expression. The story of wing-biddle-bomb is a story of hands. Their restless activity, like unto the beating of the wings of an imprisoned bird, had given him his name. Some obscure poet of the town had thought of it. The hands alarmed their owner. He wanted to keep them hidden away, and looked with amazement at the quiet, inexpressive hands of other men who worked beside him in the fields, or past, driving sleepy teams on country roads. When he talked to George Willard, wing-biddle-bomb closed his fists and beat with them upon a table or on the walls of his house. The action made him more comfortable. If the desire to talk came to him when the two were walking in the fields, he sought out a stump or the top board of a fence, and with his hands pounding, busily talked with renewed ease. The story of wing-biddle-bomb's hands is worth a book in itself. Sympathetically set forth, it would tap many strange, beautiful qualities in obscure men. It is a job for a poet. In Winesburg the hands had attracted attention merely because of their activity. With them wing-biddle-bomb had picked as high as 140 quarts of strawberries in a day. They became his distinguishing feature, the source of his fame. Also they made more grotesque, an already grotesque and elusive individuality. Winesburg was proud of the hands of wing-biddle-bomb in the same spirit in which it was proud of Banker White's New Stone House and Wesley Moyer's Baye Stallion, Tony Tip, that had won the 215 Trot at the Fall Races in Cleveland. As for George Willard, he had many times wanted to ask about the hands. At times an almost overwhelming curiosity had taken hold of him. He felt that there must be a reason for their strange activity and their inclination to keep hidden away, and only a growing respect for wing-biddle-bomb kept him from blurting out the questions that were often in his mind. Once he had been on the point of asking. The two were walking in the fields on a summer afternoon and had stopped to sit upon a grassy bank. All afternoon wing-biddle-bomb had talked as one inspired. By a fence he had stopped, and beating like a giant woodpecker on the top board, had shouted at George Willard, condemning his tendency to be too much influenced by the people about him. You are destroying yourself, he cried. You have the inclination to be alone and to dream, and you are afraid of dreams. You want to be like others in town here. You hear them talk, and you try to imitate them. On the grassy bank wing-biddle-bomb had tried again to drive his point home. His voice became soft and reminiscent, and with a sigh of contentment he launched into a long, rambling talk, speaking as one lost in a dream. Out of the dream wing-biddle-bomb made a picture for George Willard. In the picture men lived again in a kind of pastoral golden age. Across a green, open country came clean-limbed young men, some afoot, some mounted upon horses. In crowds the young men came to gather about the feet of an old man who sat beneath a tree in a tiny garden and who talked to them. Wing-biddle-bomb became wholly inspired. For once he forgot the hands. Slowly they stole forth and lay upon George Willard's shoulders. Something new and bold came into the voice that talked. You must try to forget all you have learned, said the old man. You must begin to dream. From this time on you must shut your ears to the roaring of the voices. Pausing in his speech, wing-biddle-bomb looked long and earnestly at George Willard. His eyes glowed. Again he raised the hands to caress the boy, and then a look of horror swept over his face. With a convulsive movement of his body wing-biddle-bomb sprang to his feet and thrust his hands deep into his trousers' pockets. Tears came to his eyes. I must be getting along home. I can talk no more with you, he said nervously. Without looking back the old man had hurried down the hillside and across a meadow, leaving George Willard perplexed and frightened upon the grassy slope. With a shiver of dread the boy arose and went along the road toward town. I'll not ask him about his hands, he thought, touched by the memory of the terror he had seen in the man's eyes. There's something wrong, but I don't want to know what it is. His hands have something to do with his fear of me and of everyone. And George Willard was right. Let us look briefly into the story of the hands. Perhaps our talking of them will arouse the poet who will tell the hidden wonder story of the influence for which the hands were but fluttering penance of promise. In his youth wing-biddle-bomb had been a school teacher in a town in Pennsylvania. He was not then known as wing-biddle-bomb, but went by the less euphonic name of Adolf Myers. As Adolf Myers he was much loved by the boys of his school. Adolf Myers was meant by nature to be a teacher of youth. He was one of those rare, little-understood men who rule by a power so gentle that it passes as a lovable weakness. In their feeling for the boys under their charge such men are not unlike the finer sort of women in their love of men. And yet that is but crudely stated. It needs the poet there. With the boys of his school Adolf Myers had walked in the evening or had sat talking until dusk upon the schoolhouse steps lost in a kind of dream. Here and there went his hands caressing the shoulders of the boys playing about the tousled heads. As he talked his voice became soft and musical. There was a caress in that also. In a way the voice and the hands, the stroking of the shoulders and the touching of the hair were a part of the schoolmaster's effort to carry a dream into the young minds. By the caress that was in his fingers he expressed himself. He was one of those men in whom the force that creates life is diffused not centralized. Under the caress of his hands doubt and disbelief went out of the minds of the boys and they began also to dream. And then the tragedy. A half-witted boy of the school became enamored of the young master. In his bed at night he imagined unspeakable things and in the morning went forth to tell his dreams as facts. Strange, hideous accusations fell from his loose-hung lips. Through the Pennsylvania town went a shiver. Hidden, shadowy doubts that had been in men's minds concerning Adolf Myers were galvanized into beliefs. The tragedy did not linger. Trembling lads were jerked out of bed and questioned. He put his arms about me, said one. His fingers were always playing in my hair, said another. One afternoon a man of the town, Henry Bradford, who kept a saloon, came to the schoolhouse door. Calling Adolf Myers into the schoolyard he began to beat him with his fists. As his hard knuckles beat down into the frightened face of the schoolmaster his wrath became more and more terrible. Screaming with dismay the children ran here and there like disturbed insects. I'll teach you to put your hands on my boy, you beast! roared the saloonkeeper, who, tired of beating the master, had begun to kick him about the yard. Adolf Myers was driven from the Pennsylvania town in the night. With lanterns in their hands a dozen men came to the door of the house where he lived alone and commanded that he dress and come forth. It was raining, and one of the men had a rope in his hands. They had intended to hang the schoolmaster, but something in his figure, so small, white, and pitiful, touched their hearts, and they let him escape. As he ran away into the darkness they repented of their weakness, and ran after him, swearing and throwing sticks and great balls of soft mud at the figure that screamed, and ran faster and faster into the darkness. For twenty years Adolf Myers had lived alone in Winesburg. He was but forty, but looked sixty-five. The name of Biddlebaum he got from a box of goods seen at the freight station as he hurried through an eastern Ohio town. He had an aunt in Winesburg, a black toothed old woman who raised chickens, and with her he lived until she died. He had been ill for a year after the experience in Pennsylvania, and after his recovery worked as a day laborer in the fields, going timidly about and striving to conceal his hands. Although he did not understand what had happened, he felt that the hands must be to blame. Again and again the fathers of the boys had talked of the hands. Keep your hands to yourself the saloonkeeper had roared, dancing with fury in the schoolhouse yard. Upon the veranda of his house by the ravine, Wing Biddlebaum continued to walk up and down until the sun had disappeared, and the road beyond the field was lost in the gray shadows. Going into his house he cut slices of bread and spread honey upon them. When the rumble of the evening train that took away the express cars loaded with the days harvest of berries had passed and restored the silence of the summer night, he went again to walk upon the veranda. In the darkness he could not see the hands, and they became quiet. Although he still hungered for the presence of the boy, who was the medium through which he expressed his love of man, the hunger became again a part of his loneliness and his waiting. Lighting a lamp, Wing Biddlebaum washed the few dishes soiled by his simple meal, and setting up a folding cot by the screen door that led to the porch, prepared to undress for the night. A few stray white breadcrumbs lay on the cleanly washed floor by the table. Putting the lamp upon a low stool, he began to pick up the crumbs, carrying them to his mouth one by one with unbelievable rapidity. In the dense blotch of light beneath the table the kneeling figure looked like a priest engaged in some service of his church. The nervous, expressive fingers flashing in and out of the light might well have been mistaken for the fingers of the devotee going swiftly through decade after decade of his rosary. Section III. Paper Pills He was an old man, with a white beard and huge nose and hands. Long before the time during which we will know him, he was a doctor and drove a jaded white horse from house to house through the streets of Winesburg. Later he married a girl who had money. She had been left a large, fertile farm when her father died. The girl was quiet, tall, and dark, and to many people she seemed very beautiful. Everyone in Winesburg wondered why she married the doctor. Within a year after the marriage she died. The knuckles of the doctor's hands were extraordinarily large. When the hands were closed they looked like clusters of unpainted wooden balls as large as walnuts fastened together by steel rods. He smoked a cob pipe and after his wife's death sat all day in his empty office close by a window that was covered with cobwebs. He never opened the window. Once on a hot day in August he tried, but found it stuck fast, and after that he forgot all about it. Winesburg had forgotten the old man, but in Dr. Riffy there were the seeds of something very fine. Alone in his musty office in the Hefner Block above the Paris Dry Goods Company store, he worked ceaselessly, building up something that he himself destroyed. Little pyramids of truth he erected, and after erecting knocked them down again that he might have the truths to erect other pyramids. Dr. Riffy was a tall man who had worn one suit of clothes for ten years. It was frayed at the sleeves and little holes had appeared at the knees and elbows. In the office he wore also a linen duster with huge pockets into which he continually stuffed scraps of paper. After some weeks the scraps of paper became little hard round balls, and when the pockets were filled he dumped them out upon the floor. For ten years he had but one friend, another old man named John Spaniard who owned a tree nursery. Sometimes in a playful mood old Dr. Riffy took from his pockets a handful of the paper balls and threw them at the nursery man. That is to confound you, you blathering old sentimentalist he cried shaking with laughter. The story of Dr. Riffy in his courtship of the tall dark girl who became his wife and left her money to him is a very curious story. It is delicious like the twisted little apples that grow in the orchards of Winesburg. In the fall one walks in the orchards and the ground is hard with frost under foot. The apples have been taken from the trees by the pickers. They have been put in barrels and shipped to the cities where they will be eaten in apartments that are filled with books, magazines, furniture, and people. On the trees there are only a few gnarled apples that the pickers have rejected. They look like the knuckles of Dr. Riffy's hands. One nibbles at them and they are delicious. Into a little round place at the side of the apple has been gathered all of its sweetness. One runs from tree to tree over the frosted ground picking the gnarled twisted apples and filling his pockets with them. Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples. The girl and Dr. Riffy began their courtship on a summer afternoon. He was forty-five then and already he had begun the practice of filling his pockets with the scraps of paper that became hard balls and were thrown away. The habit had been formed as he sat in his buggy behind the jaded white horse and went slowly along country roads. On the papers were written thoughts, ends of thoughts, beginnings of thoughts. One by one the mind of Dr. Riffy had made the thoughts. Out of many of them he formed a truth that arose gigantic in his mind. The truth clouded the world. It became terrible and then faded away and the little thoughts began again. The tall dark girl came to see Dr. Riffy because she was in the family way and had become frightened. She was in that condition because of a series of circumstances also curious. The death of her father and mother and the rich acres of land that had come down to her had set a train of suitors on her heels. For two years she saw suitors almost every evening. Except two they were all alike. They talked to her of passion and there was a strained eager quality in their voices and in their eyes when they looked at her. The two who were different were much unlike each other. One of them, a slender young man with white hands, the son of a jeweler in Winesburg, talked continually of virginity. When he was with her he was never off the subject. The other, a black-haired boy with large ears, said nothing at all, but always managed to get her into the darkness where he began to kiss her. For a time the tall dark girl thought she would marry the jeweler's son. For hours she sat in silence listening as he talked to her and then she began to be afraid of something. Beneath his talk of virginity she began to think there was a lust greater than in all the others. At times it seemed to her that as he talked he was holding her body in his hands. She imagined him turning it slowly about in the white hands and staring at it. At night she dreamed that he had bitten into her body and that his jaws were dripping. She had the dream three times and then she became in the family way to the one who said nothing at all but who in a moment of his passion actually did bite her shoulder so that for days the marks of his teeth showed. After the tall dark girl came to know Dr. Rifi it seemed to her that she never wanted to leave him again. She went into his office one morning and without her saying anything he seemed to know what had happened to her. In the office of the doctor there was a woman the wife of the man who kept the bookstore in Winesburg. Like all old-fashioned country practitioners Dr. Rifi pulled teeth and the woman who waited held a handkerchief to her teeth and groaned. Her husband was with her and when the tooth was taken out they both screamed and blood ran down on the woman's white dress. The tall dark girl did not pay any attention. When the woman and the man had gone the doctor smiled. I will take you driving in the country with me he said. For several weeks the tall dark girl and the doctor were together almost every day. The condition that had brought her to him passed in an illness but she was like one who has discovered the sweetness of the twisted apples. She could not get her mind fixed again upon the round perfect fruit that is eaten in the city apartments. In the fall after the beginning of her acquaintancehip with him she married Dr. Rifi and in the following spring she died. During the winter he had read to her all of the odds and ends of thoughts he had scribbled on the bits of paper. After he had read them he laughed and stuffed them away in his pockets to become round hard balls. End of section three recording by Rosalind Wills of Silver Spring Maryland. Chapter 4 Winesburg Ohio. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Lucy Burgoyne. Winesburg Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. Chapter 4 Mother Concerning Elizabeth Willard. Elizabeth Willard, the mother of George Willard, was tall and gaunt and her face was marked with smallpox scars. Although she was but forty-five some obscure disease had taken the fire out of her figure. Listlessly she went about the disorderly old hotel looking at the faded wallpaper and the ragged carpets and when she was able to be about doing the work of a chambermaid among bedsoiled by the slumbers of fat traveling men. Her husband Tom Willard, a slender graceful man with square shoulders, a quick military step and a black moustache trained to turn sharply up at the ends tried to put the wife out of his mind. The presence of the tall ghostly figure moving slowly through the halls he took as a reproach to himself. When he thought of her he grew angry and swore. The hotel was unprofitable and forever on the edge of failure and he wished himself out of it. He thought of the old house and the woman who lived there with him as things defeated and done for. The hotel in which he had begun life so hopefully was now a mere ghost of what a hotel should be. As he went spruce and businesslike through the streets of Winesburg he sometimes stopped and turned quickly about as though fearing that the spirit of the hotel and of the woman would follow him even into the streets. Damn such a life. Damn it. He sputtered aimlessly. Tom Willard had a passion for village politics and for years had been the leading Democrat in a strongly Republican community. Someday he told himself the thought of things political will turn in my favor and the years of ineffectual service count big in the bestowal of rewards. He dreamed of going to Congress and even of becoming governor. Once when a young member at the party arose at a political conference and began to boast of his faithful service, Tom Willard grew white with fury. Shut up you, he ruled glaring about. What do you know of service? What are you but a boy? Look at what I've done here. I was a Democrat here in Winesburg when it was a crime to be a Democrat. In the old days they fairly hunted us with guns. Between Elizabeth and her one son George there was a deep unexpressed bond of sympathy based on a girlhood dream that had long ago died. In the son's presence she was timid and reserved but sometimes while he hurried about town intent upon his duties as a reporter she went into his room and closing the door knelt by a little desk made of a kitchen table that sat near a window. In the room by the desk she went through a ceremony that was half a prayer half a demand addressed to the skies. In the boyish figure she yearned to see something half forgotten that had once been a part of herself recreated. The prayer concerned that even though I die I will in some way keep defeat from you. She cried and so deep was her determination that her whole body shook. Her eyes glowed and she clenched her fists. If I am dead and see him becoming a meaningless drab figure like myself I will come back she declared. I ask God now to give me that privilege. I demand it. I will pay for it. God may beat me with his fists. I will take any blow that may befall it but this my boy be allowed to express something for us both. Pausing uncertainly the woman stared about the boy's room and do not let him become smart and successful either she added vaguely. The communion between George Willard and his mother was outwardly a formal thing without meaning. When she was ill and sat by the window in her room he sometimes went in the evening to make her a visit. They sat by a window that looked over the roof of a small frame building into Main Street. By turning their heads they could see through another window along an alleyway that ran behind the Main Street's doors and into the back door of Abner's Groft's bakery. Sometimes as they sat thus a picture of village life presented itself to them. At the back door of his shop appeared Abner Groft with a stick or an empty milk bottle in his hand. For a long time there was a feud between the baker and a grey cat that belonged to Sylvester West, the druggist. The boy and his mother saw the cat creep into the door of the bakery and presently emerge followed by the baker who swore and waved his arms about. The baker's eyes were small and red and his black hair and beard were filled with flower dust. Sometimes he was so angry that although the cat had disappeared he healed sticks, bits of broken glass and even some of the tools of his trade about. Once he broke a window at the back of Sinning's hardware store. In the alley the grey cat crouched behind barrels filled with torn paper and broken bottles above which flew with black of swarmed flies. Once when she was alone and after watching a pro long and ineffectual outburst on the part of the baker, Elizabeth Willard put her head down on her long white hands and wept. After that she did not look along the alleyway anymore but tried to forget the contest between the bearded man and the cat. It seemed like a rehearsal of her own life, terrible in its vividness. In the evening when the sun sat in the room with his mother the silence made them both feel awkward. Darkness came on and the evening train came in at the station. In the street below feet tramped up and down upon a board sidewalk. In the station yard after the evening train had gone there was a heavy silence perhaps Skinner Leeson the express agent moved a truck the length of the station platform. Over on Main Street sounded a man's voice laughing. The door of the express office banged. George Willard arose and crossing the room fumbled for the doorknob. Sometimes he knocked against the chair making its scrape along the floor. By the windows sat the sick woman perfectly still, listless. Her long hands white and bloodless could be seen dripping over the ends of the arms of the chair. I think you had better be out among the boys. You are too much indoors, she said, striving to relieve the embarrassment at the departure. I thought I would take a walk replied George Willard who felt awkward and confused. One evening in July when the transient guests who made the new Willard house their temporary home had become scarce and the hallways lighted only by kerosene lamps too low were plunged in a gloom. Elizabeth Willard had an adventure. She had been ill in bed for several days and her son had not come to visit her. She was alarmed. The feeble blaze of life that remained in her body was blown into a flame by her anxiety and she crept out of bed dressed and hurried along the hallway toward her son's room shaking with exaggerated fears. As she went along she steadied herself with her hand slipped along the papered walls of the hall and breathed with difficulty. The air whistled through her teeth. As she hurried forward she thought how foolish she was. He is concerned with boys' affairs she told herself. Perhaps he has now begun to walk about in the evening with girls. Elizabeth Willard had a dread of being seen by guests in the hotel that had once belonged to her father and the ownership of which still stood recorded in her name in the county courthouse. The hotel was continually losing patronage because of its shabbiness and she thought of herself as also shabby. Her own room was in an obscure corner and when she felt able to work she voluntarily worked among the beds preferring the labour that could be done when the guests were abroad seeking trade among the merchants of Winesford. By the door of her son's room the mother knelt upon the floor and listened for some sound from within. When she heard the boy moving about and talking in low tones a smile came to her lips. George Willard had a habit of talking aloud to himself and to hear him doing so had always given his mother a peculiar pleasure. The habit in him she felt strengthened the secret bond that existed between them. A thousand times she had whispered to herself of the matter he is groping about trying to find himself she thought he is not a dull clot all words and smartness within him there is a secret something that is striving to grow it is the thing I let be killed in myself in the darkness in the hallway by the door the sick woman arose and started again toward her own room she was afraid that the door would open and the boy come upon her when she had reached a safe distance and was about to turn a corner into a second hallway she stopped and bracing herself with her hands waited thinking to shake off a trembling fit of weakness that had come upon her the presence of the boy in the room had made her happy in her bed during the long hours alone the little fears that had visited her had become giants now they were all gone when I get back to my room I shall sleep she murmured gratefully but Elizabeth Willard was not to return to her bed and to sleep as she stood trembling in the darkness the door of her son's room opened and the boy's father Tom Willard stepped out in the light that steamed out at the door he stood with the knob in his hand and talked what he said infuriated the woman Tom Willard was ambitious for his son he had always thought of himself as a successful man although nothing he had ever done had turned out successfully however when he was out of sight of the new Willard house and had no fear of coming upon his wife he swaggered and began to dramatize himself as one of the chief men of the town he wanted his son to succeed he it was who had secured for the boy the position on the Weinberg eagle now with a ring of earnestness in his voice he was advising concerning some course of conduct I tell you what George you've got to wake up he said sharply Will Henderson has spoken to me three times concerning the matter he says you go along for hours not hearing when you are spoken to and acting like a gawky girl what ails you Tom Willard laughed good naturally well I'll guess you'll get over it he said I told Will that you're not a fuel and you're not a woman you're Tom Willard's son and you'll wake up I'm not afraid what you say clears things up if being a newspaper man had put the notion of becoming a writer into your mind that's all right only I guess you'll have to wake up to do that too eh Tom Willard went briskly along the hallway and down a flight of stairs to the office the woman in the darkness could hear him laughing and talking with a guest who was striving to wear away a dull evening by dozing in a chair by the office door she returned to the door of her son's room the weakness had passed from her body as by a miracle and she stepped boldly along a thousand ideas raced through her head when she heard the scraping of a chair and the sound of a pin scratching upon paper she again turned and went back along the hallway to her own room a definite determination had come into the mind of the defeated wife of the Winesburg Hotel keeper the determination was the result of long years a quiet and rather ineffectual thinking now she told herself I will act there is something threatening my boy and I will ward it off the fact that the conversation between Tom Willard and his son had been rather quiet and natural as though an understanding existed between them maddened her although for years she had hated her husband her hatred had always before been a quite impersonal thing he had been merely a part of something else that she hated now and by the few words at the door he had become the thing personified in the darkness of her own room she clenched her fists and glared about going to a cloth bag that hung on a nail by the wall she took out a long pair of sewing scissors and held them in her hand like a dagger I will stab him she said aloud he has chosen to be the voice of evil and I will kill him when I have killed him something will snap within myself and I will die also it will be a release for all of us in her girlhood and before her marriage with Tom Willard Elizabeth had born a somewhat shaky reputation in Winesburg for years she had been what is called stage struck and had paraded through the streets with traveling men guests at her father's hotel wearing loud clothes and urging them to tell her of life in the cities out of which they had come once she startled the town by putting on men's clothes and riding a bicycle down Main Street in her own mind the tall dark girl had been in those days much confused a great restlessness was in her and it expressed itself in two ways first there was an uneasy desire for change for some big definite movement to her life it was this feeling that had turned her mind to the stage she dreamed of joining some company and wandering over the world seeing always new faces and giving something out of herself to all people sometimes at night she was quite beside herself with the thought but when she tried to talk of the matter to the members of the theatrical companies that came to Winesburg and stopped at her father's hotel she got nowhere they did not seem to know what she meant or if she did get something of her passion expressed they only laughed it's not like that they said it's a dull and uninteresting as is here nothing comes of it with the traveling men when she walked about with them and later with Tom Willard it was quite different always they seemed to understand and sympathize with her on the side streets of the village in the darkness under the trees they took hold of her hand and she thought that something unexpressed in herself came forth and became a part of an unexpressed something in them and then there was the second expression of her restlessness when that came she felt for a time released and happy she did not blame the men who walked with her and later she did not blame Tom Willard it was always the same beginning with kisses and ending after strange wild emotions with peace and sobbing repentance when she sobbed she put her hand upon the face of the man and had always the same thought even though he were large and bearded she thought he had become suddenly a little boy she wondered why he did not sob also in her room tucked away in a corner at the old Willard house Elizabeth Willard lighted the lamp and put it on a dressing table that stood by the door a thought had come into her mind and she went to a closet and brought out a small square box and set it on the table the box contained material for makeup and had been left with other things by a theatrical company that had once been stranded in Minesburg Elizabeth Willard had decided that she would be beautiful her hair was still black and there was a great mass that braided and coiled about her head the scene that was to take place in the office below began to grow in her mind no ghostly worn out figure should confront Tom Willard but something quite unexpected and startling tall and with dusky cheeks and hair that fell in a mass from her shoulders a figure comes riding down the stairway before the startle lounges in the hotel office the figure would be silent it would be swift and terrible as a tigress whose cub had been threatened would she appear coming out of the shadows stealing noiselessly along and holding the long wicked scissors in her hand with a little broken sob in her throat Elizabeth Willard blew out the light that stood upon the table and stood weak and trembling in the darkness the strength that had been as a miracle in her body left and she half reeled across the floor clutching at the back of the chair in which she had spent so many long days staring out over the tin roofs into the main street of Winesburg in the hallway there was the sound of footsteps and George Willard came in at the door sitting in a chair beside his mother he began to talk I'm going to get out of here he said I don't know where I shall go or what I shall do but I am going away the woman in the chair waited and trembled an impulse came to her I suppose you would better wake up she said you think that you will go to the city and make money ain't it will be better for you you think to be a businessman to be brisk and smart and alive she waited and trembled the sun shook his head I suppose I can't make you understand but oh I wish I could he said earnestly I can't even talk to father about I don't try there isn't any use I don't know what I shall do I just want to go away and look at people and think silence fell upon the room where the boy and woman sat together again as on the other evenings they were embarrassed after a time the boy tried again to talk I suppose it won't be for a year or two but I've been thinking about it he said rising and going toward the door something father said makes it sure that I shall have to go away he fumbled with the doorknob in the room the silence became unbearable to the woman she wanted to cry out with joy because of the words that had come from the lips of her son but the expression of joy had become impossible to her I think you had better go out among the boys you are too much indoors she said I thought I would go for a little walk replied the sun stepping awkwardly out of the room and closing the door end of chapter four section five of Winesburg Ohio this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by David Rowland Winesburg Ohio section five the philosopher Dr. Parsifal was a large man with a drooping mouth covered by a yellow mustache he always wore a dirty white waistcoat out of the pockets of which protruded a number of the kind of black cigars known as stogies his teeth were black and irregular and there was something strange about his eyes the lid of the left eye twitched it fell down and snapped up it was exactly as though the lid of the eye were a window shade and someone stood inside the doctor's head playing with the cord Dr. Parsifal had a liking for the boy George Willard it began when George had been working for a year on the Winesburg Eagle and the acquaintanceship was entirely a matter of the doctor's own making in the late afternoon Will Henderson owner and editor of the Eagle went over to Tom Willey's saloon along an alleyway he went and slipping in at the back door of the saloon began drinking a drink made of a combination of slowed gin and soda water Will Henderson was a sensualist and he had reached the age of 45 he imagined the gin renewed the youth in him like most sensualists he enjoyed talking of women and for an hour he lingered about gossiping with Tom Willey the saloon keeper was a short broad-shouldered man with peculiarly marked hands that flaming kind of birthmark that sometimes paints with red the faces of men and women had touched with red Tom Willey's fingers and the backs of his hands as he stood by the bar talking to Will Henderson he rubbed the hands together as he grew more and more excited the red of his fingers deepened it was as though the hands had been dipped in blood that had dried and faded as Will Henderson stood at the bar looking at the red hands and talking of women his assistant George Willard sat in the office of the Winesburg Eagle and listened to the talk of Dr. Parsifal Dr. Parsifal appeared immediately after Will Henderson had disappeared one might have supposed the doctor had been watching from his office window and had seen the editor going out along the alleyway coming in at the front door and finding himself a chair he lighted one of the stokies and crossing his legs began to talk he seemed intent upon convincing the boy of the advisability of adopting a line of conduct that he was himself unable to define if you have your eyes open you will see that although I call myself a doctor I have mighty few patients he began there is a reason for that it's not an accident and it's not because I do not know as much of medicine as anyone here I do not want patients the reason you see doesn't appear on the surface it lies in fact in my character which has if you think about it many strange turns why I want to talk to you of the matter I don't know I might keep still and get more credit in your eyes I have a desire to make you admire me that's a fact I don't know why that's why I talk it's very amusing eh sometimes the doctor launched into long tales concerning himself to the boy the tales were very real and full of meaning he began to admire the fat unclean looking man and in the afternoon when will Henderson had gone looked forward with keen interest to the doctor's coming Dr. Parsifal had been in Winesburg about five years he came from Chicago and when he arrived was drunk and got into a fight with Albert Longworth the baggageman the fight concerned a trunk and ended by the doctors being escorted to the village lock up when he was released he rented a room above a shoe repairing shop at the lower end of Main Street and put out the sign that announced himself as a doctor although he had but few patients and these of the poorer sort who were unable to pay he seemed to have plenty of money for his needs he slept in the office that was unspeakably dirty and dined at Biff Carter's lunchroom in a small frame building opposite the railway station in the summer the lunchroom was filled with flies and Biff Carter's white apron was more dirty than his floor Dr. Parsifal didn't mind into the lunchroom he stalked and deposited twenty cents upon the counter feed me what you wish for that he said laughing use up food you wouldn't otherwise sell it makes no difference to me I'm a man of distinction you see why should I concern myself with what I eat the tales that Dr. Parsifal told George Willard began nowhere and ended nowhere sometimes the boy thought they must be all inventions a pack of lies and then again he was convinced they contained the very essence of truth I was a reporter like you here Dr. Parsifal began it was in a town in Iowa or was it Illinois I don't remember it anyway it makes no difference perhaps I'm trying to conceal my identity and don't want to be very definite have you ever thought it strange that I have money for my needs although I do nothing I may have stolen a great sum of money or been involved in a murder before I came here there is food for thought in that eh if you were a really smart newspaper reporter you'd look me up in Chicago there was a Dr. Cronin who was murdered have you heard of that some men murdered him and put him in a trunk in the early morning they hauled the trunk across the city it sat on the back of an express wagon and they were on the seat as unconcerned as anything along they went through quiet streets where everyone was asleep the sun was just coming up over the lake funny eh just to think of them smoking pipes and chattering as they drove along as unconcerned as I am now perhaps I was one of those men that would be a strange turn of things now wouldn't it eh again Dr. Parsifal began his tail well anyway there I was a reporter on a paper just as you are here running about and getting little items to print my mother was poor she took in washing her dream was to make me a Presbyterian minister and I was studying with that end in view my father had been insane for a number of years he was in an asylum over in Dayton Ohio there you see I let it slip out all of this took place in Ohio right here in Ohio there's a clue if you ever get the notion of looking me up I was going to tell you if my brother that's the object of all this that's what I'm getting at my brother was a railroad painter and had a job on the big four you know that road runs through Ohio here with other men he lived in a boxcar in a way they went from town to town painting the railroad property switches crossing gates bridges and stations the big four paint sit stations a nasty orange color how I hated that color my brother was always covered with it on paydays he used to get drunk and come home wearing his paint covered clothes and bringing his money with him he did not give it to mother but laid it in a pile on our kitchen table about the house he went in clothes covered with the nasty orange colored paint I can see the picture my mother who was small and had red sad looking eyes would come into the house from a little shed at the back that's where she spent her time over the wash tub scrubbing people's dirty clothes in she would come and stand by the table rubbing her eyes with her apron that was covered with soap sets don't touch it don't you dare touch that money my brother roared and then he himself took five or ten dollars and went trapping off to the saloons when he had spent what he had taken he came back for more he never gave my mother any money at all but stayed about until he had spent it all a little at a time then he went back to his job with the painting crew on the railroad after he had gone things began to arrive at our house groceries and such sometimes there would be a dress for mother or a pair of shoes for me strange eh my mother loved my brother much more than she did me although he never said a kind word either of us and always raved up and down threatening us if we dared so much as touch the money that sometimes lay on the table three days we got along pretty well I started to be a minister and prayed I was a regular ass about saying prayers you should have heard me when my father died I prayed all night just as I did sometimes when my brother was in town drinking and going about buying the things for us in the evening after supper I knelt by the table where the money lay and prayed for hours when no one was looking I stole a dollar or two and put it in my pocket that makes me laugh now but then it was terrible it got on my mind all the time I got six dollars a week from my job on the paper and always took it straight home to mother the few dollars I stole from my brother brother's pile I spent on myself you know trifles candy cigarettes and such things when my father died at the asylum over at Dayton I went over there I borrowed some money from the man for whom I worked and went on the train at night it was raining in the asylum they treated me as though I were a king the men who had jobs in the asylum had found out I was a newspaper reporter that made them afraid there had been some negligence some carelessness you see when father was ill they thought perhaps I would write it up in the paper and make a fuss I never intended to do anything of the kind anyway in I went to the room where my father lay dead and blessed the body I wonder what put that notion into my head wouldn't my brother the painter have laughed though there I stood over the dead body and spread out my hands the superintendent of the asylum and some of his helpers came in and stood about looking sheepish it was very amusing I spread out my hands and I said let peace brood over this carcass that's what I said jumping to his feet and breaking off the tail Dr. Parcival began to walk up and down in the office of the Weinsburg Eagle where George Willard sat listening he was awkward and as the office was small continually knocked against things what a fool I am to be talking he said that's not my object in coming here and forcing my acquaintanceship upon you I have something else in mind you're a reporter just as I was once and you've attracted my attention you may end by becoming just such another fool I want to warn you and keep on warning you that's why I seek you out Dr. Parcival began talking of George Willard's attitude toward men it seemed to the boy that the man had but one object in view to make everyone seem despicable I want to fill you with hatred and contempt so that you'll be a superior being he declared look at my brother there was a fellow a he despised everyone you see you have no idea with what contempt he looked upon mother and me and was he not our superior you know he was you've not seen him and yet I've made you feel that I've given you a sense of it he is dead once when he was drunk he lay down on the tracks and the car in which he lived with the other painters ran over him one day in august Dr. Parcival had an adventure in Weinsburg for a month George Willard had been going each morning to spend an hour in the doctor's office the visits came about through a desire on the part of the doctor to read to the boy from the pages of a book he was in the process of writing to write the book Dr. Parcival declared was the object of his coming to Weinsburg to live on the morning in august before the coming of the boy an incident had happened in the doctor's office there'd been an accident on main street a team of horses had been frightened by a train and had run away a little girl the daughter of a farmer had been thrown from a buggy and killed on main street everyone had become excited and a cry for doctors had gone up all three of the active practitioners of the town had come quickly but had found the child dead from the crowd someone had run to the office of Dr. Parcival who had bluntly refused to go down out of his office to the dead child the useless cruelty of his refusal had passed unnoticed indeed the man who had come up the stairway to summon him had hurried away without hearing the refusal all of this Dr. Parcival did not know and when George Willard came to his office he found the man shaking with terror what I have done will arouse the people of this town he declared excitedly do I not know human nature do I not know what'll happen word of my refusal would be whispered about presently men will get here in groups and talk of it they'll come here will quarrel and there will be talk of a hanging and they'll come bearing a rope in their hands Dr. Parcival shook with fright I have a presentment he declared emphatically it may be that when I'm what I'm talking about will not occur this morning it may be put off until tonight but I will be hanged everyone will get excited I'll be hanged through a lamp post on main street going to the door of his dirty office Dr. Parcival looked timidly down the stairway leading to the street when he returned the fright that had been in his eyes was beginning to be replaced by doubt coming on tiptoe across the room he he tapped George Willard on the shoulder if not now sometime he whispered shaking his head in the end I will be crucified uselessly crucified Dr. Parcival began to plead with George Willard you must pay attention to me he urged if something happens perhaps you will be able to write the book I may never get written the idea is very simple so simple that if you're not careful you'll forget it it is this that everyone in the world is Christ and they're all crucified that's what I want to say don't you forget that whatever happens don't you dare let yourself forget end of section five recording by David Rowland Berkeley California section six of Weinberg Ohio this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please go to LibriVox.org this recording by Patty Brugman Weinberg Ohio by Sherwood Anderson section six nobody knows looking cautiously about George Willard arose from his desk in the office of the Weinberg Eagle and went hurriedly out the back door the night was warm and cloudy and although it was not yet eight o'clock the alleyway back of the eagle office was pitch dark a team of horses tied to a post somewhere in the darkness stamped on the hard-baked ground a cat sprang up under George Willard's feet and ran away into the night the young man was nervous all day he had gone about his work like one dazed by a blow in the alleyway he trembled as though with fright in the darkness George Willard walked along the alleyway going carefully and cautiously the back doors of the Weinberg stores were open and he could seem in sitting about under the store lamps in Meyerbaum's notion store Mrs. Willie the saloon keeper's wife stood by the counter with a basket on her arm sit green the clerk was waiting on her he leaned over the counter and talked earnestly George Willard crouched and then jumped through the path of light that came out at the door he began to run forward in the darkness behind Ed Griffith's saloon old jerry bird the town drunkard lay asleep on the ground the runner stumbled over the sprawling legs he laughed brokenly George Willard had set forth upon an adventure all day he had been trying to make up his mind to go through within the adventure and now he was acting in the office of the Weinberg eagle he had been sitting since six o'clock trying to think there had been no decision he had just jumped to his feet hurried past will Henderson who was reading proof in the print shop and started to run along the alleyway through street after street went George Willard avoiding the people who passed he crossed and recrossed the road when he passed a street lamp he pulled his hat down over his face he did not dare think in his mind there was a fear but it was a new kind of fear he was afraid the adventure on which he had set out would be spoiled and that he would lose courage and turn back George Willard found Louise 20 in in the kitchen of her father's house she was washing dishes by the light of a kerosene lamp there she stood behind the screen door in the little shed light kitchen at the back of the house George Willard stopped by a picket fence and tried to control the shaking of his body only a narrow potato patch separated him from the adventure five minutes past before he felt sure enough of himself to call to her Louise oh Louise he called the cries stuck in his throat the voice became a horse whisper Louise Trunnion came out across the potato patch holding the dish cloth in her hand how do you know i want to go out with you she said so glee what makes you so sure George Willard did not answer in silence the two stood in the darkness with the fence between them you go on along she said pause in there i'll come along you wait by Williams barn the young newspaper reporter had received a letter from Louise Trunnion it had come that morning to the office of the Weinsburg Eagle the letter was brief i'm yours if you want me it said he thought it annoying that in the darkness by the fence she had pretended there was nothing between them she has a nerve well gracious sakes she has a nerve he muttered as he went along the street and passed a row of vacant lots where the corn grew the corn was shoulder high and had been planted right down to the sidewalk when Louise Trunnion came out of the front door of her house she still wore the gingham dress in which she had been washing dishes there was no hat on her head the boy could see her standing with the door knob in her hand talking to someone within no doubt to old Jake Trunnion her father old Jake was half deaf and she shouted the door closed and everything was dark and silent in the little side street George Willard trembled more violently than ever in the shadows by Williams's barn George and Louise stood not daring to talk she was not particularly comely and there was a black smudge on the side of her nose George thought she must have rubbed her nose with her finger after she had been handling some of the kitchen pots the young man began to laugh nervously it's warm he said he wanted to touch it with his hand I'm not very bold he thought just to touch the folds of the soiled gingham dress would he decided be an exquisite pleasure she began to quibble you think you're better than I am don't tell me I guess I know she said drawing closer to him a flood of words burst from George Willard he remembered the look that had lurked in the girl's eyes when they had met on the streets and thought of the note she had written doubt left him the whispered tales concerning her that had gone about the town gave him confidence he became wholly the male bold and aggressive in his heart there was no sympathy for her ah come on it'll be all right there won't be anyone know anything how can they know he urged they began to walk along the narrow brick sidewalk between the cracks of which tall weeds grew some of the bricks were missing and the sidewalk was rough and irregular he took hold of her hand that was also rough and thought it's delightfully small I can't go far she said and her voice was quiet unperturbed they crossed a bridge that ran over a tiny stream and passed another vacant lot in which corn grew the street ended in the path at the side of the road they were compelled to walk one behind the other will overton's berry fields lay beside the road and there was a pile of boards will is going to build a shed to store berry crates here he said and they sat down upon the boards when George Willard got back into main street it was past 10 o'clock and had begun to rain three times he walked up and down the length of main street silvestre west's drugstore was still open and he went in and bought a cigar when shorty krandall the clerk came out at the door with him he was pleased for five minutes the two stood in the shelter of the store awning and talked george willard felt satisfied he had wanted more than anything else to talk to some man around a corner toward the new willard house he went whistling softly on the sidewalk at the side of winnie's dry goods where there was a high board fence covered with circus pictures he stopped whistling and stood perfectly still in the darkness attentive listening as though for a voice calling his name then again he laughed nervously she hasn't got anything on me nobody knows he muttered doggedly and went on his way the end of nobody knows from windsburg ohio selection number six read by patty brogman section seven of windsburg ohio this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org windsburg ohio by surewood anderson section seven godliness part one there were always three or four old people sitting on the front porch of the house or puttering about the garden of the bentley farm three of the old people were women and sisters to jesse they were a colorless soft voice lot then there was a silent old man with thin white hair who was jesse's uncle the farmhouse was built of wood a board outer covering over a framework of logs it was in reality not one house but a cluster of houses joined together in a rather haphazard manner inside the place was full of surprises one went up steps from the living room into the dining room and there were always steps to be ascended or descended in passing from one room to another at mealtimes the place was like a beehive at one moment all was quiet then doors began to open feet clattered on stairs a murmur of soft voices arose and people appeared from a dozen obscure corners beside the old people already mentioned many others lived in the bentley house there were four hired men a woman named aunt callie bb who was in charge of the housekeeping a dull-witted girl named Eliza stouten who made beds and helped with the milking a boy who worked in the stables and jesse bentley himself the owner and overlord of it all by the time the american civil war had been over for 20 years that part of northern ohio where the bentley farms lay had begun to emerge from pioneer life jesse then owned machinery for harvesting grain he had built modern barns and most of his land was drained with carefully laid tile drain but in order to understand the man we will have to go back to an earlier day the bentley family had been in northern ohio for several generations before jesse's time they came from new york state and took up land when the country was new and land could be had at a low price for a long time they in common with all the other middle western people were very poor the land they had settled upon was heavily wooded and covered with fallen logs and underbrush after the long hard labor of clearing these away and cutting the timber there were still the stumps to be reckoned with plows run through the fields caught on hidden routes stones lay all about on the low places water gathered and the young corn turned yellow sickened and died when jesse bentley's father and brothers had come into their ownership of the place much of the harder part of the work of clearing had been done but they clung to old traditions and worked like driven animals they lived as practically all of the farming people of the time lived in the spring and through most of the winter the highways leading into the town of weinsburg were a sea of mud the four young men of the family worked hard all day in the fields they ate heavily of coarse greasy food and at night slept like tired beasts on beds of straw into their lives came little that was not coarse and brutal and outwardly they were themselves coarse and brutal on saturday afternoons they hitched a team of horses to a three seated wagon and went off to town in town they stood about the stoves in the stores talking to other farmers or to the storekeepers they were dressed in overalls and in the winter wore heavy coats that reflect with mud their hands as they stretched them out to the heat of the stoves were cracked and red it was difficult for them to talk and so they for the most part kept silent when they had bought meat flour sugar and salt they went into one of the weinsburg saloons and drank beer under the influence of drink the naturally strong lusts of their natures kept suppressed by the heroic labor of breaking up new ground were released a kind of crude and animal like poetic fervor took possession of them on the road home they stood up on the wagon seats and shouted at the stars sometimes they fought long and bitterly and at other times they broke forth into songs once enic bentley the older one of the boys struck his father old tom bentley with the butt of a teamsters whip and the old man seemed likely to die for days enic lay hid in the straw in the loft of the stable ready to flee if the result of his momentary passion turned out to be murder he was kept alive with food brought by his mother who also kept him informed of the injured man's condition when all turned out well he emerged from his hiding place and went back to the work of clearing land as though nothing had happened the civil war brought a sharp turn to the fortunes of the bentley's and was responsible for the rise of the youngest son jesse enic edward harry and will bentley all enlisted and before the long war ended they were all killed for a time after they went away to the south old tom tried to run the place but he was not successful when the last of the four had been killed he sent word to jesse that he would have to come home then the mother who had not been well for a year died suddenly and the father became altogether discouraged he talked of selling the farm and moving into town all day he went about shaking his head and muttering the work in the fields was neglected and weeds grew high in the corn old tom hired men but he did not use them intelligently when they had gone away to the fields in the morning he wandered into the woods and sat down on a log sometimes he forgot to come home at night and one of the daughters had to go in search of him when jesse buntley came home to the farm and began to take charge of things he was a slight sensitive-looking man of twenty two at eighteen he had left home to go to school to become a scholar and eventually to become a minister of the presbyterian church all through his boyhood he had been what in our country was called an odd sheep and had not got on with his brothers of all the family only his mother had understood him and she was now dead when he came home to take charge of the farm that had at that time grown to more than six hundred acres everyone on the farms about and in the nearby town of windsberg smiled at the idea of his trying to handle the work that had been done by his four strong brothers there was indeed good cause to smile by the standards of his day jesse did not look like a man at all he was small and very slender and womanish of body and true to the traditions of young ministers wore a long black coat and a narrow black string tie the neighbors were amused when they saw him after the years away and they were even more amused when they saw the woman he had married in the city as a matter of fact jesse's wife did soon go under that was perhaps jesse's fault a farm in northern ohio in the hard years after the civil war was no place for a delicate woman and catherine bentley was delicate jesse was hard with her as he was with everybody about him in those days she tried to do such work as all the neighbor women about her did and he let her go on without interference she helped to do the milking and did part of the housework she made the beds for the men and prepared their food for a year she worked every day from sunrise until late at night and then after giving birth to a child she died as for jesse bentley although he was a delicately built man there was something within him that could not easily be killed he had brown curly hair and gray eyes that were at times hard and direct at times wavering and uncertain not only was he slender but he was also short of stature his mouth was like the mouth of a sensitive and very determined child jesse bentley was a fanatic he was a man born out of his time and place and for this he suffered and made others suffer never did he succeed in getting what he wanted out of life and he did not know what he wanted within a very short time after he came home to the bentley farm he made everyone there a little afraid of him and his wife who should have been close to him as his mother had been was afraid also at the end of two weeks after his coming old tom bentley made over to him the entire ownership of the place and retired into the background everyone retired into the background in spite of his youth and inexperience jesse had the trick of mastering the souls of his people he was so earnest in everything he did and said that no one understood him he made everyone on the farm work as they had never worked before and yet there was no joy in the work if things went well they went well for jesse and never for the people who were his dependents like a thousand other strong men who have come into the world here in america in these later times jesse was but half strong he could master others but he could not master himself the running of the farm as it had never been run before was easy for him when he came home from cleveland where he had been in school he shut himself off from all of his people and began to make plans he thought about the farm night and day and that made him successful other men on the farms about him worked too hard and were too tired to think but to think of the farm and to be everlastingly making plans for its success was a relief to jesse it partially satisfied something in his passionate nature immediately after he came home he had a wing built onto the old house and in a large room facing the west he had windows that looked into the barnyard and other windows that looked off across the fields by the window he sat down to think hour after hour and day after day he sat and looked over the land and thought out his new place in life the passionate burning thing in his nature flamed up and his eyes became hard he wanted to make the farm produce as no farm in his state had ever produced before and then he wanted something else it was the indefinable hunger within that made his eyes waiver and that kept him always more and more silent before people he would have given much to achieve peace and in him was a fear that peace was the thing he could not achieve all over his body jesse bentley was alive in his small frame was gathered the force of a long line of strong men he'd always been extraordinarily alive when he was a small boy on the farm and later when he was a young man in school in the school he had studied and thought of god and the bible with his whole mind and heart as time passed and he grew to know people better he began to think of himself as an extraordinary man one set apart from his fellows he wanted terribly to make his life a thing of great importance and as he looked about at his fellow men and saw how like clods they lived it seemed to him that he could not bear to become also such a clod although in his absorption in himself and in his own destiny he was blind to the fact that his young wife was doing a strong woman's work even after she had become large with child and that she was killing herself in his service he did not intend to be in kind to her when his father who was old and twisted with toil made over to him the ownership of the farm and seemed content to creep away to a corner and wait for death he shrugged his shoulders and dismissed the old man from his mind in the room by the window overlooking the land that had come down to him sat jesse thinking of his own affairs in the stables he could hear the tramping of his horses and the restless movement of his cattle away in the fields he could see other cattle wandering over green hills the voices of men his men who worked for him came into him through the window from the milk house there was the steady thump thump of a churn being manipulated by the half-witted girl eliza stouton jesse's mind went back to the men of old testament days who had also owned lands and herds he remembered how god had come down out of the skies and talked to these men and he wanted god to notice and to talk to him also a kind of feverish boyish eagerness to in some way achieve in his own life the flavor of significance that had hung over these men took possession of him being a prayerful man he spoke of the matter allowed to god and the sound of his own words strengthened and fed his eagerness i am a new kind of man come into possession of these fields he declared look upon me oh god and look thou also upon my neighbors and all the men who have gone before me here oh god created me another jesse like that one of old to rule over men and to be the father of sons who shall be rulers jesse grew excited as he talked aloud and jumping to his feet walked up and down in the room in fancy he saw himself living in old times and among old peoples the land that lay stretched out before him became a vast significance a place peopled by his fancy with the new race of men sprung from himself it seemed to him that in his day as in those other and older days kingdoms might be created and new impulses given to the lives of men by the power of god speaking through a chosen servant he longed to be such a servant it is god's work i have come to the land to do he declared in a loud voice and his short figure straightened and he thought that something like a halo of godly approval hung over him it will perhaps be somewhat difficult for the men and women of a later day to understand jesse bentley in the last 50 years a vast change has taken place in the lives of our people a revolution has in fact taken place the coming of industrialism attended by all the roar and rattle of affairs the shrill cries of millions of new voices that have come among us from overseas the going and coming of trains the growth of cities the building of the interurban car lines that weave in and out of towns and past farmhouses and now in these later days the coming of the automobiles has worked a tremendous change in the lives and in the habits of thought of our people of mid america books badly imagined and written though they may be in the hurry of our times are in every household magazines circulate by the millions of copies newspapers are everywhere in our day a farmer standing by the stove in the store in his village has his mind filled to overflowing with the words of other men the newspapers and the magazines have pumped him full much of the old brutal ignorance that had in it also a kind of beautiful childlike innocence is gone forever the farmer by the stove is brother to the men of the cities and if you listen you will find him talking as glibly and as senselessly as the best city man of us all in jesse bentley's time and in the country districts of the whole middle west in the years after the civil war it was not so men labored too hard and were too tired to read in them was no desire for words printed upon paper as they worked in the fields vague half-formed thoughts took possession of them they believed in god and in god's power to control their lives in the little protestant churches they gathered on sunday to hear of god and his works the churches were the center of the social and intellectual life of the times the figure of god was big in the hearts of men and so having been born an imaginative child and having within him a great intellectual eagerness jesse bentley had turned whole heartedly toward god when the war took his brothers away he saw the hand of god in that when his father became ill and could no longer attend to the running of the farm he took that also as a sign from god in the city when the word came to him he walked about at night through the streets thinking of the matter and when he had come home and had got the work on the farm well underway he went again at night to walk through the forest and over the low hills and to think of god as he walked the importance of his own figure in some divine plan grew in his mind he grew avaricious and was impatient that the farm contained only six hundred acres kneeling in a fence corner at the edge of some meadow he sent his voice abroad into the silence and looking up he saw the stars shining down at him one evening some months after his father's death and when his wife catherine was expecting at any moment to be laid a bed of childbirth jesse left his house and went for a long walk the bentley farm was situated in a tiny valley watered by wine creek and jesse walked along the banks of the stream to the end of his own land and on through the fields of his neighbors as he walked the valley broadened and then narrowed again great open stretches of field and wood lay before him the moon came out from behind clouds and climbing a low hill he sat down to think jesse thought that as the true servant of god the entire stretch of country through which he had walked should have come into his possession he thought of his dead brothers and blamed them that they had not worked harder and achieved more before him in the moonlight the tiny stream ran down over stones and he began to think of the men of old times who like himself had owned flocks and lands a fantastic impulse half fear half greediness took possession of jesse bentley he remembered how in the old bible story the lord had appeared to that other jesse and told him to send his son david to where sal and the men of israel were fighting the philistines in the valley of illa into jesse's mind came the conviction that all of the ohio farmers who own land in the valley of wine creek were philistines and enemies of god suppose he whispered to himself there should come from among them one who like goliath the philistine of gath could defeat me and take from me my possessions in fancy he felt the sickening dread that he thought must have lain heavy on the heart of sal before the coming of david jumping to his feet he began to run through the night as he ran he called to god his voice carried far over the low hills jehovah of hoes he cried send to me this night out of the womb of kathryn a son let thy grace alight upon me send me a son to be called david who shall help me to pluck at last all of these lands out of the hands of the philistines and turn them to thy service and to the building of thy kingdom on earth and of section seven