[Note: The evident misprint of Book Six for Book Five in the originalis preserved here. ]

 POOR WHITE

 A NOVEL BY

 SHERWOOD ANDERSON

 AUTHOR OF

 WINESBURG, OHIO

 TO

 TENNESSEE MITCHELL ANDERSON

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

Hugh McVey was born in a little hole of a town stuck on a mud bank on thewestern shore of the Mississippi River in the State of Missouri. It wasa miserable place in which to be born. With the exception of a narrowstrip of black mud along the river, the land for ten miles back from thetown--called in derision by river men "Mudcat Landing"--was almost entirelyworthless and unproductive. The soil, yellow, shallow and stony, wastilled, in Hugh's time, by a race of long gaunt men who seemed as exhaustedand no-account as the land on which they lived. They were chronicallydiscouraged, and the merchants and artisans of the town were in the samestate. The merchants, who ran their stores--poor tumble-down ramshackleaffairs--on the credit system, could not get pay for the goods they handedout over their counters and the artisans, the shoemakers, carpenters andharnessmakers, could not get pay for the work they did. Only the town's twosaloons prospered. The saloon keepers sold their wares for cash and, as themen of the town and the farmers who drove into town felt that without drinklife was unbearable, cash always could be found for the purpose of gettingdrunk. 

Hugh McVey's father, John McVey, had been a farm hand in his youth butbefore Hugh was born had moved into town to find employment in a tannery. The tannery ran for a year or two and then failed, but John McVey stayed intown. He also became a drunkard. It was the easy obvious thing for him todo. During the time of his employment in the tannery he had been marriedand his son had been born. Then his wife died and the idle workman took hischild and went to live in a tiny fishing shack by the river. How the boylived through the next few years no one ever knew. John McVey loitered inthe streets and on the river bank and only awakened out of his habitualstupor when, driven by hunger or the craving for drink, he went for a day'swork in some farmer's field at harvest time or joined a number of otheridlers for an adventurous trip down river on a lumber raft. The baby wasleft shut up in the shack by the river or carried about wrapped in a soiledblanket. Soon after he was old enough to walk he was compelled to find workin order that he might eat. The boy of ten went listlessly about town atthe heels of his father. The two found work, which the boy did while theman lay sleeping in the sun. They cleaned cisterns, swept out stores andsaloons and at night went with a wheelbarrow and a box to remove and dumpin the river the contents of out-houses. At fourteen Hugh was as tall ashis father and almost without education. He could read a little and couldwrite his own name, had picked up these accomplishments from other boys whocame to fish with him in the river, but he had never been to school. Fordays sometimes he did nothing but lie half asleep in the shade of a bush onthe river bank. The fish he caught on his more industrious days he sold fora few cents to some housewife, and thus got money to buy food for his biggrowing indolent body. Like an animal that has come to its maturity heturned away from his father, not because of resentment for his hard youth, but because he thought it time to begin to go his own way. 

In his fourteenth year and when the boy was on the point of sinking intothe sort of animal-like stupor in which his father had lived, somethinghappened to him. A railroad pushed its way down along the river to his townand he got a job as man of all work for the station master. He swept outthe station, put trunks on trains, mowed the grass in the station yard andhelped in a hundred odd ways the man who held the combined jobs of ticketseller, baggage master and telegraph operator at the little out-of-the-wayplace. 

Hugh began a little to awaken. He lived with his employer, Henry Shepard, and his wife, Sarah Shepard, and for the first time in his life sat downregularly at table. His life, lying on the river bank through long summerafternoons or sitting perfectly still for endless hours in a boat, had bredin him a dreamy detached outlook on life. He found it hard to be definiteand to do definite things, but for all his stupidity the boy had a greatstore of patience, a heritage perhaps from his mother. In his new place thestation master's wife, Sarah Shepard, a sharp-tongued, good-natured woman, who hated the town and the people among whom fate had thrown her, scoldedat him all day long. She treated him like a child of six, told him howto sit at table, how to hold his fork when he ate, how to address peoplewho came to the house or to the station. The mother in her was aroused byHugh's helplessness and, having no children of her own, she began to takethe tall awkward boy to her heart. She was a small woman and when she stoodin the house scolding the great stupid boy who stared down at her withhis small perplexed eyes, the two made a picture that afforded endlessamusement to her husband, a short fat bald-headed man who went about cladin blue overalls and a blue cotton shirt. Coming to the back door of hishouse, that was within a stone's throw of the station, Henry Shepard stoodwith his hand on the door-jamb and watched the woman and the boy. Abovethe scolding voice of the woman his own voice arose. "Look out, Hugh, " hecalled. "Be on the jump, lad! Perk yourself up. She'll be biting you if youdon't go mighty careful in there. "

Hugh got little money for his work at the railroad station but for thefirst time in his life he began to fare well. Henry Shepard bought theboy clothes, and his wife, Sarah, who was a master of the art of cooking, loaded the table with good things to eat. Hugh ate until both the man andwoman declared he would burst if he did not stop. Then when they were notlooking he went into the station yard and crawling under a bush went tosleep. The station master came to look for him. He cut a switch from thebush and began to beat the boy's bare feet. Hugh awoke and was overcomewith confusion. He got to his feet and stood trembling, half afraid he wasto be driven away from his new home. The man and the confused blushing boyconfronted each other for a moment and then the man adopted the methodof his wife and began to scold. He was annoyed at what he thought theboy's indolence and found a hundred little tasks for him to do. He devotedhimself to finding tasks for Hugh, and when he could think of no new ones, invented them. "We will have to keep the big lazy fellow on the jump. That's the secret of things, " he said to his wife. 

The boy learned to keep his naturally indolent body moving and his cloudedsleepy mind fixed on definite things. For hours he plodded straight ahead, doing over and over some appointed task. He forgot the purpose of the jobhe had been given to do and did it because it was a job and would keep himawake. One morning he was told to sweep the station platform and as hisemployer had gone away without giving him additional tasks and as he wasafraid that if he sat down he would fall into the odd detached kind ofstupor in which he had spent so large a part of his life, he continuedto sweep for two or three hours. The station platform was built of roughboards and Hugh's arms were very powerful. The broom he was using began togo to pieces. Bits of it flew about and after an hour's work the platformlooked more uncleanly than when he began. Sarah Shepard came to the door ofher house and stood watching. She was about to call to him and to scold himagain for his stupidity when a new impulse came to her. She saw the seriousdetermined look on the boy's long gaunt face and a flash of understandingcame to her. Tears came into her eyes and her arms ached to take the greatboy and hold him tightly against her breast. With all her mother's soul shewanted to protect Hugh from a world she was sure would treat him alwaysas a beast of burden and would take no account of what she thought of asthe handicap of his birth. Her morning's work was done and without sayinganything to Hugh, who continued to go up and down the platform laboriouslysweeping, she went out at the front door of the house and to one ofthe town stores. There she bought a half dozen books, a geography, anarithmetic, a speller and two or three readers. She had made up her mind tobecome Hugh McVey's school teacher and with characteristic energy did notput the matter off, but went about it at once. When she got back to herhouse and saw the boy still going doggedly up and down the platform, she did not scold but spoke to him with a new gentleness in her manner. "Well, my boy, you may put the broom away now and come to the house, " shesuggested. "I've made up my mind to take you for my own boy and I don'twant to be ashamed of you. If you're going to live with me I can't have yougrowing up to be a lazy good-for-nothing like your father and the other menin this hole of a place. You'll have to learn things and I suppose I'llhave to be your teacher. 

"Come on over to the house at once, " she added sharply, making a quickmotion with her hand to the boy who with the broom in his hands stoodstupidly staring. "When a job is to be done there's no use putting it off. It's going to be hard work to make an educated man of you, but it has to bedone. We might as well begin on your lessons at once. "

 * * * * *

Hugh McVey lived with Henry Shepard and his wife until he became a grownman. After Sarah Shepard became his school teacher things began to gobetter for him. The scolding of the New England woman, that had butaccentuated his awkwardness and stupidity, came to an end and life in hisadopted home became so quiet and peaceful that the boy thought of himselfas one who had come into a kind of paradise. For a time the two olderpeople talked of sending him to the town school, but the woman objected. She had begun to feel so close to Hugh that he seemed a part of her ownflesh and blood and the thought of him, so huge and ungainly, sitting in aschool room with the children of the town, annoyed and irritated her. Inimagination she saw him being laughed at by other boys and could not bearthe thought. She did not like the people of the town and did not want Hughto associate with them. 

Sarah Shepard had come from a people and a country quite different inits aspect from that in which she now lived. Her own people, frugal NewEnglanders, had come West in the year after the Civil War to take upcut-over timber land in the southern end of the state of Michigan. Thedaughter was a grown girl when her father and mother took up the westwardjourney, and after they arrived at the new home, had worked with her fatherin the fields. The land was covered with huge stumps and was difficult tofarm but the New Englanders were accustomed to difficulties and were notdiscouraged. The land was deep and rich and the people who had settled uponit were poor but hopeful. They felt that every day of hard work done inclearing the land was like laying up treasure against the future. In NewEngland they had fought against a hard climate and had managed to find aliving on stony unproductive soil. The milder climate and the rich deepsoil of Michigan was, they felt, full of promise. Sarah's father like mostof his neighbors had gone into debt for his land and for tools with whichto clear and work it and every year spent most of his earnings in payinginterest on a mortgage held by a banker in a nearby town, but that did notdiscourage him. He whistled as he went about his work and spoke often of afuture of ease and plenty. "In a few years and when the land is clearedwe'll make money hand over fist, " he declared. 

When Sarah grew into young womanhood and went about among the young peoplein the new country, she heard much talk of mortgages and of the difficultyof making ends meet, but every one spoke of the hard conditions astemporary. In every mind the future was bright with promise. Throughoutthe whole Mid-American country, in Ohio, Northern Indiana and Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa a hopeful spirit prevailed. In every breast hope foughta successful war with poverty and discouragement. Optimism got into theblood of the children and later led to the same kind of hopeful courageousdevelopment of the whole western country. The sons and daughters of thesehardy people no doubt had their minds too steadily fixed on the problemof the paying off of mortgages and getting on in the world, but there wascourage in them. If they, with the frugal and sometimes niggardly NewEnglanders from whom they were sprung, have given modern American life atoo material flavor, they have at least created a land in which a lessdeterminedly materialistic people may in their turn live in comfort. 

In the midst of the little hopeless community of beaten men and yellowdefeated women on the bank of the Mississippi River, the woman who hadbecome Hugh McVey's second mother and in whose veins flowed the blood ofthe pioneers, felt herself undefeated and unbeatable. She and her husbandwould, she felt, stay in the Missouri town for a while and then move onto a larger town and a better position in life. They would move on and upuntil the little fat man was a railroad president or a millionaire. It wasthe way things were done. She had no doubt of the future. "Do everythingwell, " she said to her husband, who was perfectly satisfied with hisposition in life and had no exalted notions as to his future. "Remember tomake your reports out neatly and clearly. Show them you can do perfectlythe task given you to do, and you will be given a chance at a larger task. Some day when you least expect it something will happen. You will be calledup into a position of power. We won't be compelled to stay in this hole ofa place very long. "

The ambitious energetic little woman, who had taken the son of the indolentfarm hand to her heart, constantly talked to him of her own people. Everyafternoon when her housework was done she took the boy into the front roomof the house and spent hours laboring with him over his lessons. She workedupon the problem of rooting the stupidity and dullness out of his mindas her father had worked at the problem of rooting the stumps out of theMichigan land. After the lesson for the day had been gone over and overuntil Hugh was in a stupor of mental weariness, she put the books aside andtalked to him. With glowing fervor she made for him a picture of her ownyouth and the people and places where she had lived. In the picture sherepresented the New Englanders of the Michigan farming community as astrong god-like race, always honest, always frugal, and always pushingahead. His own people she utterly condemned. She pitied him for theblood in his veins. The boy had then and all his life certain physicaldifficulties she could never understand. The blood did not flow freelythrough his long body. His feet and hands were always cold and there wasfor him an almost sensual satisfaction to be had from just lying perfectlystill in the station yard and letting the hot sun beat down on him. 

Sarah Shepard looked upon what she called Hugh's laziness as a thing ofthe spirit. "You have got to get over it, " she declared. "Look at your ownpeople--poor white trash--how lazy and shiftless they are. You can't belike them. It's a sin to be so dreamy and worthless. "

Swept along by the energetic spirit of the woman, Hugh fought to overcomehis inclination to give himself up to vaporous dreams. He became convincedthat his own people were really of inferior stock, that they were to bekept away from and not to be taken into account. During the first yearafter he came to live with the Shepards, he sometimes gave way to a desireto return to his old lazy life with his father in the shack by the river. People got off steamboats at the town and took the train to other townslying back from the river. He earned a little money by carrying trunksfilled with clothes or traveling men's samples up an incline from thesteamboat landing to the railroad station. Even at fourteen the strength inhis long gaunt body was so great that he could out-lift any man in town, and he put one of the trunks on his shoulder and walked slowly and stolidlyaway with it as a farm horse might have walked along a country road with aboy of six perched on his back. 

The money earned in this way Hugh for a time gave to his father, and whenthe man had become stupid with drink he grew quarrelsome and demanded thatthe boy return to live with him. Hugh had not the spirit to refuse andsometimes did not want to refuse. When neither the station master nor hiswife was about he slipped away and went with his father to sit for a halfday with his back against the wall of the fishing shack, his soul at peace. In the sunlight he sat and stretched forth his long legs. His small sleepyeyes stared out over the river. A delicious feeling crept over him and forthe moment he thought of himself as completely happy and made up his mindthat he did not want to return again to the railroad station and to thewoman who was so determined to arouse him and make of him a man of her ownpeople. 

Hugh looked at his father asleep and snoring in the long grass on theriver bank. An odd feeling of disloyalty crept over him and he becameuncomfortable. The man's mouth was open and he snored lustily. From hisgreasy and threadbare clothing arose the smell of fish. Flies gatheredin swarms and alighted on his face. Disgust took possession of Hugh. Aflickering but ever recurring light came into his eyes. With all thestrength of his awakening soul he struggled against the desire to give wayto the inclination to stretch himself out beside the man and sleep. Thewords of the New England woman, who was, he knew, striving to lift him outof slothfulness and ugliness into some brighter and better way of life, echoed dimly in his mind. When he arose and went back along the streetto the station master's house and when the woman there looked at himreproachfully and muttered words about the poor white trash of the town, hewas ashamed and looked at the floor. 

Hugh began to hate his own father and his own people. He connected the manwho had bred him with the dreaded inclination toward sloth in himself. When the farmhand came to the station and demanded the money he had earnedby carrying trunks, he turned away and went across a dusty road to theShepard's house. After a year or two he paid no more attention to thedissolute farmhand who came occasionally to the station to mutter and swearat him; and, when he had earned a little money, gave it to the woman tokeep for him. "Well, " he said, speaking slowly and with the hesitatingdrawl characteristic of his people, "if you give me time I'll learn. I wantto be what you want me to be. If you stick to me I'll try to make a man ofmyself. "

 * * * * *

Hugh McVey lived in the Missouri town under the tutelage of SarahShepard until he was nineteen years old. Then the station master gave uprailroading and went back to Michigan. Sarah Shepard's father had diedafter having cleared one hundred and twenty acres of the cut-over timberland and it had been left to her. The dream that had for years lurked inthe back of the little woman's mind and in which she saw bald-headed, good-natured Henry Shepard become a power in the railroad world had begunto fade. In newspapers and magazines she read constantly of other men who, starting from a humble position in the railroad service, soon became richand powerful, but nothing of the kind seemed likely to happen to herhusband. Under her watchful eye he did his work well and carefully butnothing came of it. Officials of the railroad sometimes passed throughthe town riding in private cars hitched to the end of one of the throughtrains, but the trains did not stop and the officials did not alight and, calling Henry out of the station, reward his faithfulness by piling newresponsibilities upon him, as railroad officials did in such cases in thestories she read. When her father died and she saw a chance to again turnher face eastward and to live again among her own people, she told herhusband to resign his position with the air of one accepting an undeserveddefeat. The station master managed to get Hugh appointed in his place, andthe two people went away one gray morning in October, leaving the tallungainly young man in charge of affairs. He had books to keep, freightwaybills to make out, messages to receive, dozens of definite things to do. Early in the morning before the train that was to take her away, came tothe station, Sarah Shepard called the young man to her and repeated theinstructions she had so often given her husband. "Do everything neatly andcarefully, " she said. "Show yourself worthy of the trust that has beengiven you. "

The New England woman wanted to assure the boy, as she had so often assuredher husband, that if he would but work hard and faithfully promotion wouldinevitably come; but in the face of the fact that Henry Shepard had foryears done without criticism the work Hugh was to do and had receivedneither praise nor blame from those above him, she found it impossible tosay the words that arose to her lips. The woman and the son of the peopleamong whom she had lived for five years and had so often condemned, stoodbeside each other in embarrassed silence. Stripped of her assurance as tothe purpose of life and unable to repeat her accustomed formula, SarahShepard had nothing to say. Hugh's tall figure, leaning against the postthat supported the roof of the front porch of the little house where shehad taught him his lessons day after day, seemed to her suddenly old andshe thought his long solemn face suggested a wisdom older and more maturethan her own. An odd revulsion of feeling swept over her. For the momentshe began to doubt the advisability of trying to be smart and to get on inlife. If Hugh had been somewhat smaller of frame so that her mind couldhave taken hold of the fact of his youth and immaturity, she would no doubthave taken him into her arms and said words regarding her doubts. Insteadshe also became silent and the minutes slipped away as the two people stoodbefore each other and stared at the floor of the porch. When the train onwhich she was to leave blew a warning whistle, and Henry Shepard called toher from the station platform, she put a hand on the lapel of Hugh's coatand drawing his face down, for the first time kissed him on the cheek. Tears came into her eyes and into the eyes of the young man. When hestepped across the porch to get her bag Hugh stumbled awkwardly against achair. "Well, you do the best you can here, " Sarah Shepard said quickly andthen out of long habit and half unconsciously did repeat her formula. "Dolittle things well and big opportunities are bound to come, " she declaredas she walked briskly along beside Hugh across the narrow road and to thestation and the train that was to bear her away. 

After the departure of Sarah and Henry Shepard Hugh continued to strugglewith his inclination to give way to dreams. It seemed to him a struggleit was necessary to win in order that he might show his respect andappreciation of the woman who had spent so many long hours laboring withhim. Although, under her tutelage, he had received a better education thanany other young man of the river town, he had lost none of his physicaldesire to sit in the sun and do nothing. When he worked, every task hadto be consciously carried on from minute to minute. After the woman left, there were days when he sat in the chair in the telegraph office and foughta desperate battle with himself. A queer determined light shone in hissmall gray eyes. He arose from the chair and walked up and down the stationplatform. Each time as he lifted one of his long feet and set it slowlydown a special little effort had to be made. To move about at all was apainful performance, something he did not want to do. All physical actswere to him dull but necessary parts of his training for a vague andglorious future that was to come to him some day in a brighter and morebeautiful land that lay in the direction thought of rather indefinitely asthe East. "If I do not move and keep moving I'll become like father, likeall of the people about here, " Hugh said to himself. He thought of the manwho had bred him and whom he occasionally saw drifting aimlessly alongMain Street or sleeping away a drunken stupor on the river bank. He wasdisgusted with him and had come to share the opinion the station master'swife had always held concerning the people of the Missouri village. "They're a lot of miserable lazy louts, " she had declared a thousand times, and Hugh, agreed with her, but sometimes wondered if in the end he mightnot also become a lazy lout. That possibility he knew was in him and forthe sake of the woman as well as for his own sake he was determined itshould not be so. 

The truth is that the people of Mudcat Landing were totally unlike any ofthe people Sarah Shepard had ever known and unlike the people Hugh was toknow during his mature life. He who had come from a people not smart was tolive among smart energetic men and women and be called a big man by themwithout in the least understanding what they were talking about. 

Practically all of the people of Hugh's home town were of Southern origin. Living originally in a land where all physical labor was performed byslaves, they had come to have a deep aversion to physical labor. In theSouth their fathers, having no money to buy slaves of their own and beingunwilling to compete with slave labor, had tried to live without labor. Forthe most part they lived in the mountains and the hill country of Kentuckyand Tennessee, on land too poor and unproductive to be thought worthcultivating by their rich slave-owning neighbors of the valleys and plains. Their food was meager and of an enervating sameness and their bodiesdegenerate. Children grew up long and gaunt and yellow like badly nourishedplants. Vague indefinite hungers took hold of them and they gave themselvesover to dreams. The more energetic among them, sensing dimly the unfairnessof their position in life, became vicious and dangerous. Feuds startedamong them and they killed each other to express their hatred of life. When, in the years preceding the Civil War, a few of them pushed northalong the rivers and settled in Southern Indiana and Illinois and inEastern Missouri and Arkansas, they seemed to have exhausted their energyin making the voyage and slipped quickly back into their old slothful wayof life. Their impulse to emigrate did not carry them far and but a few ofthem ever reached the rich corn lands of central Indiana, Illinois or Iowaor the equally rich land back from the river in Missouri or Arkansas. InSouthern Indiana and Illinois they were merged into the life about them andwith the infusion of new blood they a little awoke. They have tempered thequality of the peoples of those regions, made them perhaps less harshlyenergetic than their forefathers, the pioneers. In many of the Missouri andArkansas river towns they have changed but little. A visitor to these partsmay see them there to-day, long, gaunt, and lazy, sleeping their lives awayand awakening out of their stupor only at long intervals and at the call ofhunger. 

As for Hugh McVey, he stayed in his home town and among his own people fora year after the departure of the man and woman who had been father andmother to him, and then he also departed. All through the year he workedconstantly to cure himself of the curse of indolence. When he awoke in themorning he did not dare lie in bed for a moment for fear indolence wouldovercome him and he would not be able to arise at all. Getting out of bedat once he dressed and went to the station. During the day there was notmuch work to be done and he walked for hours up and down the stationplatform. When he sat down he at once took up a book and put his mind towork. When the pages of the book became indistinct before his eyes and hefelt within him the inclination to drift off into dreams, he again aroseand walked up and down the platform. Having accepted the New Englandwoman's opinion of his own people and not wanting to associate with them, his life became utterly lonely and his loneliness also drove him to labor. 

Something happened to him. Although his body would not and never did becomeactive, his mind began suddenly to work with feverish eagerness. The vaguethoughts and feelings that had always been a part of him but that had beenindefinite, ill-defined things, like clouds floating far away in a hazysky, began to grow definite. In the evening after his work was done and hehad locked the station for the night, he did not go to the town hotel wherehe had taken a room and where he ate his meals, but wandered about town andalong the road that ran south beside the great mysterious river. A hundrednew and definite desires and hungers awoke in him. He began to want to talkwith people, to know men and most of all to know women, but the disgust forhis fellows in the town, engendered in him by Sarah Shepard's words andmost of all by the things in his nature that were like their natures, madehim draw back. When in the fall at the end of the year after the Shepardshad left and he began living alone, his father was killed in a senselessquarrel with a drunken river man over the ownership of a dog, a sudden, andwhat seemed to him at the moment heroic resolution came to him. He wentearly one morning to one of the town's two saloon keepers, a man who hadbeen his father's' nearest approach to a friend and companion, and gavehim money to bury the dead man. Then he wired to the headquarters of therailroad company telling them to send a man to Mudcat Landing to take hisplace. On the afternoon of the day on which his father was buried, hebought himself a handbag and packed his few belongings. Then he sat downalone on the steps of the railroad station to wait for the evening trainthat would bring the man who was to replace him and that would at the sametime take him away. He did not know where he intended to go, but knew thathe wanted to push out into a new land and get among new people. He thoughthe would go east and north. He remembered the long summer evenings in theriver town when the station master slept and his wife talked. The boy wholistened had wanted to sleep also, but with the eyes of Sarah Shepard fixedon him, had not dared to do so. The woman had talked of a land dotted withtowns where the houses were all painted in bright colors, where young girlsdressed in white dresses went about in the evening, walking under treesbeside streets paved with bricks, where there was no dust or mud, wherestores were gay bright places filled with beautiful wares that the peoplehad money to buy in abundance and where every one was alive and doingthings worth while and none was slothful and lazy. The boy who had nowbecome a man wanted to go to such a place. His work in the railroad stationhad given him some idea of the geography of the country and, although hecould not have told whether the woman who had talked so enticingly had inmind her childhood in New England or her girlhood in Michigan, he knew ina general way that to reach the land and the people who were to show himby their lives the better way to form his own life, he must go east. Hedecided that the further east he went the more beautiful life would become, and that he had better not try going too far in the beginning. "I'll gointo the northern part of Indiana or Ohio, " he told himself. "There must bebeautiful towns in those places. "

Hugh was boyishly eager to get on his way and to become at once a part ofthe life in a new place. The gradual awakening of his mind had given himcourage, and he thought of himself as armed and ready for association withmen. He wanted to become acquainted with and be the friend of people whoselives were beautifully lived and who were themselves beautiful and full ofsignificance. As he sat on the steps of the railroad station in the poorlittle Missouri town with his bag beside him, and thought of all the thingshe wanted to do in life, his mind became so eager and restless that some ofits restlessness was transmitted to his body. For perhaps the first timein his life he arose without conscious effort and walked up and down thestation platform out of an excess of energy. He thought he could not bearto wait until the train came and brought the man who was to take his place. "Well, I'm going away, I'm going away to be a man among men, " he said tohimself over and over. The saying became a kind of refrain and he said itunconsciously. As he repeated the words his heart beat high in anticipationof the future he thought lay before him. 

CHAPTER II

Hugh McVey left the town of Mudcat Landing in early September of the yeareighteen eighty-six. He was then twenty years old and was six feet and fourinches tall. The whole upper part of his body was immensely strong but hislong legs were ungainly and lifeless. He secured a pass from the railroadcompany that had employed him, and rode north along the river in the nighttrain until he came to a large town named Burlington in the State of Iowa. There a bridge went over the river, and the railroad tracks joined those ofa trunk line and ran eastward toward Chicago; but Hugh did not continue hisjourney on that night. Getting off the train he went to a nearby hotel andtook a room for the night. 

It was a cool clear evening and Hugh was restless. The town of Burlington, a prosperous place in the midst of a rich farming country, overwhelmed himwith its stir and bustle. For the first time he saw brick-paved streets andstreets lighted with lamps. Although it was nearly ten o'clock at nightwhen he arrived, people still walked about in the streets and many storeswere open. 

The hotel where he had taken a room faced the railroad tracks and stood atthe corner of a brightly lighted street. When he had been shown to his roomHugh sat for a half hour by an open window, and then as he could not sleep, decided to go for a walk. For a time he walked in the streets where thepeople stood about before the doors of the stores but, as his tall figureattracted attention and he felt people staring at him, he went presentlyinto a side street. 

In a few minutes he became utterly lost. He went through what seemed tohim miles of streets lined with frame and brick houses, and occasionallypassed people, but was too timid and embarrassed to ask his way. The streetclimbed upward and after a time he got into open country and followed aroad that ran along a cliff overlooking the Mississippi River. The nightwas clear and the sky brilliant with stars. In the open, away from themultitude of houses, he no longer felt awkward and afraid, and wentcheerfully along. After a time he stopped and stood facing the river. Standing on a high cliff and with a grove of trees at his back, the starsseemed to have all gathered in the eastern sky. Below him the water of theriver reflected the stars. They seemed to be making a pathway for him intothe East. 

The tall Missouri countryman sat down on a log near the edge of the cliffand tried to see the water in the river below. Nothing was visible but abed of stars that danced and twinkled in the darkness. He had made his wayto a place far above the railroad bridge, but presently a through passengertrain from the West passed over it and the lights of the train looked alsolike stars, stars that moved and beckoned and that seemed to fly likeflocks of birds out of the West into the East. 

For several hours Hugh sat on the log in the darkness. He decided that itwas hopeless for him to find his way back to the hotel, and was glad of theexcuse for staying abroad. His body for the first time in his life feltlight and strong and his mind was feverishly awake. A buggy in which sat ayoung man and woman went along the road at his back, and after the voiceshad died away silence came, broken only at long intervals during the hourswhen he sat thinking of his future by the barking of a dog in some distanthouse or the churning of the paddle-wheels of a passing river boat. 

All of the early formative years of Hugh McVey's life had been spent withinsound of the lapping of the waters of the Mississippi River. He had seen itin the hot summer when the water receded and the mud lay baked and crackedalong the edge of the water; in the spring when the floods raged and thewater went whirling past, bearing tree logs and even parts of houses; inthe winter when the water looked deathly cold and ice floated past; and inthe fall when it was quiet and still and lovely, and seemed to have suckedan almost human quality of warmth out of the red trees that lined itsshores. Hugh had spent hours and days sitting or lying in the grass besidethe river. The fishing shack in which he had lived with his father until hewas fourteen years old was within a half dozen long strides of the river'sedge, and the boy had often been left there alone for a week at a time. When his father had gone for a trip on a lumber raft or to work for a fewdays on some farm in the country back from the river, the boy, left oftenwithout money and with but a few loaves of bread, went fishing when he washungry and when he was not did nothing but idle the days away in the grasson the river bank. Boys from the town came sometimes to spend an hour withhim, but in their presence he was embarrassed and a little annoyed. Hewanted to be left alone with his dreams. One of the boys, a sickly, pale, undeveloped lad of ten, often stayed with him through an entire summerafternoon. He was the son of a merchant in the town and grew quickly tiredwhen he tried to follow other boys about. On the river bank he lay besideHugh in silence. The two got into Hugh's boat and went fishing and themerchant's son grew animated and talked. He taught Hugh to write his ownname and to read a few words. The shyness that kept them apart had begun tobreak down, when the merchant's son caught some childhood disease and died. 

In the darkness above the cliff that night in Burlington Hugh rememberedthings concerning his boyhood that had not come back to his mind in years. The very thoughts that had passed through his mind during those long daysof idling on the river bank came streaming back. 

After his fourteenth year when he went to work at the railroad station Hughhad stayed away from the river. With his work at the station, and in thegarden back of Sarah Shepard's house, and the lessons in the afternoons, he had little idle time. On Sundays however things were different. SarahShepard did not go to church after she came to Mudcat Landing, but shewould have no work done on Sundays. On Sunday afternoons in the summer sheand her husband sat in chairs beneath a tree beside the house and went tosleep. Hugh got into the habit of going off by himself. He wanted to sleepalso, but did not dare. He went along the river bank by the road that ransouth from the town, and when he had followed it two or three miles, turnedinto a grove of trees and lay down in the shade. 

The long summer Sunday afternoons had been delightful times for Hugh, sodelightful that he finally gave them up, fearing they might lead him totake up again his old sleepy way of life. Now as he sat in the darknessabove the same river he had gazed on through the long Sunday afternoons, aspasm of something like loneliness swept over him. For the first time hethought about leaving the river country and going into a new land with akeen feeling of regret. 

On the Sunday afternoons in the woods south of Mudcat Landing Hugh had lainperfectly still in the grass for hours. The smell of dead fish that hadalways been present about the shack where he spent his boyhood, was goneand there were no swarms of flies. Above his head a breeze played throughthe branches of the trees, and insects sang in the grass. Everything abouthim was clean. A lovely stillness pervaded the river and the woods. He layon his belly and gazed down over the river out of sleep-heavy eyes intohazy distances. Half formed thoughts passed like visions through his mind. He dreamed, but his dreams were unformed and vaporous. For hours the halfdead, half alive state into which he had got, persisted. He did not sleepbut lay in a land between sleeping and waking. Pictures formed in hismind. The clouds that floated in the sky above the river took on strange, grotesque shapes. They began to move. One of the clouds separated itselffrom the others. It moved swiftly away into the dim distance and thenreturned. It became a half human thing and seemed to be marshaling theother clouds. Under its influence they became agitated and moved restlesslyabout. Out of the body of the most active of the clouds long vaporous armswere extended. They pulled and hauled at the other clouds making them alsorestless and agitated. 

Hugh's mind, as he sat in the darkness on the cliff above the river thatnight in Burlington, was deeply stirred. Again he was a boy lying in thewoods above his river, and the visions that had come to him there returnedwith startling clearness. He got off the log and lying in the wet grass, closed his eyes. His body became warm. 

Hugh thought his mind had gone out of his body and up into the sky to jointhe clouds and the stars, to play with them. From the sky he thought helooked down on the earth and saw rolling fields, hills and forests. He hadno part in the lives of the men and women of the earth, but was torn awayfrom them, left to stand by himself. From his place in the sky above theearth he saw the great river going majestically along. For a time it wasquiet and contemplative as the sky had been when he was a boy down belowlying on his belly in the wood. He saw men pass in boats and could heartheir voices dimly. A great quiet prevailed and he looked abroad beyond thewide expanse of the river and saw fields and towns. They were all hushedand still. An air of waiting hung over them. And then the river was whippedinto action by some strange unknown force, something that had come out of adistant place, out of the place to which the cloud had gone and from whichit had returned to stir and agitate the other clouds. 

The river now went tearing along. It overflowed its banks and swept overthe land, uprooting trees and forests and towns. The white faces of drownedmen and children, borne along by the flood, looked up into the mind's eyeof the man Hugh, who, in the moment of his setting out into the definiteworld of struggle and defeat, had let himself slip back into the vaporousdreams of his boyhood. 

As he lay in the wet grass in the darkness on the cliff Hugh tried to forcehis way back to consciousness, but for a long time was unsuccessful. Herolled and writhed about and his lips muttered words. It was useless. Hismind also was swept away. The clouds of which he felt himself a part flewacross the face of the sky. They blotted out the sun from the earth, anddarkness descended on the land, on the troubled towns, on the hills thatwere torn open, on the forests that were destroyed, on the peace and quietof all places. In the country stretching away from the river where all hadbeen peace and quiet, all was now agitation and unrest. Houses weredestroyed and instantly rebuilt. People gathered in whirling crowds. 

The dreaming man felt himself a part of something significant and terriblethat was happening to the earth and to the peoples of the earth. Againhe struggled to awake, to force himself back out of the dream world intoconsciousness. When he did awake, day was breaking and he sat on the veryedge of the cliff that looked down upon the Mississippi River, gray now inthe dim morning light. 

 * * * * *

The towns in which Hugh lived during the first three years after he beganhis eastward journey were all small places containing a few hundred people, and were scattered through Illinois, Indiana and western Ohio. All ofthe people among whom he worked and lived during that time were farmersand laborers. In the spring of the first year of his wandering he passedthrough the city of Chicago and spent two hours there, going in and out atthe same railroad station. 

He was not tempted to become a city man. The huge commercial city at thefoot of Lake Michigan, because of its commanding position in the verycenter of a vast farming empire, had already become gigantic. He neverforgot the two hours he spent standing in the station in the heart of thecity and walking in the street adjoining the station. It was evening whenhe came into the roaring, clanging place. On the long wide plains west ofthe city he saw farmers at work with their spring plowing as the train wentflying along. Presently the farms grew small and the whole prairie dottedwith towns. In these the train did not stop but ran into a crowded networkof streets filled with multitudes of people. When he got into the big darkstation Hugh saw thousands of people rushing about like disturbed insects. Unnumbered thousands of people were going out of the city at the end oftheir day of work and trains waited to take them to towns on the prairies. They came in droves, hurrying along like distraught cattle, over a bridgeand into the station. The in-bound crowds that had alighted from throughtrains coming from cities of the East and West climbed up a stairway to thestreet, and those that were out-bound tried to descend by the same stairwayand at the same time. The result was a whirling churning mass of humanity. Every one pushed and crowded his way along. Men swore, women grew angry, and children cried. Near the doorway that opened into the street a longline of cab drivers shouted and roared. 

Hugh looked at the people who were whirled along past him, and shiveredwith the nameless fear of multitudes, common to country boys in the city. When the rush of people had a little subsided he went out of the stationand, walking across a narrow street, stood by a brick store building. Presently the rush of people began again, and again men, women, and boyscame hurrying across the bridge and ran wildly in at the doorway leadinginto the station. They came in waves as water washes along a beach duringa storm. Hugh had a feeling that if he were by some chance to get caughtin the crowd he would be swept away into some unknown and terrible place. Waiting until the rush had a little subsided, he went across the street andon to the bridge to look at the river that flowed past the station. It wasnarrow and filled with ships, and the water looked gray and dirty. A pallof black smoke covered the sky. From all sides of him and even in the airabove his head a great clatter and roar of bells and whistles went on. 

With the air of a child venturing into a dark forest Hugh went a littleway into one of the streets that led westward from the station. Again hestopped and stood by a building. Near at hand a group of young city roughsstood smoking and talking before a saloon. Out of a nearby building came ayoung girl who approached and spoke to one of them. The man began to swearfuriously. "You tell her I'll come in there in a minute and smash herface, " he said, and, paying no more attention to the girl, turned to stareat Hugh. All of the young men lounging before the saloon turned to stare atthe tall countryman. They began to laugh and one of them walked quicklytoward him. 

Hugh ran along the street and into the station followed by the shouts ofthe young roughs. He did not venture out again, and when his train wasready, got aboard and went gladly out of the great complex dwelling-placeof modern Americans. 

Hugh went from town to town always working his way eastward, always seekingthe place where happiness was to come to him and where he was to achievecompanionship with men and women. He cut fence posts in a forest on a largefarm in Indiana, worked in the fields, and in one place was a section handon the railroad. 

On a farm in Indiana, some forty miles east of Indianapolis, he was forthe first time powerfully touched by the presence of a woman. She was thedaughter of the farmer who was Hugh's employer, and was an alert, handsomewoman of twenty-four who had been a school teacher but had given up thework because she was about to be married. Hugh thought the man who was tomarry her the most fortunate being in the world. He lived in Indianapolisand came by train to spend the week-ends at the farm. The woman preparedfor his coming by putting on a white dress and fastening a rose in herhair. The two people walked about in an orchard beside the house or wentfor a ride along the country roads. The young man, who, Hugh had been told, worked in a bank, wore stiff white collars, a black suit and a black derbyhat. 

On the farm Hugh worked in the field with the farmer and ate at table withhis family, but did not get acquainted with them. On Sunday when the youngman came he took the day off and went into a nearby town. The courtshipbecame a matter very close to him and he lived through the excitement ofthe weekly visits as though he had been one of the principals. The daughterof the house, sensing the fact that the silent farm hand was stirred byher presence, became interested in him. Sometimes in the evening as he saton a little porch before the house, she came to join him, and sat lookingat him with a peculiarly detached and interested air. She tried to maketalk, but Hugh answered all her advances so briefly and with such a halffrightened manner that she gave up the attempt. One Saturday evening whenher sweetheart had come she took him for a ride in the family carriage, andHugh concealed himself in the hay loft of the barn to wait for theirreturn. 

Hugh had never seen or heard a man express in any way his affection for awoman. It seemed to him a terrifically heroic thing to do and he hoped byconcealing himself in the barn to see it done. It was a bright moonlightnight and he waited until nearly eleven o'clock before the lovers returned. In the hayloft there was an opening high up under the roof. Because of hisgreat height he could reach and pull himself up, and when he had done so, found a footing on one of the beams that formed the framework of the barn. The lovers stood unhitching the horse in the barnyard below. When the cityman had led the horse into the stable he hurried quickly out again and wentwith the farmer's daughter along a path toward the house. The two peoplelaughed and pulled at each other like children. They grew silent and whenthey had come near the house, stopped by a tree to embrace. Hugh saw theman take the woman into his arms and hold her tightly against his body. He was so excited that he nearly fell off the beam. His imagination wasinflamed and he tried to picture himself in the position of the youngcity man. His fingers gripped the boards to which he clung and his bodytrembled. The two figures standing in the dim light by the tree becameone. For a long time they clung tightly to each other and then drew apart. They went into the house and Hugh climbed down from his place on the beamand lay in the hay. His body shook as with a chill and he was half ill ofjealousy, anger, and an overpowering sense of defeat. It did not seem tohim at the moment that it was worth while for him to go further east or totry to find a place where he would be able to mingle freely with men andwomen, or where such a wonderful thing as had happened to the man in thebarnyard below might happen to him. 

Hugh spent the night in the hayloft and at daylight crept out and went intoa nearby town. He returned to the farmhouse late on Monday when he was surethe city man had gone away. In spite of the protest of the farmer he packedhis clothes at once and declared his intention of leaving. He did not waitfor the evening meal but hurried out of the house. When he got into theroad and had started to walk away, he looked back and saw the daughter ofthe house standing at an open door and looking at him. Shame for what hehad done on the night before swept over him. For a moment he stared atthe woman who, with an intense, interested air stared back at him, andthen putting down his head he hurried away. The woman watched him out ofsight and later, when her father stormed about the house, blaming Hughfor leaving so suddenly and declaring the tall Missourian was no doubt adrunkard who wanted to go off on a drunk, she had nothing to say. In herown heart she knew what was the matter with her father's farm hand and wassorry he had gone before she had more completely exercised her power overhim. 

 * * * * *

None of the towns Hugh visited during his three years of wanderingapproached realization of the sort of life Sarah Shepard had talked to himabout. They were all very much alike. There was a main street with a dozenstores on each side, a blacksmith shop, and perhaps an elevator for thestorage of grain. All day the town was deserted, but in the evening thecitizens gathered on Main Street. On the sidewalks before the stores youngfarm hands and clerks sat on store boxes or on the curbing. They did notpay any attention to Hugh who, when he went to stand near them, remainedsilent and kept himself in the background. The farm hands talked of theirwork and boasted of the number of bushels of corn they could pick in a day, or of their skill in plowing. The clerks were intent upon playing practicaljokes which pleased the farm hands immensely. While one of them talkedloudly of his skill in his work a clerk crept out at the door of one of thestores and approached him. He held a pin in his hand and with it jabbedthe talker in the back. The crowd yelled and shouted with delight. If thevictim became angry a quarrel started, but this did not often happen. Othermen came to join the party and the joke was told to them. "Well, you shouldhave seen the look on his face. I thought I would die, " one of thebystanders declared. 

Hugh got a job with a carpenter who specialized in the building of barnsand stayed with him all through one fall. Later he went to work as asection hand on a railroad. Nothing happened to him. He was like onecompelled to walk through life with a bandage over his eyes. On all sidesof him, in the towns and on the farms, an undercurrent of life went on thatdid not touch him. In even the smallest of the towns, inhabited only byfarm laborers, a quaint interesting civilization was being developed. Menworked hard but were much in the open air and had time to think. Theirminds reached out toward the solution of the mystery of existence. Theschoolmaster and the country lawyer read Tom Paine's "Age of Reason"and Bellamy's "Looking Backward. " They discussed these books with theirfellows. There was a feeling, ill expressed, that America had somethingreal and spiritual to offer to the rest of the world. Workmen talked toeach other of the new tricks of their trades, and after hours of discussionof some new way to cultivate corn, shape a horseshoe or build a barn, spoke of God and his intent concerning man. Long drawn out discussions ofreligious beliefs and the political destiny of America were carried on. 

And across the background of these discussions ran tales of action in asphere outside the little world in which the inhabitants of the townslived. Men who had been in the Civil War and who had climbed fighting overhills and in the terror of defeat had swum wide rivers, told the tale oftheir adventures. 

In the evening, after his day of work in the field or on the railroad withthe section hands, Hugh did not know what to do with himself. That hedid not go to bed immediately after the evening meal was due to the factthat he looked upon his tendency to sleep and to dream as an enemy to hisdevelopment; and a peculiarly persistent determination to make somethingalive and worth while out of himself--the result of the five years ofconstant talking on the subject by the New England woman--had takenpossession of him. "I'll find the right place and the right people and thenI'll begin, " he continually said to himself. 

And then, worn out with weariness and loneliness, he went to bed in one ofthe little hotels or boarding houses where he lived during those years, and his dreams returned. The dream that had come that night as he lay onthe cliff above the Mississippi River near the town of Burlington, cameback time after time. He sat upright in bed in the darkness of his roomand after he had driven the cloudy, vague sensation out of his brain, wasafraid to go to sleep again. He did not want to disturb the people of thehouse and so got up and dressed and without putting on his shoes walked upand down in the room. Sometimes the room he occupied had a low ceiling andhe was compelled to stoop. He crept out of the house carrying his shoes inhis hand and sat down on the sidewalk to put them on. In all the towns hevisited, people saw him walking alone through the streets late at nightor in the early hours of the morning. Whispers concerning the matter ranabout. The story of what was spoken of as his queerness came to the menwith whom he worked, and they found themselves unable to talk freely andnaturally in his presence. At the noon hour when the men ate the lunch theyhad carried to work, when the boss was gone and it was customary among theworkers to talk of their own affairs, they went off by themselves. Hughfollowed them about. They went to sit under a tree, and when Hugh came tostand nearby, they became silent or the more vulgar and shallow among thembegan to show off. While he worked with a half dozen other men as a sectionhand on the railroad, two men did all the talking. Whenever the boss wentaway an old man who had a reputation as a wit told stories concerning hisrelations with women. A young man with red hair took the cue from him. Thetwo men talked loudly and kept looking at Hugh. The younger of the twowits turned to another workman who had a weak, timid face. "Well, you, " hecried, "what about your old woman? What about her? Who is the father ofyour son? Do you dare tell?"

In the towns Hugh walked about in the evening and tried always to keep hismind fixed on definite things. He felt that humanity was for some unknownreason drawing itself away from him, and his mind turned back to the figureof Sarah Shepard. He remembered that she had never been without thingsto do. She scrubbed her kitchen floor and prepared food for cooking;she washed, ironed, kneaded dough for bread, and mended clothes. In theevening, when she made the boy read to her out of one of the school booksor do sums on a slate, she kept her hands busy knitting socks for him orfor her husband. Except when something had crossed her so that she scoldedand her face grew red, she was always cheerful. When the boy had nothing todo at the station and had been sent by the station master to work about thehouse, to draw water from the cistern for a family washing, or pull weedsin the garden, he heard the woman singing as she went about the doing ofher innumerable petty tasks. Hugh decided that he also must do small tasks, fix his mind upon definite things. In the town where he was employed asa section hand, the cloud dream in which the world became a whirling, agitated center of disaster came to him almost every night. Winter came onand he walked through the streets at night in the darkness and through thedeep snow. He was almost frozen; but as the whole lower part of his bodywas habitually cold he did not much mind the added discomfort, and so greatwas the reserve of strength in his big frame that the loss of sleep did notaffect his ability to labor all day without effort. 

Hugh went into one of the residence streets of the town and counted thepickets in the fences before the houses. He returned to the hotel and madea calculation as to the number of pickets in all the fences in town. Thenhe got a rule at the hardware store and carefully measured the pickets. Hetried to estimate the number of pickets that could be cut out of certainsized trees and that gave his mind another opening. He counted the numberof trees in every street in town. He learned to tell at a glance and withrelative accuracy how much lumber could be cut out of a tree. He builtimaginary houses with lumber cut from the trees that lined the streets. Heeven tried to figure out a way to utilize the small limbs cut from the topsof the trees, and one Sunday went into the wood back of the town and cut agreat armful of twigs, which he carried to his room and later with greatpatience wove into the form of a basket. 

BOOK TWO

CHAPTER III

Bidwell, Ohio, was an old town as the ages of towns go in the Central West, long before Hugh McVey, in his search for a place where he could penetratethe wall that shut him off from humanity, went there to live and to tryto work out his problem. It is a busy manufacturing town now and has apopulation of nearly a hundred thousand people; but the time for thetelling of the story of its sudden and surprising growth has not yet come. 

From the beginning Bidwell has been a prosperous place. The town lies inthe valley of a deep, rapid-flowing river that spreads out just above thetown, becomes for the time wide and shallow, and goes singing swiftly alongover stones. South of the town the river not only spreads out, but thehills recede. A wide flat valley stretches away to the north. In the daysbefore the factories came the land immediately about town was cut up intosmall farms devoted to fruit and berry raising, and beyond the area ofsmall farms lay larger tracts that were immensely productive and thatraised huge crops of wheat, corn, and cabbage. 

When Hugh was a boy sleeping away his days in the grass beside his father'sfishing shack by the Mississippi River, Bidwell had already emerged out ofthe hardships of pioneer days. On the farms that lay in the wide valley tothe north the timber had been cut away and the stumps had all been rootedout of the ground by a generation of men that had passed. The soil was easyto cultivate and had lost little of its virgin fertility. Two railroads, the Lake Shore and Michigan Central--later a part of the great New YorkCentral System--and a less important coal-carrying road, called theWheeling and Lake Erie, ran through the town. Twenty-five hundred peoplelived then in Bidwell. They were for the most part descendants of thepioneers who had come into the country by boat through the Great Lakes orby wagon roads over the mountains from the States of New York andPennsylvania. 

The town stood on a sloping incline running up from the river, and the LakeShore and Michigan Central Railroad had its station on the river bank atthe foot of Main Street. The Wheeling Station was a mile away to the north. It was to be reached by going over a bridge and along a piked road thateven then had begun to take on the semblance of a street. A dozen houseshad been built facing Turner's Pike and between these were berry fields andan occasional orchard planted to cherry, peach or apple trees. A hard pathwent down to the distant station beside the road, and in the evening thispath, wandering along under the branches of the fruit trees that extendedout over the farm fences, was a favorite walking place for lovers. 

The small farms lying close about the town of Bidwell raised berries thatbrought top prices in the two cities, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, reached byits two railroads, and all of the people of the town who were not engagedin one of the trades--in shoe making, carpentry, horse shoeing, housepainting or the like--or who did not belong to the small merchant andprofessional classes, worked in summer on the land. On summer mornings, men, women and children went into the fields. In the early spring whenplanting went on and all through late May, June and early July when berriesand fruit began to ripen, every one was rushed with work and the streetsof the town were deserted. Every one went to the fields. Great hay wagonsloaded with children, laughing girls, and sedate women set out from MainStreet at dawn. Beside them walked tall boys, who pelted the girls withgreen apples and cherries from the trees along the road, and men who wentalong behind smoking their morning pipes and talking of the prevailingprices of the products of their fields. In the town after they had gone aSabbath quiet prevailed. The merchants and clerks loitered in the shade ofthe awnings before the doors of the stores, and only their wives and thewives of the two or three rich men in town came to buy and to disturb theirdiscussions of horse racing, politics and religion. 

In the evening when the wagons came home, Bidwell awoke. The tired berrypickers walked home from the fields in the dust of the roads swinging theirdinner pails. The wagons creaked at their heels, piled high with boxes ofberries ready for shipment. In the stores after the evening meal crowdsgathered. Old men lit their pipes and sat gossiping along the curbing atthe edge of the sidewalks on Main Street; women with baskets on their armsdid the marketing for the next day's living; the young men put on stiffwhite collars and their Sunday clothes, and girls, who all day had beencrawling over the fields between the rows of berries or pushing their wayamong the tangled masses of raspberry bushes, put on white dresses andwalked up and down before the men. Friendships begun between boys and girlsin the fields ripened into love. Couples walked along residence streetsunder the trees and talked with subdued voices. They became silent andembarrassed. The bolder ones kissed. The end of the berry picking seasonbrought each year a new outbreak of marriages to the town of Bidwell. 

In all the towns of mid-western America it was a time of waiting. Thecountry having been cleared and the Indians driven away into a vast distantplace spoken of vaguely as the West, the Civil War having been fought andwon, and there being no great national problems that touched closely theirlives, the minds of men were turned in upon themselves. The soul and itsdestiny was spoken of openly on the streets. Robert Ingersoll came toBidwell to speak in Terry's Hall, and after he had gone the question ofthe divinity of Christ for months occupied the minds of the citizens. Theministers preached sermons on the subject and in the evening it was talkedabout in the stores. Every one had something to say. Even Charley Mook, whodug ditches, who stuttered so that not a half dozen people in town couldunderstand him, expressed his opinion. 

In all the great Mississippi Valley each town came to have a character ofits own, and the people who lived in the towns were to each other likemembers of a great family. The individual idiosyncrasies of each member ofthe great family stood forth. A kind of invisible roof beneath which everyone lived spread itself over each town. Beneath the roof boys and girlswere born, grew up, quarreled, fought, and formed friendships with theirfellows, were introduced into the mysteries of love, married, and becamethe fathers and mothers of children, grew old, sickened, and died. 

Within the invisible circle and under the great roof every one knew hisneighbor and was known to him. Strangers did not come and go swiftly andmysteriously and there was no constant and confusing roar of machinery andof new projects afoot. For the moment mankind seemed about to take time totry to understand itself. 

In Bidwell there was a man named Peter White who was a tailor and workedhard at his trade, but who once or twice a year got drunk and beat hiswife. He was arrested each time and had to pay a fine, but there was ageneral understanding of the impulse that led to the beating. Most of thewomen knowing the wife sympathized with Peter. "She is a noisy thing andher jaw is never still, " the wife of Henry Teeters, the grocer, said to herhusband. "If he gets drunk it's only to forget he's married to her. Thenhe goes home to sleep it off and she begins jawing at him. He stands it aslong as he can. It takes a fist to shut up that woman. If he strikes herit's the only thing he can do. "

Allie Mulberry the half-wit was one of the highlights of life in the town. He lived with his mother in a tumble-down house at the edge of town onMedina Road. Beside being a half-wit he had something the matter with hislegs. They were trembling and weak and he could only move them with greatdifficulty. On summer afternoons when the streets were deserted, he hobbledalong Main Street with his lower jaw hanging down. Allie carried a largeclub, partly for the support of his weak legs and partly to scare off dogsand mischievous boys. He liked to sit in the shade with his back against abuilding and whittle, and he liked to be near people and have his talent asa whittler appreciated. He made fans out of pieces of pine, long chains ofwooden beads, and he once achieved a singular mechanical triumph that wonhim wide renown. He made a ship that would float in a beer bottle halffilled with water and laid on its side. The ship had sails and three tinywooden sailors who stood at attention with their hands to their caps insalute. After it was constructed and put into the bottle it was too largeto be taken out through the neck. How Allie got it in no one ever knew. Theclerks and merchants who crowded about to watch him at work discussed thematter for days. It became a never-ending wonder among them. In the eveningthey spoke of the matter to the berry pickers who came into the stores, and in the eyes of the people of Bidwell Allie Mulberry became a hero. Thebottle, half-filled with water and securely corked, was laid on a cushionin the window of Hunter's Jewelry Store. As it floated about on its ownlittle ocean crowds gathered to look at it. Over the bottle was a sign withthe words--"Carved by Allie Mulberry of Bidwell"--prominently displayed. Below these words a query had been printed. "How Did He Get It Into TheBottle?" was the question asked. The bottle stayed in the window for monthsand merchants took the traveling men who visited them, to see it. Then theyescorted their guests to where Allie, with his back against the wall of abuilding and his club beside him, was at work on some new creation of thewhittler's art. The travelers were impressed and told the tale abroad. Allie's fame spread to other towns. "He has a good brain, " the citizen ofBidwell said, shaking his head. "He don't appear to know very much, butlook what he does! He must be carrying all sorts of notions around insideof his head. "

Jane Orange, widow of a lawyer, and with the single exception of ThomasButterworth, a farmer who owned over a thousand acres of land and livedwith his daughter on a farm a mile south of town, the richest person intown, was known to every one in Bidwell, but was not liked. She was calledstingy and it was said that she and her husband had cheated every one withwhom they had dealings in order to get their start in life. The town achedfor the privilege of doing what they called "bringing them down a peg. "Jane's husband had once been the Bidwell town attorney and later hadcharge of the settlement of an estate belonging to Ed Lucas, a farmer whodied leaving two hundred acres of land and two daughters. The farmer'sdaughters, every one said, "came out at the small end of the horn, " andJohn Orange began to grow rich. It was said he was worth fifty thousanddollars. All during the latter part of his life the lawyer went to the cityof Cleveland on business every week, and when he was at home and even inthe hottest weather he went about dressed in a long black coat. When shewent to the stores to buy supplies for her house Jane Orange was watchedclosely by the merchants. She was suspected of carrying away small articlesthat could be slipped into the pockets of her dress. One afternoon inToddmore's grocery, when she thought no one was looking, she took a halfdozen eggs out of a basket and looking quickly around to be sure she wasunobserved, put them into her dress pocket. Harry Toddmore, the grocer'sson who had seen the theft, said nothing, but went unobserved out at theback door. He got three or four clerks from other stores and they waitedfor Jane Orange at a corner. When she came along they hurried out and HarryToddmore fell against her. Throwing out his hand he struck the pocketcontaining the eggs a quick, sharp blow. Jane Orange turned and hurriedaway toward home, but as she half ran through Main Street clerks andmerchants came out of the stores, and from the assembled crowd a voicecalled attention to the fact that the contents of the stolen eggs havingrun down the inside of her dress and over her stockings began to make astream on the sidewalk. A pack of town dogs excited by the shouts of thecrowd ran at her heels, barking and sniffing at the yellow stream thatdripped from her shoes. 

An old man with a long white beard came to Bidwell to live. He had been acarpet-bag Governor of a southern state in the reconstruction days afterthe Civil War and had made money. He bought a house on Turner's Pike closebeside the river and spent his days puttering about in a small garden. Inthe evening he came across the bridge into Main Street and went to loaf inBirdie Spink's drug store. He talked with great frankness and candor of hislife in the South during the terrible time when the country was trying toemerge from the black gloom of defeat, and brought to the Bidwell men a newpoint of view on their old enemies, the "Rebs. "

The old man--the name by which he had introduced himself in Bidwell wasthat of Judge Horace Hanby--believed in the manliness and honesty ofpurpose of the men he had for a time governed and who had fought a longgrim war with the North, with the New Englanders and sons of New Englandersfrom the West and Northwest. "They're all right, " he said with a grin. "Icheated them and made some money, but I liked them. Once a crowd of themcame to my house and threatened to kill me and I told them that I did notblame them very much, so they let me alone. " The judge, an ex-politicianfrom the city of New York who had been involved in some affair that made ituncomfortable for him to return to live in that city, grew prophetic andphilosophic after he came to live in Bidwell. In spite of the doubt everyone felt concerning his past, he was something of a scholar and a reader ofbooks, and won respect by his apparent wisdom. "Well, there's going to be anew war here, " he said. "It won't be like the Civil War, just shooting offguns and killing peoples' bodies. At first it's going to be a war betweenindividuals to see to what class a man must belong; then it is going to bea long, silent war between classes, between those who have and those whocan't get. It'll be the worst war of all. "

The talk of Judge Hanby, carried along and elaborated almost every eveningbefore a silent, attentive group in the drug store, began to have aninfluence on the minds of Bidwell young men. At his suggestion severalof the town boys, Cliff Bacon, Albert Small, Ed Prawl, and two or threeothers, began to save money for the purpose of going east to college. Alsoat his suggestion Tom Butterworth the rich farmer sent his daughter away toschool. The old man made many prophecies concerning what would happen inAmerica. "I tell you, the country isn't going to stay as it is, " he saidearnestly. "In eastern towns the change has already come. Factories arebeing built and every one is going to work in the factories. It takes anold man like me to see how that changes their lives. Some of the men standat one bench and do one thing not only for hours but for days and years. There are signs hung up saying they mustn't talk. Some of them make moremoney than they did before the factories came, but I tell you it's likebeing in prison. What would you say if I told you all America, all youfellows who talk so big about freedom, are going to be put in a prison, eh?

"And there's something else. In New York there are already a dozen men whoare worth a million dollars. Yes, sir, I tell you it's true, a milliondollars. What do you think of that, eh?"

Judge Hanby grew excited and, inspired by the absorbed attention of hisaudience, talked of the sweep of events. In England, he explained, thecities were constantly growing larger, and already almost every one eitherworked in a factory or owned stock in a factory. "In New England it isgetting the same way fast, " he explained. "The same thing'll happen here. Farming'll be done with tools. Almost everything now done by hand'll bedone by machinery. Some'll grow rich and some poor. The thing is to geteducated, yes, sir, that's the thing, to get ready for what's coming. It'sthe only way. The younger generation has got to be sharper and shrewder. "

The words of the old man, who had been in many places and had seen men andcities, were repeated in the streets of Bidwell. The blacksmith and thewheelwright repeated his words when they stopped to exchange news of theiraffairs before the post-office. Ben Peeler, the carpenter, who had beensaving money to buy a house and a small farm to which he could retire whenhe became too old to climb about on the framework of buildings, used themoney instead to send his son to Cleveland to a new technical school. SteveHunter, the son of Abraham Hunter the Bidwell jeweler, declared that he wasgoing to get up with the times, and when he went into a factory, would gointo the office, not into the shop. He went to Buffalo, New York, to attenda business college. 

The air of Bidwell began to stir with talk of new times. The evil thingssaid of the new life coming were soon forgotten. The youth and optimisticspirit of the country led it to take hold of the hand of the giant, industrialism, and lead him laughing into the land. The cry, "get on inthe world, " that ran all over America at that period and that still echoesin the pages of American newspapers and magazines, rang in the streets ofBidwell. 

In the harness shop belonging to Joseph Wainsworth it one day struck anew note. The harness maker was a tradesman of the old school and wasvastly independent. He had learned his trade after five years' service asapprentice, and had spent an additional five years in going from place toplace as a journeyman workman, and felt that he knew his business. Also heowned his shop and his home and had twelve hundred dollars in the bank. Atnoon one day when he was alone in the shop, Tom Butterworth came in andtold him he had ordered four sets of farm work harness from a factory inPhiladelphia. "I came in to ask if you'll repair them if they get out oforder, " he said. 

Joe Wainsworth began to fumble with the tools on his bench. Then he turnedto look the farmer in the eye and to do what he later spoke of to hiscronies as "laying down the law. " "When the cheap things begin to go topieces take them somewhere else to have them repaired, " he said sharply. Hegrew furiously angry. "Take the damn things to Philadelphia where you got'em, " he shouted at the back of the farmer who had turned to go out of theshop. 

Joe Wainsworth was upset and thought about the incident all the afternoon. When farmer-customers came in and stood about to talk of their affairshe had nothing to say. He was a talkative man and his apprentice, WillSellinger, son of the Bidwell house painter, was puzzled by his silence. 

When the boy and the man were alone in the shop, it was Joe Wainsworth'scustom to talk of his days as a journeyman workman when he had gone fromplace to place working at his trade. If a trace were being stitched or abridle fashioned, he told how the thing was done at a shop where he hadworked in the city of Boston and in another shop at Providence, RhodeIsland. Getting a piece of paper he made drawings illustrating the cuts ofleather that were made in the other places and the methods of stitching. Heclaimed to have worked out his own method for doing things, and that hismethod was better than anything he had seen in all his travels. To themen who came into the shop to loaf during winter afternoons he presenteda smiling front and talked of their affairs, of the price of cabbage inCleveland or the effect of a cold snap on the winter wheat, but alone withthe boy, he talked only of harness making. "I don't say anything about it. What's the good bragging? Just the same, I could learn something to all theharness makers I've ever seen, and I've seen the best of them, " he declaredemphatically. 

During the afternoon, after he had heard of the four factory-made workharnesses brought into what he had always thought of as a trade thatbelonged to him by the rights of a first-class workman, Joe remained silentfor two or three hours. He thought of the words of old Judge Hanby andthe constant talk of the new times now coming. Turning suddenly to hisapprentice, who was puzzled by his long silence and who knew nothing ofthe incident that had disturbed his employer, he broke forth into words. He was defiant and expressed his defiance. "Well, then, let 'em go toPhiladelphia, let 'em go any damn place they please, " he growled, andthen, as though his own words had re-established his self-respect, hestraightened his shoulders and glared at the puzzled and alarmed boy. "Iknow my trade and do not have to bow down to any man, " he declared. Heexpressed the old tradesman's faith in his craft and the rights it gave thecraftsman. "Learn your trade. Don't listen to talk, " he said earnestly. "The man who knows his trade is a man. He can tell every one to go to thedevil. "

CHAPTER IV

Hugh McVey was twenty-three years old when he went to live in Bidwell. Theposition of telegraph operator at the Wheeling station a mile north of townbecame vacant and, through an accidental encounter with a former residentof a neighboring town, he got the place. 

The Missourian had been at work during the winter in a sawmill in thecountry near a northern Indiana town. During the evenings he wandered oncountry roads and in the town streets, but he did not talk to any one. Ashad happened to him in other places, he had the reputation of being queer. His clothes were worn threadbare and, although he had money in his pockets, he did not buy new ones. In the evening when he went through the townstreets and saw the smartly dressed clerks standing before the stores, helooked at his own shabby person and was ashamed to enter. In his boyhoodSarah Shepard had always attended to the buying of his clothes, and he madeup his mind that he would go to the place in Michigan to which she and herhusband had retired, and pay her a visit. He wanted Sarah Shepard to buyhim a new outfit of clothes, but wanted also to talk with her. 

Out of the three years of going from place to place and working with othermen as a laborer, Hugh had got no big impulse that he felt would mark theroad his life should take; but the study of mathematical problems, takenup to relieve his loneliness and to cure his inclination to dreams, wasbeginning to have an effect on his character. He thought that if he sawSarah Shepard again he could talk to her and through her get into theway of talking to others. In the sawmill where he worked he answered theoccasional remarks made to him by his fellow workers in a slow, hesitatingdrawl, and his body was still awkward and his gait shambling, but he didhis work more quickly and accurately. In the presence of his foster-motherand garbed in new clothes, he believed he could now talk to her in a waythat had been impossible during his youth. She would see the change in hischaracter and would be encouraged about him. They would get on to a newbasis and he would feel respect for himself in another. 

Hugh went to the railroad station to make inquiry regarding the fare to theMichigan town and there had the adventure that upset his plans. As he stoodat the window of the ticket office, the ticket seller, who was also thetelegraph operator, tried to engage him in conversation. When he had giventhe information asked, he followed Hugh out of the building and into thedarkness of a country railroad station at night, and the two men stoppedand stood together beside an empty baggage truck. The ticket agent spoke ofthe loneliness of life in the town and said he wished he could go back tohis own place and be again with his own people. "It may not be any betterin my own town, but I know everybody there, " he said. He was curiousconcerning Hugh as were all the people of the Indiana town, and hoped toget him into talk in order that he might find out why he walked alone atnight, why he sometimes worked all evening over books and figures in hisroom at the country hotel, and why he had so little to say to his fellows. Hoping to fathom Hugh's silence he abused the town in which they bothlived. "Well, " he began, "I guess I understand how you feel. You want toget out of this place. " He explained his own predicament in life. "I gotmarried, " he said. "Already I have three children. Out here a man can makemore money railroading than he can in my state, and living is pretty cheap. Just to-day I had an offer of a job in a good town near my own place inOhio, but I can't take it. The job only pays forty a month. The town's allright, one of the best in the northern part of the State, but you see thejob's no good. Lord, I wish I could go. I'd like to live again among peoplesuch as live in that part of the country. "

The railroad man and Hugh walked along the street that ran from the stationup into the main street of the town. Wanting to meet the advances that hadbeen made by his companion and not knowing how to go about it, Hugh adoptedthe method he had heard his fellow laborers use with one another. "Well, "he said slowly, "come have a drink. "

The two men went into a saloon and stood by the bar. Hugh made a tremendouseffort to overcome his embarrassment. As he and the railroad man drankfoaming glasses of beer he explained that he also had once been a railroadman and knew telegraphy, but that for several years he had been doing otherwork. His companion looked at his shabby clothes and nodded his head. Hemade a motion with his head to indicate that he wanted Hugh to come withhim outside into the darkness. "Well, well, " he exclaimed, when they hadagain got outside and had started along the street toward the station. "Iunderstand now. They've all been wondering about you and I've heard lots oftalk. I won't say anything, but I'm going to do something for you. "

Hugh went to the station with his new-found friend and sat down in thelighted office. The railroad man got out a sheet of paper and began towrite a letter. "I'm going to get you that job, " he said. "I'm writing theletter now and I'll get it off on the midnight train. You've got to get onyour feet. I was a boozer myself, but I cut it all out. A glass of beer nowand then, that's my limit. "

He began to talk of the town in Ohio where he proposed to get Hugh thejob that would set him up in the world and save him from the habit ofdrinking, and described it as an earthly paradise in which lived bright, clear-thinking men and beautiful women. Hugh was reminded sharply of thetalk he had heard from the lips of Sarah Shepard, when in his youth shespent long evenings telling him of the wonder of her own Michigan and NewEngland towns and people, and contrasted the life lived there with thatlived by the people of his own place. 

Hugh decided not to try to explain away the mistake made by his newacquaintance, and to accept the offer of assistance in getting theappointment as telegraph operator. 

The two men walked out of the station and stood again in the darkness. Therailroad man felt like one who has been given the privilege of plucking ahuman soul out of the darkness of despair. He was full of words that pouredfrom his lips and he assumed a knowledge of Hugh and his character entirelyunwarranted by the circumstances. "Well, " he exclaimed heartily, "you seeI've given you a send-off. I have told them you're a good man and a goodoperator, but that you will take the place with its small salary becauseyou've been sick and just now can't work very hard. " The excited manfollowed Hugh along the street. It was late and the store lights had beenput out. From one of the town's two saloons that lay in their way arose aclatter of voices. The old boyhood dream of finding a place and a peopleamong whom he could, by sitting still and inhaling the air breathed byothers, come into a warm closeness with life, came back to Hugh. He stoppedbefore the saloon to listen to the voices within, but the railroad manplucked at his coat sleeve and protested. "Now, now, you're going to cut itout, eh?" he asked anxiously and then hurriedly explained his anxiety. "Ofcourse I know what's the matter with you. Didn't I tell you I've been theremyself? You've been working around. I know why that is. You don't have totell me. If there wasn't something the matter with him, no man who knowstelegraphy would work in a sawmill. 

"Well, there's no good talking about it, " he added thoughtfully. "I'vegiven you a send-off. You're going to cut it out, eh?"

Hugh tried to protest and to explain that he was not addicted to the habitof drinking, but the Ohio man would not listen. "It's all right, " he saidagain, and then they came to the hotel where Hugh lived and he turned togo back to the station and wait for the midnight train that would carrythe letter away and that would, he felt, carry also his demand that afellow-human, who had slipped from the modern path of work and progressshould be given a new chance. He felt magnanimous and wonderfully gracious. "It's all right, my boy, " he said heartily. "No use talking to me. To-nightwhen you came to the station to ask the fare to that hole of a place inMichigan I saw you were embarrassed. 'What's the matter with that fellow?'I said to myself. I got to thinking. Then I came up town with you and rightaway you bought me a drink. I wouldn't have thought anything about that ifI hadn't been there myself. You'll get on your feet. Bidwell, Ohio, is fullof good men. You get in with them and they'll help you and stick by you. You'll like those people. They've got get-up to them. The place you'll workat there is far out of town. It's away out about a mile at a little kind ofoutside-like place called Pickleville. There used to be a saloon there anda factory for putting up cucumber pickles, but they've both gone now. Youwon't be tempted to slip in that place. You'll have a chance to get on yourfeet. I'm glad I thought of sending you there. "

 * * * * *

The Wheeling and Lake Erie ran along a little wooded depression that cutacross the wide expanse of open farm lands north of the town of Bidwell. Itbrought coal from the hill country of West Virginia and southeastern Ohioto ports on Lake Erie, and did not pay much attention to the carrying ofpassengers. In the morning a train consisting of a combined express andbaggage car and two passenger coaches went north and west toward the lake, and in the evening the same train returned, bound southeast into the Hills, The Bidwell station of the road was, in an odd way, detached from thetown's life. The invisible roof under which the life of the town and thesurrounding country was lived did not cover it. As the Indiana railroadman had told Hugh, the station itself stood on a spot known locally asPickleville. Back of the station there was a small building for the storageof freight and near at hand four or five houses facing Turner's Pike. Thepickle factory, now deserted and with its windows gone, stood across thetracks from the station and beside a small stream that ran under a bridgeand across country through a grove of trees to the river. On hot summerdays a sour, pungent smell arose from the old factory, and at night itspresence lent a ghostly flavor to the tiny corner of the world in whichlived perhaps a dozen people. 

All day and at night an intense persistent silence lay over Pickleville, while in Bidwell a mile away the stir of new life began. In the eveningsand on rainy afternoons when men could not work in the fields, old JudgeHanby went along Turner's Pike and across the wagon bridge into Bidwell andsat in a chair at the back of Birdie Spink's drug store. He talked. Mencame in to listen to him and went out. New talk ran through the town. A newforce that was being born into American life and into life everywhere allover the world was feeding on the old dying individualistic life. The newforce stirred and aroused the people. It met a need that was universal. Itwas meant to seal men together, to wipe out national lines, to walk underseas and fly through the air, to change the entire face of the world inwhich men lived. Already the giant that was to be king in the place of oldkings was calling his servants and his armies to serve him. He used themethods of old kings and promised his followers booty and gain. Everywherehe went unchallenged, surveying the land, raising a new class of men topositions of power. Railroads had already been pushed out across theplains; great coal fields from which was to be taken food to warm the bloodin the body of the giant were being opened up; iron fields were beingdiscovered; the roar and clatter of the breathing of the terrible newthing, half hideous, half beautiful in its possibilities, that was forso long to drown the voices and confuse the thinking of men, was heardnot only in the towns but even in lonely farm houses, where its willingservants, the newspapers and magazines, had begun to circulate in everincreasing numbers. At the town of Gibsonville, near Bidwell, Ohio, and atLima and Finley, Ohio, oil and gas fields were discovered. At Cleveland, Ohio, a precise, definite-minded man named Rockefeller bought and soldoil. From the first he served the new thing well and he soon found othersto serve with him. The Morgans, Fricks, Goulds, Carnegies, Vanderbilts, servants of the new king, princes of the new faith, merchants all, a newkind of rulers of men, defied the world-old law of class that puts themerchant below the craftsman, and added to the confusion of men by takingon the air of creators. They were merchants glorified and dealt in giantthings, in the lives of men and in mines, forests, oil and gas fields, factories, and railroads. 

And all over the country, in the towns, the farm houses, and the growingcities of the new country, people stirred and awakened. Thought and poetrydied or passed as a heritage to feeble fawning men who also became servantsof the new order. Serious young men in Bidwell and in other American towns, whose fathers had walked together on moonlight nights along Turner's Piketo talk of God, went away to technical schools. Their fathers had walkedand talked and thoughts had grown up in them. The impulse had reached backto their father's fathers on moonlit roads of England, Germany, Ireland, France, and Italy, and back of these to the moonlit hills of Judea whereshepherds talked and serious young men, John and Matthew and Jesus, caughtthe drift of the talk and made poetry of it; but the serious-minded sons ofthese men in the new land were swept away from thinking and dreaming. Fromall sides the voice of the new age that was to do definite things shoutedat them. Eagerly they took up the cry and ran with it. Millions of voicesarose. The clamor became terrible, and confused the minds of all men. Inmaking way for the newer, broader brotherhood into which men are some dayto emerge, in extending the invisible roofs of the towns and cities tocover the world, men cut and crushed their way through the bodies of men. 

And while the voices became louder and more excited and the new giantwalked about making a preliminary survey of the land, Hugh spent his daysat the quiet, sleepy railroad station at Pickleville and tried to adjusthis mind to the realization of the fact that he was not to be accepted asfellow by the citizens of the new place to which he had come. During theday he sat in the tiny telegraph office or, pulling an express truck to theopen window near his telegraph instrument, lay on his back with a sheetof paper propped on his bony knees and did sums. Farmers driving past onTurner's Pike saw him there and talked of him in the stores in town. "He'sa queer silent fellow, " they said. "What do you suppose he's up to?"

Hugh walked in the streets of Bidwell at night as he had walked in thestreets of towns in Indiana and Illinois. He approached groups of menloafing on a street corner and then went hurriedly past them. On quietstreets as he went along under the trees, he saw women sitting in thelamplight in the houses and hungered to have a house and a woman of hisown. One afternoon a woman school teacher came to the station to makeinquiry regarding the fare to a town in West Virginia. As the station agentwas not about Hugh gave her the information she sought and she lingered fora few moments to talk with him. He answered the questions she asked withmonosyllables and she soon went away, but he was delighted and looked uponthe incident as an adventure. At night he dreamed of the school teacher andwhen he awoke, pretended she was with him in his bedroom. He put out hishand and touched the pillow. It was soft and smooth as he imagined thecheek of a woman would be. He did not know the school teacher's name butinvented one for her. "Be quiet, Elizabeth. Do not let me disturb yoursleep, " he murmured into the darkness. One evening he went to the housewhere the school teacher boarded and stood in the shadow of a tree until hesaw her come out and go toward Main Street. Then he went by a roundaboutway and walked past her on the sidewalk before the lighted stores. He didnot look at her, but in passing her dress touched his arm and he was soexcited later that he could not sleep and spent half the night walkingabout and thinking of the wonderful thing that had happened to him. 

The ticket, express, and freight agent for the Wheeling and Lake Erie atBidwell, a man named George Pike, lived in one of the houses near thestation, and besides attending to his duties for the railroad company, owned and worked a small farm. He was a slender, alert, silent man with along drooping mustache. Both he and his wife worked as Hugh had never seena man and woman work before. Their arrangement of the division of laborwas not based on sex but on convenience. Sometimes Mrs. Pike came to thestation to sell tickets, load express boxes and trunks on the passengertrains and deliver heavy boxes of freight to draymen and farmers, while herhusband worked in the fields back of his house or prepared the eveningmeal, and sometimes the matter was reversed and Hugh did not see Mrs. Pikefor several days at a time. 

During the day there was little for the station agent or his wife to doat the station and they disappeared. George Pike had made an arrangementof wires and pulleys connecting the station with a large bell hung on topof his house, and when some one came to the station to receive or deliverfreight Hugh pulled at the wire and the bell began to ring. In a fewminutes either George Pike or his wife came running from the house orfields, dispatched the business and went quickly away again. 

Day after day Hugh sat in a chair by a desk in the station or went outsideand walked up and down the station platform. Engines pulling long caravansof coal cars ground past. The brakemen waved their hands to him and thenthe train disappeared into the grove of trees that grew beside the creekalong which the tracks of the road were laid. In Turner's Pike a creakingfarm wagon appeared and then disappeared along the tree-lined road that ledto Bidwell. The farmer turned on his wagon seat to stare at Hugh but unlikethe railroad men did not wave his hand. Adventurous boys came out along theroad from town and climbed, shouting and laughing, over the rafters in thedeserted pickle factory across the tracks or went to fish in the creek inthe shade of the factory walls. Their shrill voices added to the lonelinessof the spot. It became almost unbearable to Hugh. In desperation he turnedfrom the rather meaningless doing of sums and working out of problemsregarding the number of fence pickets that could be cut from a tree orthe number of steel rails or railroad ties consumed in building a mile ofrailroad, the innumerable petty problems with which he had been keepinghis mind busy, and turned to more definite and practical problems. Heremembered an autumn he had put in cutting corn on a farm in Illinois and, going into the station, waved his long arms about, imitating the movementsof a man in the act of cutting corn. He wondered if a machine might not bemade that would do the work, and tried to make drawings of the parts ofsuch a machine. Feeling his inability to handle so difficult a problemhe sent away for books and began the study of mechanics. He joined acorrespondence school started by a man in Pennsylvania, and worked for dayson the problems the man sent him to do. He asked questions and began alittle to understand the mystery of the application of power. Like theother young men of Bidwell he began to put himself into touch with thespirit of the age, but unlike them he did not dream of suddenly acquiredwealth. While they embraced new and futile dreams he worked to destroy thetendency to dreams in himself. 

Hugh came to Bidwell in the early spring and during May, June and Julythe quiet station at Pickleville awoke for an hour or two each evening. A certain percentage of the sudden and almost overwhelming increase inexpress business that came with the ripening of the fruit and berry cropcame to the Wheeling, and every evening a dozen express trucks, piled highwith berry boxes, waited for the south bound train. When the train cameinto the station a small crowd had assembled. George Pike and his stoutwife worked madly, throwing the boxes in at the door of the express car. Idlers standing about became interested and lent a hand. The engineerclimbed out of his locomotive, stretched his legs and crossing a narrowroad got a drink from the pump in George Pike's yard. 

Hugh walked to the door of his telegraph office and standing in the shadowswatched the busy scene. He wanted to take part in it, to laugh and talkwith the men standing about, to go to the engineer and ask questionsregarding the locomotive and its construction, to help George Pike and hiswife, and perhaps cut through their silence and his own enough to becomeacquainted with them. He thought of all these things but stayed in theshadow of the door that led to the telegraph office until, at a signalgiven by the train conductor, the engineer climbed into his engine and thetrain began to move away into the evening darkness. When Hugh came out ofhis office the station platform was deserted again. In the grass acrossthe tracks and beside the ghostly looking old factory, crickets sang. TomWilder, the Bidwell hack driver, had got a traveling man off the train andthe dust left by the heels of his team still hung in the air over Turner'sPike. From the darkness that brooded over the trees that grew along thecreek beyond the factory came the hoarse croak of frogs. On Turner's Pike ahalf dozen Bidwell young men accompanied by as many town girls walked alongthe path beside the road under the trees. They had come to the stationto have somewhere to go, had made up a party to come, but now the halfunconscious purpose of their coming was apparent. The party split itselfup into couples and each strove to get as far away as possible from theothers. One of the couples came back along the path toward the station andwent to the pump in George Pike's yard. They stood by the pump, laughingand pretending to drink out of a tin cup, and when they got again intothe road the others had disappeared. They became silent. Hugh went to theend of the platform and watched as they walked slowly along. He becamefuriously jealous of the young man who put his arm about the waist of hiscompanion and then, when he turned and saw Hugh staring at him, took itaway again. 

The telegraph operator went quickly along the platform until he was out ofrange of the young man's eyes, and, when he thought the gathering darknesswould hide him, returned and crept along the path beside the road afterhim. Again a hungry desire to enter into the lives of the people about himtook possession of the Missourian. To be a young man dressed in a stiffwhite collar, wearing neatly made clothes, and in the evening to walk aboutwith young girls seemed like getting on the road to happiness. He wantedto run shouting along the path beside the road until he had overtaken theyoung man and woman, to beg them to take him with them, to accept himas one of themselves, but when the momentary impulse had passed and hereturned to the telegraph office and lighted a lamp, he looked at hislong awkward body and could not conceive of himself as ever by any chancebecoming the thing he wanted to be. Sadness swept over him and his gauntface, already cut and marked with deep lines, became longer and moregaunt. The old boyhood notion, put into his mind by the words of hisfoster-mother, Sarah Shepard, that a town and a people could remake him anderase from his body the marks of what he thought of as his inferior birth, began to fade. He tried to forget the people about him and turned withrenewed energy to the study of the problems in the books that now lay ina pile upon his desk. His inclination to dreams, balked by the persistentholding of his mind to definite things, began to reassert itself in a newform, and his brain played no more with pictures of clouds and men inagitated movement but took hold of steel, wood, and iron. Dumb masses ofmaterials taken out of the earth and the forests were molded by his mindinto fantastic shapes. As he sat in the telegraph office during the day orwalked alone through the streets of Bidwell at night, he saw in fancy athousand new machines, formed by his hands and brain, doing the work thathad been done by the hands of men. He had come to Bidwell, not only inthe hope that there he would at last find companionship, but also becausehis mind was really aroused and he wanted leisure to begin trying to dotangible things. When the citizens of Bidwell would not take him into theirtown life but left him standing to one side, as the tiny dwelling placefor men called Pickleville where he lived stood aside out from under theinvisible roof of the town, he decided to try to forget men and to expresshimself wholly in work. 

CHAPTER V

Hugh's first inventive effort stirred the town of Bidwell deeply. Whenword of it ran about, the men who had been listening to the talk of JudgeHorace Hanby and whose minds had turned toward the arrival of the newforward-pushing impulse in American life thought they saw in Hugh theinstrument of its coming to Bidwell. From the day of his coming to liveamong them, there had been much curiosity in the stores and housesregarding the tall, gaunt, slow-speaking stranger at Pickleville. GeorgePike had told Birdie Spinks the druggist how Hugh worked all day overbooks, and how he made drawings for parts of mysterious machines and leftthem on his desk in the telegraph office. Birdie Spinks told others and thetale grew. When Hugh walked alone in the streets during the evening andthought no one took account of his presence, hundreds of pairs of curiouseyes followed him about. 

A tradition in regard to the telegraph operator began to grow up. Thetradition made Hugh a gigantic figure, one who walked always on a planeabove that on which other men lived. In the imagination of his fellowcitizens of the Ohio town, he went about always thinking great thoughts, solving mysterious and intricate problems that had to do with the newmechanical age Judge Hanby talked about to the eager listeners in thedrug-store. An alert, talkative people saw among them one who could nottalk and whose long face was habitually serious, and could not think of himas having daily to face the same kind of minor problems as themselves. 

The Bidwell young man who had come down to the Wheeling station with agroup of other young men, who had seen the evening train go away to thesouth, who had met at the station one of the town girls and had, in orderto escape the others and be alone with her, taken her to the pump in GeorgePike's yard on the pretense of wanting a drink, walked away with her intothe darkness of the summer evening with his mind fixed on Hugh. The youngman's name was Ed Hall and he was apprentice to Ben Peeler, the carpenterwho had sent his son to Cleveland to a technical school. He wanted to marrythe girl he had met at the station and did not see how he could manage iton his salary as a carpenter's apprentice. When he looked back and saw Hughstanding on the station platform, he took the arm he had put around thegirl's waist quickly away and began to talk. "I'll tell you what, " he saidearnestly, "if things don't pretty soon get on the stir around here I'mgoing to get out. I'll go over by Gibsonburg and get a job in the oilfields, that's what I'll do. I got to have more money. " He sighed heavilyand looked over the girl's head into the darkness. "They say that telegraphfellow back there at the station is up to something, " he ventured. "It'sall the talk. Birdie Spinks says he is an inventor; says George Pike toldhim; says he is working all the time on new inventions to do things bymachinery; that his passing off as a telegraph operator is only a bluff. Some think maybe he was sent here to see about starting a factory to makeone of his inventions, sent by rich men maybe in Cleveland or some otherplace. Everybody says they'll bet there'll be factories here in Bidwellbefore very long now. I wish I knew. I don't want to go away if I don'thave to, but I got to have more money. Ben Peeler won't never give me araise so I can get married or nothing. I wish I knew that fellow back thereso I could ask him what's up. They say he's smart. I suppose he wouldn'ttell me nothing. I wish I was smart enough to invent something and maybeget rich. I wish I was the kind of fellow they say he is. "

Ed Hall again put his arm about the girl's waist and walked away. He forgotHugh and thought of himself and of how he wanted to marry the girl whoseyoung body nestled close to his own--wanted her to be utterly his. Fora few hours he passed out of Hugh's growing sphere of influence on thecollective thought of the town, and lost himself in the immediatedeliciousness of kisses. 

And as he passed out of Hugh's influence others came in. On Main Street inthe evening every one speculated on the Missourian's purpose in coming toBidwell. The forty dollars a month paid him by the Wheeling railroad couldnot have tempted such a man. They were sure of that. Steve Hunter thejeweler's son had returned to town from a course in a business college atBuffalo, New York, and hearing the talk became interested. Steve had in himthe making of a live man of affairs, and he decided to investigate. It wasnot, however, Steve's method to go at things directly, and he was impressedby the notion, then abroad in Bidwell, that Hugh had been sent to town bysome one, perhaps by a group of capitalists who intended to start factoriesthere. 

Steve thought he would go easy. In Buffalo, where he had gone to thebusiness college, he had met a girl whose father, E. P. Horn, owned a soapfactory; had become acquainted with her at church and had been introducedto her father. The soap maker, an assertive positive man who manufactureda product called Horn's Household Friend Soap, had his own notion of whata young man should be and how he should make his way in the world, and hadtaken pleasure in talking to Steve. He told the Bidwell jeweler's son ofhow he had started his own factory with but little money and had succeededand gave Steve many practical hints on the organization of companies. Hetalked a great deal of a thing called "control. " "When you get ready tostart for yourself keep that in mind, " he said. "You can sell stock andborrow money at the bank, all you can get, but don't give up control. Hangon to that. That's the way I made my success. I always kept the control. "

Steve wanted to marry Ernestine Horn, but felt that he should show what hecould do as a business man before he attempted to thrust himself into sowealthy and prominent a family. When he returned to his own town and heardthe talk regarding Hugh McVey and his inventive genius, he remembered thesoap maker's words regarding control, and repeated them to himself. Oneevening he walked along Turner's Pike and stood in the darkness by the oldpickle factory. He saw Hugh at work under a lamp in the telegraph officeand was impressed. "I'll lay low and see what he's up to, " he told himself. "If he's got an invention, I'll get up a company. I'll get money in andI'll start a factory. The people here'll tumble over each other to get intoa thing like that. I don't believe any one sent him here. I'll bet he'sjust an inventor. That kind always are queer. I'll keep my mouth shut andwatch my chance. If there is anything starts, I'll start it and I'll getinto control, that's what I'll do, I'll get into control. "

 * * * * *

In the country stretching away north beyond the fringe of small berry farmslying directly about town, were other and larger farms. The land that madeup these larger farms was also rich and raised big crops. Great stretchesof it were planted to cabbage for which a market had been built up inCleveland, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati. Bidwell was often in derision calledCabbageville by the citizens of nearby towns. One of the largest of thecabbage farms belonged to a man named Ezra French, and was situated onTurner's Pike, two miles from town and a mile beyond the Wheeling station. 

On spring evenings when it was dark and silent about the station and whenthe air was heavy with the smell of new growth and of land fresh-turned bythe plow, Hugh got out of his chair in the telegraph office and walked inthe soft darkness. He went along Turner's Pike to town, saw groups of menstanding on the sidewalks before the stores and young girls walking armin arm along the street, and then came back to the silent station. Intohis long and habitually cold body the warmth of desire began to creep. The spring rains came and soft winds blew down from the hill country tothe south. One evening when the moon shone he went around the old picklefactory to where the creek went chattering under leaning willow trees, andas he stood in the heavy shadows by the factory wall, tried to imaginehimself as one who had become suddenly clean-limbed, graceful, and agile. Abush grew beside the stream near the factory and he took hold of it withhis powerful hands and tore it out by the roots. For a moment the strengthin his shoulders and arms gave him an intense masculine satisfaction. Hethought of how powerfully he could hold the body of a woman against hisbody and the spark of the fires of spring that had touched him became aflame. He felt new-made and tried to leap lightly and gracefully across thestream, but stumbled and fell in the water. Later he went soberly back tothe station and tried again to lose himself in the study of the problems hehad found in his books. 

The Ezra French farm lay beside Turner's Pike a mile north of the Wheelingstation and contained two hundred acres of land of which a large part wasplanted to cabbages. It was a profitable crop to raise and required no morecare than corn, but the planting was a terrible task. Thousands of plantsthat had been raised from seeds planted in a seed-bed back of the barn hadto be laboriously transplanted. The plants were tender and it was necessaryto handle them carefully. The planter crawled slowly and painfully along, and from the road looked like a wounded beast striving to make his way toa hole in a distant wood. He crawled forward a little and then stopped andhunched himself up into a ball-like mass. Taking the plant, dropped on theground by one of the plant droppers, he made a hole in the soft ground witha small three-cornered hoe, and with his hands packed the earth about theplant roots. Then he crawled on again. 

Ezra the cabbage farmer had come west from one of the New England statesand had grown comfortably wealthy, but he would not employ extra labor forthe plant setting and the work was done by his sons and daughters. He was ashort, bearded man whose leg had been broken in his youth by a fall fromthe loft of a barn. As it had not mended properly he could do little workand limped painfully about. To the men of Bidwell he was known as somethingof a wit, and in the winter he went to town every afternoon to stand in thestores and tell the Rabelaisian stories for which he was famous; but whenspring came he became restlessly active, and in his own house and on thefarm, became a tyrant. During the time of the cabbage setting he drove hissons and daughters like slaves. When in the evening the moon came up, hemade them go back to the fields immediately after supper and work untilmidnight. They went in sullen silence, the girls to limp slowly alongdropping the plants out of baskets carried on their arms, and the boys tocrawl after them and set the plants. In the half darkness the little groupof humans went slowly up and down the long fields. Ezra hitched a horse toa wagon and brought the plants from the seed-bed behind the barn. He wenthere and there swearing and protesting against every delay in the work. When his wife, a tired little old woman, had finished the evening's workin the house, he made her come also to the fields. "Come, come, " he said, sharply, "we need every pair of hands we can get. " Although he had severalthousand dollars in the Bidwell bank and owned mortgages on two or threeneighboring farms, Ezra was afraid of poverty, and to keep his family atwork pretended to be upon the point of losing all his possessions. "Now isour chance to save ourselves, " he declared. "We must get in a big crop. Ifwe do not work hard now we'll starve. " When in the field his sons foundthemselves unable to crawl longer without resting, and stood up to stretchtheir tired bodies, he stood by the fence at the field's edge and swore. "Well, look at the mouths I have to feed, you lazies!" he shouted. "Keepat the work. Don't be idling around. In two weeks it'll be too late forplanting and then you can rest. Now every plant we set will help to save usfrom ruin. Keep at the job. Don't be idling around. "

In the spring of his second year in Bidwell, Hugh went often in the eveningto watch the plant setters at work in the moonlight on the French farm. Hedid not make his presence known but hid himself in a fence corner behindbushes and watched the workers. As he saw the stooped misshapen figurescrawling slowly along and heard the words of the old man driving them likecattle, his heart was deeply touched and he wanted to protest. In the dimlight the slowly moving figures of women appeared, and after them came thecrouched crawling men. They came down the long row toward him, wrigglinginto his line of sight like grotesquely misshapen animals driven by somegod of the night to the performance of a terrible task. An arm went up. Itcame down again swiftly. The three-cornered hoe sank into the ground. Theslow rhythm of the crawler was broken. He reached with his disengaged handfor the plant that lay on the ground before him and lowered it into thehole the hoe had made. With his fingers he packed the earth about the rootsof the plant and then again began the slow crawl forward. There were fourof the French boys and the two older ones worked in silence. The youngerboys complained. The three girls and their mother, who were attending tothe plant dropping, came to the end of the row and turning, went away intothe darkness. "I'm going to quit this slavery, " one of the younger boyssaid. "I'll get a job over in town. I hope it's true what they say, thatfactories are coming. "

The four young men came to the end of the row and, as Ezra was not insight, stood a moment by the fence near where Hugh was concealed. "I'drather be a horse or a cow than what I am, " the complaining voice went on. "What's the good being alive if you have to work like this?"

For a moment as he listened to the voices of the complaining workers, Hughwanted to go to them and ask them to let him share in their labor. Thenanother thought came. The crawling figures came sharply into his line ofvision. He no longer heard the voice of the youngest of the French boysthat seemed to come out of the ground. The machine-like swing of the bodiesof the plant setters suggested vaguely to his mind the possibility ofbuilding a machine that would do the work they were doing. His mind tookeager hold of that thought and he was relieved. There had been something inthe crawling figures and in the moonlight out of which the voices came thathad begun to awaken in his mind the fluttering, dreamy state in which hehad spent so much of his boyhood. To think of the possibility of buildinga plant-setting machine was safer. It fitted into what Sarah Shepard hadso often told him was the safe way of life. As he went back through thedarkness to the railroad station, he thought about the matter and decidedthat to become an inventor would be the sure way of placing his feet atlast upon the path of progress he was trying to find. 

Hugh became absorbed in the notion of inventing a machine that would do thework he had seen the men doing in the field. All day he thought about it. The notion once fixed in his mind gave him something tangible to work upon. In the study of mechanics, taken up in a purely amateur spirit, he hadnot gone far enough to feel himself capable of undertaking the actualconstruction of such a machine, but thought the difficulty might beovercome by patience and by experimenting with combinations of wheels, gears and levers whittled out of pieces of wood. From Hunter's JewelryStore he got a cheap clock and spent days taking it apart and putting ittogether again. He dropped the doing of mathematical problems and sent awayfor books describing the construction of machines. Already the flood of newinventions, that was so completely to change the methods of cultivating thesoil in America, had begun to spread over the country, and many new andstrange kinds of agricultural implements arrived at the Bidwell freighthouse of the Wheeling railroad. There Hugh saw a harvesting machinefor cutting grain, a mowing machine for cutting hay and a long-nosedstrange-looking implement that was intended to root potatoes out of theground very much after the method pursued by energetic pigs. He studiedthese carefully. For a time his mind turned away from the hunger for humancontact and he was content to remain an isolated figure, absorbed in theworkings of his own awakening mind. 

An absurd and amusing thing happened. After the impulse to try to invent aplant-setting machine came to him, he went every evening to conceal himselfin the fence corner and watch the French family at their labors. Absorbedin watching the mechanical movements of the men who crawled across thefields in the moonlight, he forgot they were human. After he had watchedthem crawl into sight, turn at the end of the rows, and crawl away againinto the hazy light that had reminded him of the dim distances of his ownMississippi River country, he was seized with a desire to crawl afterthem and to try to imitate their movements. Certain intricate mechanicalproblems, that had already come into his mind in connection with theproposed machine, he thought could be better understood if he could getthe movements necessary to plant setting into his own body. His lips beganto mutter words and getting out of the fence corner where he had beenconcealed he began to crawl across the field behind the French boys. "Thedown stroke will go so, " he muttered, and bringing up his arm swung itabove his head. His fist descended into the soft ground. He had forgottenthe rows of new set plants and crawled directly over them, crushing theminto the soft ground. He stopped crawling and waved his arm about. He triedto relate his arms to the mechanical arms of the machine that was beingcreated in his mind. Holding one arm stiffly in front of him he moved it upand down. "The stroke will be shorter than that. The machine must be builtclose to the ground. The wheels and the horses will travel in paths betweenthe rows. The wheels must be broad to provide traction. I will gear fromthe wheels to get power for the operation of the mechanism, " he said aloud. 

Hugh arose and stood in the moonlight in the cabbage field, his arms stillgoing stiffly up and down. The great length of his figure and his arms wasaccentuated by the wavering uncertain light. The laborers, aware of somestrange presence, sprang to their feet and stood listening and looking. Hugh advanced toward them, still muttering words and waving his arms. Terror took hold of the workers. One of the woman plant droppers screamedand ran away across the field, and the others ran crying at her heels. "Don't do it. Go away, " the older of the French boys shouted, and then hewith his brothers also ran. 

Hearing the voices Hugh stopped and stared about. The field was empty. Again he lost himself in his mechanical calculations. He went back alongthe road to the Wheeling station and to the telegraph office where heworked half the night on a rude drawing he was trying to make of the partsof his plant setting machine, oblivious to the fact that he had created amyth that would run through the whole countryside. The French boys andtheir sisters stoutly declared that a ghost had come into the cabbagefields and had threatened them with death if they did not go away andquit working at night. In a trembling voice their mother backed up theirassertion. Ezra French, who had not seen the apparition and did not believethe tale, scented a revolution. He swore. He threatened the entire familywith starvation. He declared that a lie had been invented to deceive andbetray him. 

However, the work at night in the cabbage fields on the French farm was atan end. The story was told in the town of Bidwell, and as the entire Frenchfamily except Ezra swore to its truth, was generally believed. Tom Foresby, an old citizen who was a spiritualist, claimed to have heard his father saythat there had been in early days an Indian burying-ground on the TurnerPike. 

The cabbage field on the French farm became locally famous. Within a yeartwo other men declared they had seen the figure of a gigantic Indiandancing and singing a funeral dirge in the moonlight. Farmer boys, whohad been for an evening in town and were returning late at night tolonely farmhouses, whipped their horses into a run when they came to thefarm. When it was far behind them they breathed more freely. Although hecontinued to swear and threaten, Ezra never again succeeded in getting hisfamily into the fields at night. In Bidwell he declared that the story ofthe ghost invented by his lazy sons and daughters had ruined his chance formaking a decent living out of his farm. 

CHAPTER VI

Steve Hunter decided that it was time something was done to wake up hisnative town. The call of the spring wind awoke something in him as in Hugh. It came up from the south bringing rain followed by warm fair days. Robinshopped about on the lawns before the houses on the residence streetsof Bidwell, and the air was again sweet with the pregnant sweetness ofnew-plowed ground. Like Hugh, Steve walked about alone through the dark, dimly lighted residence streets during the spring evenings, but he did nottry awkwardly to leap over creeks in the darkness or pull bushes out ofthe ground, nor did he waste his time dreaming of being physically young, clean-limbed and beautiful. 

Before the coming of his great achievements in the industrial field, Stevehad not been highly regarded in his home town. He had been a noisy boastfulyouth and had been spoiled by his father. When he was twelve years old whatwere called safety bicycles first came into use and for a long time heowned the only one in town. In the evening he rode it up and down MainStreet, frightening the horses and arousing the envy of the town boys. Helearned to ride without putting his hands on the handle-bars and the otherboys began to call him Smarty Hunter and later, because he wore a stiff, white collar that folded down over his shoulders, they gave him a girl'sname. "Hello, Susan, " they shouted, "don't fall and muss your clothes. "

In the spring that marked the beginning of his great industrial adventure, Steve was stirred by the soft spring winds into dreaming his own kind ofdreams. As he walked about through the streets, avoiding the other youngmen and women, he remembered Ernestine, the daughter of the Buffalo soapmaker, and thought a great deal about the magnificence of the big stonehouse in which she lived with her father. His body ached for her, but thatwas a matter he felt could be managed. How he could achieve a financialposition that would make it possible for him to ask for her hand was a moredifficult problem. Since he had come back from the business college to livein his home town, he had secretly, and at the cost of two new five dollardresses, arranged a physical alliance with a girl named Louise Truckerwhose father was a farm laborer, and that left his mind free for otherthings. He intended to become a manufacturer, the first one in Bidwell, to make himself a leader in the new movement that was sweeping over thecountry. He had thought out what he wanted to do and it only remained tofind something for him to manufacture to put his plans through. First ofall he had selected with great care certain men he intended to ask to go inwith him. There was John Clark the banker, his own father, E. H. Hunter thetown jeweler, Thomas Butterworth the rich farmer, and young Gordon Hart, who had a job as assistant cashier in the bank. For a month he had beendropping hints to these men of something mysterious and important aboutto happen. With the exception of his father who had infinite faith in theshrewdness and ability of his son, the men he wanted to impress were onlyamused. One day Thomas Butterworth went into the bank and stood talking thematter over with John Clark. "The young squirt was always a Smart-Aleckand a blow-hard, " he said. "What's he up to now? What's he nudging andwhispering about?"

As he walked in the main street of Bidwell, Steve began to acquire thatair of superiority that later made him so respected and feared. He hurriedalong with a peculiarly intense absorbed look in his eyes. He saw hisfellow townsmen as through a haze, and sometimes did not see them at all. As he went along he took papers from his pocket, read them hurriedly, andthen quickly put them away again. When he did speak--perhaps to a man whohad known him from boyhood--there was in his manner something gracious tothe edge of condescension. One morning in March he met Zebe Wilson the townshoemaker on the sidewalk before the post-office. Steve stopped and smiled. "Well, good morning, Mr. Wilson, " he said, "and how is the quality ofleather you are getting from the tanneries now?"

Word regarding this strange salutation ran about among the merchants andartisans. "What's he up to now?" they asked each other. "Mr. Wilson, indeed! Now what's wrong between that young squirt and Zebe Wilson?"

In the afternoon, four clerks from the Main Street stores and Ed Hall thecarpenter's apprentice, who had a half day off because of rain, decided toinvestigate. One by one they went along Hamilton Street to Zebe Wilson'sshop and stepped inside to repeat Steve Hunter's salutation. "Well, goodafternoon, Mr. Wilson, " they said, "and how is the quality of leather youare getting from the tanneries now?" Ed Hall, the last of the five who wentinto the shop to repeat the formal and polite inquiry, barely escaped withhis life. Zebe Wilson threw a shoemaker's hammer at him and it went throughthe glass in the upper part of the shop door. 

Once when Tom Butterworth and John Clark the banker were talking of the newair of importance he was assuming, and half indignantly speculated on whathe meant by his whispered suggestion of something significant about tohappen, Steve came along Main Street past the front door of the bank. JohnClark called him in. The three men confronted each other and the jeweler'sson sensed the fact that the banker and the rich farmer were amused byhis pretensions. At once he proved himself to be what all Bidwell lateracknowledged him to be, a man who could handle men and affairs. Having atthat time nothing to support his pretensions he decided to put up a bluff. With a wave of his hand and an air of knowing just what he was about, heled the two men into the back room of the bank and shut the door leadinginto the large room to which the general public was admitted. "You wouldhave thought he owned the place, " John Clark afterward said with a note ofadmiration in his voice to young Gordon Hart when he described what tookplace in the back room. 

Steve plunged at once into what he had to say to the two solid moneyedcitizens of his town. "Well, now, look here, you two, " he began earnestly. "I'm going to tell you something, but you got to keep still. " He went tothe window that looked out upon an alleyway and glanced about as thoughfearful of being overheard, then sat down in the chair usually occupied byJohn Clark on the rare occasions when the directors of the Bidwell bankheld a meeting. Steve looked over the heads of the two men who in spiteof themselves were beginning to be impressed. "Well, " he began, "there isa fellow out at Pickleville. You have maybe heard things said about him. He's telegraph operator out there. Perhaps you have heard how he is alwaysmaking drawings of parts of machines. I guess everybody in town has beenwondering what he's up to. "

Steve looked at the two men and then got nervously out of the chair andwalked about the room. "That fellow is my man. I put him there, " hedeclared. "I didn't want to tell any one yet. "

The two men nodded and Steve became lost in the notion created in hisfancy. It did not occur to him that what he had just said was untrue. Hebegan to scold the two men. "Well, I suppose I'm on the wrong track there, "he said. "My man has made an invention that will bring millions in profitsto those who get into it. In Cleveland and Buffalo I'm already in touchwith big bankers. There's to be a big factory built, but you see yourselfhow it is, here I'm at home. I was raised as a boy here. "

The excited young man plunged into an exposition of the spirit of the newtimes. He grew bold and scolded the older men. "You know yourself thatfactories are springing up everywhere, in towns all over the State, " hesaid. "Will Bidwell wake up? Will we have factories here? You know wellenough we won't, and I know why. It's because a man like me who was raisedhere has to go to a city to get money to back his plans. If I talked to youfellows you would laugh at me. In a few years I might make you more moneythan you have made in your whole lives, but what's the use talking? I'mSteve Hunter; you knew me when I was a kid. You'd laugh. What's the use mytrying to tell you fellows my plans?"

Steve turned as though to go out of the room, but Tom Butterworth took holdof his arm and led him back to a chair. "Now, you tell us what you're upto, " he demanded. In turn he grew indignant. "If you've got something tomanufacture you can get backing here as well as any place, " he said. Hebecame convinced that the jeweler's son was telling the truth. It did notoccur to him that a Bidwell young man would dare lie to such solid menas John Clark and himself. "You let them city bankers alone, " he saidemphatically. "You tell us your story. What you got to tell?"

In the silent little room the three men stared at each other. TomButterworth and John Clark in their turn began to have dreams. Theyremembered the tales they had heard of vast fortunes made quickly by menwho owned new and valuable inventions. The land was at that time full ofsuch tales. They were blown about on every wind. Quickly they realized thatthey had made a mistake in their attitude toward Steve, and were anxious towin his regard. They had called him into the bank to bully him and to laughat him. Now they were sorry. As for Steve, he only wanted to get away--toget by himself and think. An injured look crept over his face. "Well, " hesaid, "I thought I'd give Bidwell a chance. There are three or four menhere. I have spoken to all of you and dropped a hint of something in thewind, but I'm not ready to be very definite yet. "

Seeing the new look of respect in the eyes of the two men Steve becamebold. "I was going to call a meeting when I was ready, " he said pompously. "You two do what I've been doing. You keep your mouths shut. Don't go nearthat telegraph operator and don't talk to a soul. If you mean business I'llgive you a chance to make barrels of money, more'n you ever dreamed of, butdon't be in a hurry. " He took a bundle of letters out of his inside coatpocket, and beat with them on the edge of the table that occupied thecenter of the room. Another bold thought came into his mind. 

"I've got letters here offering me big money to take my factory either toCleveland or Buffalo, " he declared emphatically. "It isn't money that'shard to get. I can tell you men that. What a man wants in his home town isrespect. He don't want to be looked on as a fool because he tries to dosomething to rise in the world. "

 * * * * *

Steve walked boldly out of the bank and into Main Street. When he had gotout of the presence of the two men he was frightened. "Well, I've done it. I've made a fool of myself, " he muttered aloud. In the bank he had saidthat Hugh McVey the telegraph operator was his man, that he had broughtthe fellow to Bidwell. What a fool he had been. In his anxiety to impressthe two older men he had told a story, the falsehood of which could bediscovered in a few minutes. Why had he not kept his dignity and waited?There had been no occasion for being so definite. He had gone too far, hadbeen carried away. To be sure he had told the two men not to go near thetelegraph operator, but that would no doubt but serve to arouse theirsuspicions of the thinness of his story. They would talk the matter overand start an investigation of their own. Then they would find out hehad lied. He imagined the two men as already engaged in a whisperedconversation regarding the probability of his tale. Like most shrewd menhe had an exalted notion regarding the shrewdness of others. He walked alittle away from the bank and then turned to look back. A shiver ran overhis body. Into his mind came the sickening fear that the telegraph operatorat Pickleville was not an inventor at all. The town was full of tales, andin the bank he had taken advantage of that fact to make an impression;but what proof had he? No one had seen one of the inventions supposed tohave been worked out by the mysterious stranger from Missouri. There hadafter all been nothing but whispered suspicions, old wives' tales, fablesinvented by men who had nothing to do but loaf in the drug-store and makeup stories. 

The thought that Hugh McVey might not be an inventor overpowered him and heput it quickly aside. He had something more immediate to think about. Thestory of the bluff he had just made in the bank would be found out and thewhole town would rock with laughter at his expense. The young men of thetown did not like him. They would roll the story over on their tongues. Ribald old fellows who had nothing else to do would take up the story withjoy and would elaborate it. Fellows like the cabbage farmer, Ezra French, who had a talent for saying cutting things would exercise it. They wouldmake up imaginary inventions, grotesque, absurd inventions. Then they wouldget young fellows to come to him and propose that he take them up, promotethem, and make every one rich. Men would shout jokes at him as he wentalong Main Street. His dignity would be gone forever. He would be made afool of by the very school boys as he had been in his youth when he boughtthe bicycle and rode it about before the eyes of other boys in theevenings. 

Steve hurried out of Main Street and went over the bridge that crossed theriver into Turner's Pike. He did not know what he intended to do, but feltthere was much at stake and that he would have to do something at once. It was a warm, cloudy day and the road that led to Pickleville was muddy. During the night before it had rained and more rain was promised. The pathbeside the road was slippery, and so absorbed was he that as he plungedalong, his feet slipped out from under him and he sat down in a small poolof water. A farmer driving past along the road turned to laugh at him. "Yougo to hell, " Steve shouted. "You just mind your own business and go tohell. "

The distracted young man tried to walk sedately along the path. The longgrass that grew beside the path wet his shoes, and his hands were wet andmuddy. Farmers turned on their wagon seats to stare at him. For someobscure reason he could not himself understand, he was terribly afraid toface Hugh McVey. In the bank he had been in the presence of men who weretrying to get the best of him, to make a fool of him, to have fun at hisexpense. He had felt that and had resented it. The knowledge had given hima certain kind of boldness; it had enabled his mind to make up the storyof the inventor secretly employed at his own expense and the city bankersanxious to furnish him capital. Although he was terribly afraid ofdiscovery, he felt a little glow of pride at the thought of the boldnesswith which he had taken the letters out of his pocket and had challengedthe two men to call his bluff. 

Steve, however, felt there was something different about the man in thetelegraph office in Pickleville. He had been in town for nearly two yearsand no one knew anything about him. His silence might be indicative ofanything. He was afraid the tall silent Missourian might decide to havenothing to do with him, and pictured himself as being brushed rudely aside, being told to mind his own business. 

Steve knew instinctively how to handle business men. One simply created thenotion of money to be made without effort. He had done that to the two menin the bank and it had worked. After all he had succeeded in making themrespect him. He had handled the situation. He wasn't such a fool at thatkind of a thing. The other thing he had to face might be very different. Perhaps after all Hugh McVey was a big inventor, a man with a powerfulcreative mind. It was possible he had been sent to Bidwell by a bigbusiness man of some city. Big business men did strange, mysterious things;they put wires out in all directions, controlled a thousand little avenuesfor the creation of wealth. 

Just starting out on his own career as a man of affairs, Steve had anoverpowering respect for what he thought of as the subtlety of men ofaffairs. With all the other American youths of his generation he had beenswept off his feet by the propaganda that then went on and is still goingon, and that is meant to create the illusion of greatness in connectionwith the ownership of money. He did not then know and, in spite of his ownlater success and his own later use of the machinery by which illusionis created, he never found out that in an industrial world reputationsfor greatness of mind are made as a Detroit manufacturer would makeautomobiles. He did not know that men are employed to bring up the nameof a politician so that he may be called a statesman, as a new brand ofbreakfast food that it may be sold; that most modern great men are mereillusions sprung out of a national hunger for greatness. Some day a wiseman, one who has not read too many books but who has gone about among men, will discover and set forth a very interesting thing about America. Theland is vast and there is a national hunger for vastness in individuals. One wants an Illinois-sized man for Illinois, an Ohio-sized man for Ohio, and a Texas-sized man for Texas. 

To be sure, Steve Hunter had no notion of all this. He never did get anotion of it. The men he had already begun to think of as great and to tryto imitate were like the strange and gigantic protuberances that sometimesgrow on the side of unhealthy trees, but he did not know it. He didnot know that throughout the country, even in that early day, a systemwas being built up to create the myth of greatness. At the seat of theAmerican Government at Washington, hordes of somewhat clever and altogetherunhealthy young men were already being employed for the purpose. In asweeter age many of these young men might have become artists, but they hadnot been strong enough to stand against the growing strength of dollars. They had become instead newspaper correspondents and secretaries topoliticians. All day and every day they used their minds and their talentsas writers in the making of puffs and the creating of myths concerningthe men by whom they were employed. They were like the trained sheep thatare used at great slaughter-houses to lead other sheep into the killingpens. Having befouled their own minds for hire, they made their living bybefouling the minds of others. Already they had found out that no greatcleverness was required for the work they had to do. What was required wasconstant repetition. It was only necessary to say over and over that theman by whom they were employed was a great man. No proof had to be broughtforward to substantiate the claims they made; no great deeds had to be doneby the men who were thus made great, as brands of crackers or breakfastfood are made salable. Stupid and prolonged and insistent repetition waswhat was necessary. 

As the politicians of the industrial age have created a myth aboutthemselves, so also have the owners of dollars, the big bankers, therailroad manipulators, the promoters of industrial enterprise. The impulseto do so is partly sprung from shrewdness but for the most part it is dueto a hunger within to be of some real moment in the world. Knowing thatthe talent that had made them rich is but a secondary talent, and beinga little worried about the matter, they employ men to glorify it. Havingemployed a man for the purpose, they are themselves children enough tobelieve the myth they have paid money to have created. Every rich man inthe country unconsciously hates his press agent. 

Although he had never read a book, Steve was a constant reader of thenewspapers and had been deeply impressed by the stories he had readregarding the shrewdness and ability of the American captains of industry. To him they were supermen and he would have crawled on his knees beforea Gould or a Cal Price--the commanding figures among moneyed men of thatday. As he went down along Turner's Pike that day when industry was born inBidwell, he thought of these men and of lesser rich men of Cleveland andBuffalo, and was afraid that in approaching Hugh he might be coming intocompetition with one of these men. As he hurried along under the graysky, he however realized that the time for action had come and that hemust at once put the plans that he had formed in his mind to the test ofpracticability; that he must at once see Hugh McVey, find out if he reallydid have an invention that could be manufactured, and if he did try tosecure some kind of rights of ownership over it. "If I do not act at once, either Tom Butterworth or John Clark will get in ahead of me, " he thought. He knew they were both shrewd capable men. Had they not become well-to-do?Even during the talk in the bank, when they had seemed to be impressed byhis words, they might well have been making plans to get the better of him. They would act, but he must act first. 

Steve hadn't the courage of the lie he had told. He did not haveimagination enough to understand how powerful a thing is a lie. He walkedquickly along until he came to the Wheeling Station at Pickleville, andthen, not having the courage to confront Hugh at once, went past thestation and crept in behind the deserted pickle factory that stood acrossthe tracks. Through a broken window at the back he climbed, and crept likea thief across the earth floor until he came to a window that looked outupon the station. A freight train rumbled slowly past and a farmer came tothe station to get a load of goods that had arrived by freight. George Pikecame running from his house to attend to the wants of the farmer. He wentback to his house and Steve was left alone in the presence of the man onwhom he felt all of his future depended. He was as excited as a villagegirl in the presence of a lover. Through the windows of the telegraphoffice he could see Hugh seated at a desk with a book before him. Thepresence of the book frightened him. He decided that the mysteriousMissourian must be some strange sort of intellectual giant. He was surethat one who could sit quietly reading hour after hour in such a lonelyisolated place could be of no ordinary clay. As he stood in the deepshadows inside the old building and stared at the man he was trying to findcourage to approach, a citizen of Bidwell named Dick Spearsman came to thestation and going inside, talked to the telegraph operator. Steve trembledwith anxiety. The man who had come to the station was an insurance agentwho also owned a small berry farm at the edge of town. He had a son who hadgone west to take up land in the state of Kansas, and the father thought ofvisiting him. He came to the station to make inquiry regarding the railroadfare, but when Steve saw him talking to Hugh, the thought came into hismind that John Clark or Thomas Butterworth might have sent him to thestation to make an investigation of the truth of the statements he had madein the bank. "It would be like them to do it that way, " he muttered tohimself. "They wouldn't come themselves. They would send some one theythought I wouldn't suspect. They would play safe, damn 'em. "

Trembling with fear, Steve walked up and down in the empty factory. Cobwebshanging down brushed against his face and he jumped aside as though a handhad reached out of the darkness to touch him. In the corners of the oldbuilding shadows lurked and distorted thoughts began to come into his head. He rolled and lighted a cigarette and then remembered that the flare of thematch could probably be seen from the station. He cursed himself for hiscarelessness. Throwing the cigarette on the earth floor he ground it underhis heel. When at last Dick Spearsman had disappeared up the road that ledto Bidwell and he came out of the old factory and got again into Turner'sPike, he felt that he was in no shape to talk of business but neverthelessmust act at once. In front of the factory he stopped in the road and triedto wipe the mud off the seat of his trousers with a handkerchief. Then hewent to the creek and washed his soiled hands. With wet hands he arrangedhis tie and straightened the collar of his coat. He had an air of oneabout to ask a woman to become his wife. Striving to look as important anddignified as possible, he went along the station platform and into thetelegraph office to confront Hugh and to find out at once and finally whatfate the gods had in store for him. 

 * * * * *

It no doubt contributed to Steve's happiness in after life, in the dayswhen he was growing rich, and later when he reached out for public honors, contributed to campaign funds, and even in secret dreamed of getting intothe United States Senate or being Governor of his state, that he never knewhow badly he overreached himself that day in his youth when he made hisfirst business deal with Hugh at the Wheeling Station at Pickleville. LaterHugh's interest in the Steven Hunter industrial enterprises was taken careof by a man who was as shrewd as Steve himself. Tom Butterworth, who hadmade money and knew how to make and handle money, managed such things forthe inventor, and Steve's chance was gone forever. 

That is, however, a part of the story of the development of the town ofBidwell and a story that Steve never understood. When he overreachedhimself that day he did not know what he had done. He made a deal with Hughand was happy to escape the predicament he thought he had got himself intowhen he talked too much to the two men in the bank. 

Although Steve's father had always a great faith in his son's shrewdnessand when he talked to other men represented him as a peculiarly capable andunappreciated man, the two did not in private get on well. In the Hunterhousehold they quarreled and snarled at each other. Steve's mother had diedwhen he was a small boy and his one sister, two years older than himself, kept herself always in the house and seldom appeared on the streets. Shewas a semi-invalid. Some obscure nervous disease had twisted her body outof shape, and her face twitched incessantly. One morning in the barn backof the Hunter house Steve, then a lad of fourteen, was oiling his bicyclewhen his sister appeared and stood watching him. A small wrench lay on theground and she picked it up. Suddenly and without warning she began to beathim on the head. He was compelled to knock her down in order to tear thewrench out of her hand. After the incident she was ill in bed for a month. 

Elsie Hunter was always a source of unhappiness to her brother. As he beganto get up in life Steve had a growing passion for being respected by hisfellows. It got to be something of an obsession with him and among otherthings he wanted very much to be thought of as one who had good blood inhis veins. A man whom he hired searched out his ancestry, and with theexception of his immediate family it seemed very satisfactory. The sister, with her twisted body and her face that twitched so persistently, seemedto be everlastingly sneering at him. He grew half afraid to come into herpresence. After he began to grow rich he married Ernestine, the daughter ofthe soap maker at Buffalo, and when her father died she also had a greatdeal of money. His own father died and he set up a household of his own. That was in the time when big houses began to appear at the edge of theberry lands and on the hills south of Bidwell. On his father's death Stevebecame guardian for his sister. The jeweler had left a small estate and itwas entirely in the son's hands. Elsie lived with one servant in a smallhouse in town and was put in the position of being entirely dependent onher brother's bounty. In a sense it might be said that she lived by herhatred of him. When on rare occasions he came to her house she would notsee him. A servant came to the door and reported her asleep. Almost everymonth she wrote a letter demanding that her share of her father's moneybe handed over to her, but it did no good. Steve occasionally spoke to anacquaintance of his difficulty with her. "I am more sorry for the womanthan I can say, " he declared. "It's the dream of my life to make the poorafflicted soul happy. You see yourself that I provide her with everycomfort of life. Ours is an old family. I have it from an expert in suchmatters that we are descendants of one Hunter, a courtier in the court ofEdward the Second of England. Our blood has perhaps become a little thin. All the vitality of the family was centered in me. My sister does notunderstand me and that has been the cause of much unhappiness and heartburning, but I shall always do my duty by her. "

In the late afternoon of the spring day that was also the most eventful dayof his life, Steve went quickly along the Wheeling Station platform to thedoor of the telegraph office. It was a public place, but before going inhe stopped, again straightened his tie and brushed his clothes, and thenknocked at the door. As there was no response he opened the door softlyand looked in. Hugh was at his desk but did not look up. Steve went in andclosed the door. By chance the moment of his entrance was also a big momentin the life of the man he had come to see. The mind of the young inventor, that had for so long been dreamy and uncertain, had suddenly becomeextraordinarily clear and free. One of the inspired moments that come tointense natures, working intensely, had come to him. The mechanical problemhe was trying so hard to work out became clear. It was one of the momentsthat Hugh afterwards thought of as justifying his existence, and in laterlife he came to live for such moments. With a nod of his head to Steve hearose and hurried out to the building that was used by the Wheeling asa freight warehouse. The jeweler's son ran at his heels. On an elevatedplatform before the freight warehouse sat an odd looking agriculturalimplement, a machine for rooting potatoes out of the ground that had beenreceived on the day before and was now awaiting delivery to some farmer. Hugh dropped to his knees beside the machine and examined it closely. Muttered exclamations broke from his lips. For the first time in his lifehe was not embarrassed in the presence of another person. The two men, the one almost grotesquely tall, the other short of stature and alreadyinclined toward corpulency, stared at each other. "What is it you'reinventing? I came to see you about that, " Steve said timidly. 

Hugh did not answer the question directly. He stepped across the narrowplatform to the freight warehouse and began to make a rude drawing on theside of the building. Then he tried to explain his plant-setting machine. He spoke of it as a thing already achieved. At the moment he thought of itin that way. "I had not thought of the use of a large wheel with the armsattached at regular intervals, " he said absent-mindedly. "I will have tofind money now. That'll be the next step. It will be necessary to make aworking model of the machine now. I must find out what changes I'll have tomake in my calculations. "

The two men returned to the telegraph office and while Hugh listened Stevemade his proposal. Even then he did not understand what the machine thatwas to be made was to do. It was enough for him that a machine was to bemade and he wanted to share in its ownership at once. As the two men walkedback from the freight warehouse, his mind took hold of Hugh's remark aboutgetting money. Again he was afraid. "There's some one in the background, "he thought. "Now I must make a proposal he can't refuse. I mustn't leaveuntil I've made a deal with him. "

Fairly carried away by his anxiety, Steve proposed to provide money out ofhis own pocket to make the model of the machine. "We'll rent the old picklefactory across the track, " he said, opening the door and pointing with atrembling finger. "I can get it cheap. I'll have windows and a floor putin. Then I'll get you a man to whittle out a model of the machine. AllieMulberry can do it. I'll get him for you. He can whittle anything if youonly show him what you want. He's half crazy and won't get on to oursecret. When the model is made, leave it to me, you just leave it to me. "

Rubbing his hands together Steve walked boldly to The telegrapher's deskand picking up a sheet of paper began to write out a contract. It providedthat Hugh Was to get a royalty of ten per cent. Of the selling price on themachine he had invented and that was to be manufactured by a company tobe organized by Steven Hunter. The contract also stated that a promotingcompany was to be organized at once and money provided for the experimentalwork Hugh had yet to do. The Missourian was to begin getting a salary atonce. He was to risk nothing, as Steve elaborately explained. When he wasready for them mechanics were to be employed and their salaries paid. Whenthe contract had been written and read aloud, a copy was made and Hugh, whowas again embarrassed beyond words, signed his name. 

With a flourish of his hand Steve laid a little pile of money on the desk. "That's for a starter, " he said and turned to frown at George Pike who atthat moment came to the door. The freight agent went quickly away and thetwo men were left alone together. Steve shook hands with his new partner. He went out and then came in again. "You understand, " he said mysteriously. "The fifty dollars is your first month's salary. I was ready for you. Ibrought it along. You just leave everything to me, just you leave it tome. " Again he went out and Hugh was left alone. He saw the young man goacross the tracks to the old factory and walk up and down before it. When afarmer came along and shouted at him, he did not reply, but stepping backinto the road swept the deserted old building with his eyes as a generalmight have looked over a battlefield. Then he went briskly down the roadtoward town and the farmer turned on his wagon seat to stare after him. 

Hugh McVey also stared. When Steve had gone away, he walked to the endof the station platform and looked along the road toward town. It seemedto him wonderful that he had at last held conversation with a citizenof Bidwell. A little of the import of the contract he had signed came tohim, and he went into the station and got his copy of it and put it in hispocket. Then he came out again. When he read it over and realized anew thathe was to be paid a living wage and have time and help to work out theproblem that had now become vastly important to his happiness, it seemedto him that he had been in the presence of a kind of god. He rememberedthe words of Sarah Shepard concerning the bright alert citizens of easterntowns and realized that he had been in the presence of such a being, thathe had in some way become connected in his new work with such a one. Therealization overcame him completely. Forgetting entirely his duties as atelegrapher, he closed the office and went for a walk across the meadowsand in the little patches of woodlands that still remained standing in theopen plain north of Pickleville. He did not return until late at night, andwhen he did, had not solved the puzzle as to what had happened. All he gotout of it was the fact that the machine he had been trying to make was ofgreat and mysterious importance to the civilization into which he had cometo live and of which he wanted so keenly to be a part. There seemed to himsomething almost sacred in that fact. A new determination to complete andperfect his plant-setting machine had taken possession of him. 

 * * * * *

The meeting to organize a promotion company that would in turn launch thefirst industrial enterprise in the town of Bidwell was held in the backroom of the Bidwell bank one afternoon in June. The berry season had justcome to an end and the streets were full of people. A circus had come totown and at one o'clock there was a parade. Before the stores horsesbelonging to visiting country people stood hitched in two long rows. Themeeting in the bank was not held until four o'clock, when the bankingbusiness was at an end for the day. It had been a hot, stuffy afternoonand a storm threatened. For some reason the whole town had an inkling ofthe fact that a meeting was to be held on that day, and in spite of theexcitement caused by the coming of the circus, it was in everybody's mind. From the very beginning of his upward journey in life, Steve Hunter hadthe faculty of throwing an air of mystery and importance about everythinghe did. Every one saw the workings of the machinery by which the mythconcerning himself was created, but was nevertheless impressed. Even themen of Bidwell who retained the ability to laugh at Steve could not laughat the things he did. 

For two months before the day on which the meeting was held, the town hadbeen on edge. Every one knew that Hugh McVey had suddenly given up hisplace in the telegraph office and that he was engaged in some enterprisewith Steve Hunter. "Well, I see he has thrown off the mask, that fellow, "said Alban Foster, superintendent of the Bidwell schools, in speaking ofthe matter to the Reverend Harvey Oxford, the minister of the BaptistChurch. 

Steve saw to it that although every one was curious the curiosity wasunsatisfied. Even his father was left in the dark. The two men had a sharpquarrel about the matter, but as Steve had three thousand dollars of hisown, left him by his mother, and was well past his twenty-first year, therewas nothing his father could do. 

At Pickleville the windows and doors at the back of the deserted factorywere bricked up, and over the windows and the door at the front, where afloor had been laid, iron bars specially made by Lew Twining the Bidwellblacksmith had been put. The bars over the door locked the place at nightand gave the factory the air of a prison. Every evening before he went tobed Steve walked to Pickleville. The sinister appearance of the buildingat night gave him a peculiar satisfaction. "They'll find out what I'm upto when I want 'em to, " he said to himself. Allie Mulberry worked at thefactory during the day. Under Hugh's direction he whittled pieces of woodinto various shapes, but had no idea of what he was doing. No one but thehalf-wit and Steve Hunter were admitted to the society of the telegraphoperator. When Allie Mulberry came into the Main Street at night, everyone stopped him and a thousand questions were asked, but he only shook hishead and smiled foolishly. On Sunday afternoons crowds of men and womenwalked down Turner's Pike to Pickleville and stood looking at the desertedbuilding, but no one tried to enter. The bars were in place and windowshades were drawn over the windows. Above the door that faced the roadthere was a large sign. "Keep Out. This Means You, " the sign said. 

The four men who met Steve in the bank knew vaguely that some sort ofinvention was being perfected, but did not know what it was. They spokein an offhand way of the matter to their friends and that increased thegeneral curiosity. Every one tried to guess what was up. When Steve was notabout, John Clark and young Gordon Hart pretended to know everything butgave the impression of men sworn to secrecy. The fact that Steve told themnothing seemed to them a kind of insult. "The young upstart, I believe yethe's a bluff, " the banker declared to his friend, Tom Butterworth. 

On Main Street the old and young men who stood about before the stores inthe evening tried also to make light of the jeweler's son and the air ofimportance he constantly assumed. They also spoke of him as a young upstartand a windbag, but after the beginning of his connection with Hugh McVey, something of conviction went out of their voices. "I read in the paper thata man in Toledo made thirty thousand dollars out of an invention. He got itup in less than a day. He just thought of it. It's a new kind of way forsealing fruit cans, " a man in the crowd before Birdie Spink's drug storeabsent-mindedly observed. 

Inside the drug store by the empty stove, Judge Hanby talked persistentlyof the time when factories would come. He seemed to those who listened asort of John the Baptist crying out of the coming of the new day. Oneevening in May of that year, when a goodly crowd was assembled, SteveHunter came in and bought a cigar. Every one became silent. Birdie Spinkswas for some mysterious reason a little upset. In the store somethinghappened that, had there been some one there to record it, might later havebeen remembered as the moment that marked the coming of the new age toBidwell. The druggist, after he had handed out the cigar, looked at theyoung man whose name had so suddenly come upon every one's lips and whom hehad known from babyhood, and then addressed him as no young man of his agehad ever before been addressed by an older citizen of the town. "Well, goodevening, Mr. Hunter, " he said respectfully. "And how do you find yourselfthis evening?"

To the men who met him in the bank, Steve described the plant-settingmachine and the work it was intended to do. "It's the most perfect thingof its kind I've ever seen, " he said with the air of one who has spenthis life as an expert examiner of machinery. Then, to the amazement ofevery one, he produced sheets covered with figures estimating the costof manufacturing the machine. To the men present it seemed as though thequestion as to the practicability of the machine had already been settled. The sheets covered with figures made the actual beginning of manufacturingseem near at hand. Without raising his voice and quite as a matter ofcourse, Steve proposed that the men present subscribe each three thousanddollars to the stock of a promotion company, the money to be used toperfect the machine and put it actually to work in the fields, while alarger company for the building of a factory was being organized. For thethree thousand dollars each of the men would receive later six thousanddollars in stock in the larger company. They would make one hundred percent. On their first investment. As for himself he owned the invention andit was very valuable. He had already received many offers from other menin other places. He wanted to stick to his own town and to the men who hadknown him since he was a boy. He would retain a controlling interest in thelarger company and that would enable him to take care of his friends. JohnClark he proposed to make treasurer of the promotion company. Every onecould see he would be the right man. Gordon Hart should be manager. TomButterworth could, if he could find time to give it, help him in the actualorganization of the larger company. He did not propose to do anything ina small way. Much stock would have to be sold to farmers, as well as totownspeople, and he could see no reason why a certain commission for theselling of stock should not be paid. 

The four men came out of the back room of the bank just as the storm thathad all day been threatening broke on Main Street. They stood together bythe front window and watched the people skurry along past the storeshomeward-bound from the circus. Farmers jumping into their wagons startedtheir horses away on the trot. The whole street was populous with peopleshouting and running. To an observing person standing at the bank window, Bidwell, Ohio, might have seemed no longer a quiet town filled with peoplewho lived quiet lives and thought quiet thoughts, but a tiny section ofsome giant modern city. The sky was extraordinarily black as from the smokeof a mill. The hurrying people might have been workmen escaping from themill at the end of the day. Clouds of dust swept through the street. SteveHunter's imagination was aroused. For some reason the black clouds of dustand the running people gave him a tremendous sense of power. It almostseemed to him that he had filled the sky with clouds and that somethinglatent in him had startled the people. He was anxious to get away fromthe men who had just agreed to join him in his first great industrialadventure. He felt that they were after all mere puppets, creatures hecould use, men who were being swept along by him as the people runningalong the streets were being swept along by the storm. He and the stormwere in a way akin to each other. He had an impulse to be alone with thestorm, to walk dignified and upright in the face of it as he felt that inthe future he would walk dignified and upright in the face of men. 

Steve went out of the bank and into the street. The men inside shoutedat him, telling him he would get wet, but he paid no attention to theirwarning. When he had gone and when his father had run quickly across thestreet to his jewelry store, the three men who were left in the banklooked at each other and laughed. Like the loiterers before Birdie Spinks'drug-store, they wanted to belittle him and had an inclination to begincalling him names; but for some reason they could not do it. Something hadhappened to them. They looked at each other with a question in their eyes. Each man waited for the others to speak. "Well, whatever happens we can'tlose much of anything, " John Clark finally observed. 

And over the bridge and out into Turner's Pike walked Steve Hunter, theembryo industrial magnate. Across the great stretches of fields that laybeside the road the wind ran furiously, tearing leaves off trees, carryinggreat volumes of dust before it. The hurrying black clouds in the sky were, he fancied, like clouds of smoke pouring out of the chimneys of factoriesowned by himself. In fancy also he saw his town become a city, bathed inthe smoke of his enterprises. As he looked abroad over the fields swept bythe storm of wind, he realized that the road along which he walked would intime become a city street. "Pretty soon I'll get an option on this land, "he said meditatively. An exalted mood took possession of him and whenhe got to Pickleville he did not go into the shop where Hugh and AllieMulberry were at work, but turning, walked back toward town in the mud andthe driving rain. 

It was a time when Steve wanted to be by himself, to feel himself the onegreat man of the community. He had intended to go into the old picklefactory and escape the rain, but when he got to the railroad tracks, hadturned back because he realized suddenly that in the presence of thesilent, intent inventor he had never been able to feel big. He wanted tofeel big on that evening and so, unmindful of the rain and of his hat, that was caught up by the wind and blown away into a field, he went alongthe deserted road thinking great thoughts. At a place where there were nohouses he stopped for a moment and lifted his tiny hands to the skies. "I'ma man. I tell you what, I'm a man. Whatever any one says, I tell you what, I'm a man, " he shouted into the void. 

CHAPTER VII

Modern men and women who live in industrial cities are like mice that havecome out of the fields to live in houses that do not belong to them. Theylive within the dark walls of the houses where only a dim light penetrates, and so many have come that they grow thin and haggard with the constanttoil of getting food and warmth. Behind the walls the mice scamper aboutin droves, and there is much squealing and chattering. Now and then a boldmouse stands upon his hind legs and addresses the others. He declares hewill force his way through the walls and conquer the gods who have builtthe house. "I will kill them, " he declares. "The mice shall rule. You shalllive in the light and the warmth. There shall be food for all and no oneshall go hungry. "

The little mice, gathered in the darkness out of sight in the great houses, squeal with delight. After a time when nothing happens they become sad anddepressed. Their minds go back to the time when they lived in the fields, but they do not go out of the walls of the houses, because long living indroves has made them afraid of the silence of long nights and the emptinessof skies. In the houses giant children are being reared. When the childrenfight and scream in the houses and in the streets, the dark spaces betweenthe walls rumble with strange and appalling noises. 

The mice are terribly afraid. Now and then a single mouse for a momentescapes the general fear. A mood comes over such a one and a light comesinto his eyes. When the noises run through the houses he makes up storiesabout them. "The horses of the sun are hauling wagon loads of days overthe tops of trees, " he says and looks quickly about to see if he has beenheard. When he discovers a female mouse looking at him he runs away witha flip of his tail and the female follows. While other mice are repeatinghis saying and getting some little comfort from it, he and the female mousefind a warm dark corner and lie close together. It is because of them thatmice continue to be born to dwell within the walls of the houses. 

When the first small model of Hugh McVey's plant-setting machine had beenwhittled out by the half-wit Allie Mulberry, it replaced the famous ship, floating in the bottle, that for two or three years had been lying in thewindow of Hunter's jewelry store. Allie was inordinately proud of the newspecimen of his handiwork. As he worked under Hugh's directions at a benchin a corner of the deserted pickle factory, he was like a strange dog thathas at last found a master. He paid no attention to Steve Hunter who, withthe air of one bearing in his breast some gigantic secret, came in andwent out at the door twenty times a day, but kept his eyes on the silentHugh who sat at a desk and made drawings on sheets of paper. Allie triedvaliantly to follow the instructions given him and to understand what hismaster was trying to do, and Hugh, finding himself unembarrassed by thepresence of the half-wit, sometimes spent hours trying to explain theworkings of some intricate part of the proposed machine. Hugh made eachpart crudely out of great pieces of board and Allie reproduced the part inminiature. Intelligence began to come into the eyes of the man who all hislife had whittled meaningless wooden chains, baskets formed out of peachstones, and ships intended to float in bottles. Love and understandingbegan a little to do for him what words could not have done. One day when apart Hugh had fashioned would not work the half-wit himself made the modelof a part that worked perfectly. When Hugh incorporated it in the machine, he was so happy that he could not sit still, and walked up and down cooingwith delight. 

When the model of the machine appeared in the jeweler's window, a fever ofexcitement took hold of the minds of the people. Every one declared himselfeither for or against it. Something like a revolution took place. Partieswere formed. Men who had no interest in the success of the invention, andin the nature of things could not have, were ready to fight any one whodared to doubt its success. Among the farmers who drove into town to seethe new wonder were many who said the machine would not, could not, work. "It isn't practical, " they said. Going off by themselves and forminggroups, they whispered warnings. A hundred objections sprang to their lips. "See all the little wheels and cogs the thing has, " they said. "You seeit won't work. You take now in a field where there are stones and oldtree roots, maybe, sticking in the ground. There you'll see. Fools'll buythe machine, yes. They'll spend their money. They'll put in plants. Theplants'll die. The money'll be wasted. There'll be no crop. " Old men, whohad been cabbage farmers in the country north of Bidwell all their lives, and whose bodies were all twisted out of shape by the terrible labor ofthe cabbage fields, came hobbling into town to look at the model of thenew machine. Their opinions were anxiously sought by the merchant, thecarpenter, the artisan, the doctor--by all the townspeople. Almost withoutexception, they shook their heads in doubt. Standing on the sidewalk beforethe jeweler's window, they stared at the machine and then, turning to thecrowd that had gathered about, they shook their heads in doubt. "Huh, " theyexclaimed, "a thing of wheels and cogs, eh? Well, so young Hunter expectsthat thing to take the place of a man. He's a fool. I always said that boywas a fool. " The merchants and townspeople, their ardor a little dampenedby the adverse decision of the men who knew plant-setting, went off bythemselves. They went into Birdie Spinks' drugstore, but did not listento the talk of Judge Hanby. "If the machine works, the town'll wake up, "some one declared. "It means factories, new people coming in, houses tobe built, goods to be bought. " Visions of suddenly acquired wealth beganto float in their minds. Young Ed Hall, apprentice to Ben Peeler thecarpenter, grew angry. "Hell, " he exclaimed, "why listen to a lot of damnedold calamity howlers? It's the town's duty to get out and plug for thatmachine. We got to wake up here. We got to forget what we used to thinkabout Steve Hunter. Anyway, he saw a chance, didn't he? and he took it. I wish I was him. I only wish I was him. And what about that fellow wethought was maybe just a telegraph operator? He fooled us all slick, nowdidn't he? I tell you we ought to be proud to have such men as him andSteve Hunter living in Bidwell. That's what I say. I tell you it's thetown's duty to get out and plug for them and for that machine. If we don't, I know what'll happen. Steve Hunter's a live one. I been thinking maybe hewas. He'll take that invention and that inventor of his to some other townor to a city. That's what he'll do. Damn it, I tell you we got to get outand back them fellows up. That's what I say. "

On the whole the town of Bidwell agreed with young Hall. The excitementdid not die, but grew every day more intense. Steve Hunter had a carpentercome to his father's store and build in the show window facing MainStreet, a long shallow box formed in the shape of a field. This he filledwith pulverized earth and then by an arrangement of strings and pulleysconnected with a clockwork device the machine was pulled across the field. In a receptacle at the top of the machine had been placed some dozens oftiny plants no larger than pins. When the clockwork was started and thestrings pulled to imitate applied horse power, the machine crept slowlyforward, an arm came down and made a hole in the ground, the plant droppedinto the hole and spoon-like hands appeared and packed the earth about theplant roots. At the top of the machine there was a tank filled with water, and when the plant was set, a portion of water, nicely calculated as toquantity, ran down a pipe and was deposited at the plant roots. 

Evening after evening the machine crawled forward across the tiny field, setting the plants in perfect order. Steve Hunter busied himself with it;he did nothing else; and rumors of a great company to be formed in Bidwellto manufacture the device were whispered about. Every evening a new talewas told. Steve went to Cleveland for a day and it was said that Bidwellwas to lose its chance, that big moneyed men had induced Steve to take hisfactory project to the city. Hearing Ed Hall berate a farmer who doubtedthe practicability of the machine, Steve took him aside and talked to him. "We're going to need live young men who know how to handle other men forjobs as superintendent and things like that, " he said. "I make no promises. I only want to tell you that I like live young fellows who can see the holein a bushel basket. I like that kind. I like to see them get up in theworld. "

Steve heard the farmers continually expressing their skepticism aboutmaking the plants that had been set by the machine grow into maturity, andhad the carpenter build another tiny field in a side window of the store. He had the machine moved and plants set in the new field. He let thesegrow. When some of the plants showed signs of dying he came secretly atnight and replaced them with sturdier shoots so that the miniature fieldshowed always a brave, vigorous front to the world. 

Bidwell became convinced that the most rigorous of all forms of human laborpracticed by its people was at an end. Steve made and had hung in the storewindow a large sheet showing the relative cost of planting an acre ofcabbage with the machine, and by what was already called "the old way, " byhand. Then he formally announced that a stock company would be formed inBidwell and that every one would have a chance to get into it. He printedan article in the weekly paper in which he said that many offers had cometo him to take his project to the city or to other and larger towns. "Mr. McVey, the celebrated inventor, and I both want to stick to our ownpeople, " he said, regardless of the fact that Hugh knew nothing of thearticle and had never been taken into the lives of the people addressed. A day was set for the beginning of the taking of stock subscriptions, andin private conversations Steve whispered of huge profits to be made. Thematter was talked over in every household and plans were made for raisingmoney to buy stock. John Clark agreed to lend a certain percentage on thevalue of the town property and Steve secured a long-time option on all theland facing Turner's Pike clear down to Pickleville. When the town heardof this it was filled with wonder. "Gee, " the loiterers before the storeexclaimed, "old Bidwell is going to grow up. Now look at that, will you?There are going to be houses clear down to Pickleville. " Hugh went toCleveland to see about having one of his new machines made in steel andwood and in a size that would permit its actual use in the field. Hereturned, a hero in the town's eyes. His silence made it possible for thepeople, who could not entirely forget their former lack of faith in Steve, to let their minds take hold of something they thought was truly heroic. 

In the evening, after going again to see the machine in the window of thejewelry store, crowds of young and old men wandered down along Turner'sPike to the Wheeling Station where a new man had come to replace Hugh. They hardly saw the evening train when it came in. Like devotees beforea shrine they gazed with something like worship in their eyes at the oldpickle factory, and when by chance Hugh came among them, unconscious ofthe sensation he was creating, they became embarrassed as he was alwaysembarrassed by their presence. Every one dreamed of becoming suddenly richby the power of the man's mind. They thought of him as thinking alwaysgreat thoughts. To be sure, Steve Hunter might be more than half bluff andblow and pretense, but there was no bluff and blow about Hugh. He didn'twaste his time in words. He thought, and out of his thought sprang almostunbelievable wonders. 

In every part of the town of Bidwell, the new impulse toward progress wasfelt. Old men, who had become settled in their ways and who had begun topass their days in a sort of sleepy submission to the idea of the gradualpassing away of their lives, awoke and went into Main Street in theevening to argue with skeptical farmers. Beside Ed Hall, who had become aDemosthenes on the subject of progress and the duty of the town to awakeand stick to Steve Hunter and the machine, a dozen other men held forth onthe street corners. Oratorical ability awoke in the most unexpected places. Rumors flew from lip to lip. It was said that within a year Bidwell was tohave a brick factory covering acres of ground, that there would be pavedstreets and electric lights. 

Oddly enough the most persistent decrier of the new spirit in Bidwell wasthe man who, if the machine turned out to be a success, would profit mostfrom its use. Ezra French, the profane, refused to be convinced. Whenpressed by Ed Hall, Dr. Robinson, and other enthusiasts, he fell back uponthe word of that God whose name had been so much upon his lips. The decrierof God became the defender of God. "The thing, you see, can't be done. It ain't all right. Something awful'll happen. The rains won't come andthe plants'll dry up and die. It'll be like it was in Egypt in the Bibletimes, " he declared. The old farmer with the twisted leg stood before thecrowd in the drug-store and proclaimed the truth of God's word. "Don't itsay in the Bible men shall work and labor by the sweat of their brows?" heasked sharply. "Can a machine like that sweat? You know it can't. And itcan't do the work either. No, siree. Men've got to do it. That's the waythings have been since Cain killed Abel in the Garden of Eden. God intendedit so and there can't no telegraph operator or no smart young squirt likeSteve Hunter--fellows in a town like this--set themselves up before me tochange the workings of God's laws. It can't be done, and if it could bedone it would be wicked and ungodly to try. I'll have nothing to do withit. It ain't right. That's what I say and all your smart talk ain't a-goingto change me. "

It was in the year 1892 that Steve Hunter organized the first industrialenterprise that came to Bidwell. It was called the Bidwell Plant-SettingMachine Company, and in the end it turned out to be a failure. A largefactory was built on the river bank facing the New York Central tracks. Itis now occupied by an enterprise called the Hunter Bicycle Company and iswhat in industrial parlance is called a live, going concern. 

For two years Hugh worked faithfully trying to perfect the first of hisinventions. After the working models of the plant-setter were brought fromCleveland, two trained mechanics were employed to come to Bidwell and workwith him. In the old pickle factory an engine was installed and lathes andother tool-making machines were set up. For a long time Steve, John Clark, Tom Butterworth, and the other enthusiastic promoters of the enterprise hadno doubt as to the final outcome. Hugh wanted to perfect the machine, hadhis heart set on doing the job he had set out to do, but he had then and, for that matter, he continued during his whole life to have but littleconception of the import in the lives of the people about him of the thingshe did. Day after day, with two city mechanics and Allie Mulberry to drivethe team of horses Steve had provided, he went into a rented field north ofthe factory. Weak places developed in the complicated mechanism, and newand stronger parts were made. For a time the machine worked perfectly. Thenother defects appeared and other parts had to be strengthened and changed. The machine became too heavy to be handled by one team. It would not workwhen the soil was either too wet or too dry. It worked perfectly in bothwet and dry sand but would do nothing in clay. During the second yearand when the factory was nearing completion and much machinery had beeninstalled, Hugh went to Steve and told him of what he thought were thelimitations of the machine. He was depressed by his failure, but in workingwith the machine, he felt he had succeeded in educating himself as he nevercould have done by studying books. Steve decided that the factory should bestarted and some of the machines made and sold. "You keep the two men youhave and don't talk, " he said. "The machine may yet turn out to be betterthan you think. One can never tell. I have made it worth their whileto keep still. " On the afternoon of the day on which he had his talkwith Hugh, Steve called the four men who were associated with him in thepromotion of the enterprise into the back room of the bank and told them ofthe situation. "We're up against something here, " he said. "If we let wordof the failure of this machine get out, where'll we be? It is a case of thesurvival of the fittest. "

Steve explained his plan to the men in the room. After all, he said, therewas no occasion for any of them to get excited. He had taken them into thething and he proposed to get them out. "I'm that kind of a man, " he saidpompously. In a way, he declared, he was glad things had turned out asthey had. The four men had little actual money invested. They had alltried honestly to do something for the town and he would see to it thateverything came out all right. "We'll be honest with every one, " he said. "The stock in the company has all been sold. We'll make some of themachines and sell them. If they're failures, as this inventor thinks, itwill not be our fault. The plant, you see, will have to be sold cheap. Whenthat times comes we five will have to save ourselves and the future of thetown. The machinery we have bought, is, you see, iron and wood workingmachinery, the very latest kind. It can be used to make some other thing. If the plant-setting machine is a failure we'll simply buy up the plant ata low price and make something else. Perhaps it'll be better for the townto have the entire stock control in our hands. You see we few men have gotto run things here. It's going to be on our shoulders to see that labor isemployed. A lot of small stock-holders are a nuisance. As man to man I'mgoing to ask each of you not to sell his stock, but if any one comes to youand asks about its value, I expect you to be loyal to our enterprise. I'llbegin looking about for something to replace the plant-setting machine, andwhen the shop closes we'll start right up again. It isn't every day men geta chance to sell themselves a fine plant full of new machinery as we can doin a year or so now. "

Steve went out of the bank and left the four men staring at each other. Then his father got up and went out. The other men, all connected with thebank, arose and wandered out. "Well, " said John Clark, somewhat heavily, "he's a smart man. I suppose after all it is up to us to stick with himand with the town. As he says, labor has got to be employed. I can't seethat it does a carpenter or a farmer any good to own a little stock in afactory. It only takes their minds off their work. They have foolish dreamsof getting rich and don't attend to their own affairs. It would be anactual benefit to the town if a few men owned the factory. " The bankerlighted a cigar and going to a window stared out into the main street ofBidwell. Already the town had changed. Three new brick buildings were beingerected on Main Street within sight of the bank window. Workmen employed inthe building of the factory had come to town to live, and many new houseswere being built. Everywhere things were astir. The stock of the companyhad been oversubscribed, and almost every day men came into the bank andspoke of wanting to buy more. Only the day before a farmer had come in withtwo thousand dollars. The banker's mind began to secrete the poison of hisage. "After all, it's men like Steve Hunter, Tom Butterworth, Gordon Hart, and myself that have to take care of things, and to be in shape to do itwe have to look out for ourselves, " he soliloquized. Again he stared intoMain Street. Tom Butterworth went out at the front door. He wanted to be byhimself and think his own thoughts. Gordon Hart returned to the empty backroom and standing by a window looked out into an alleyway. His thoughtsran in the same channel as those that played through the mind of the bankpresident. He also thought of men who wanted to buy stock in the companythat was doomed to failure. He began to doubt the judgment of Hugh McVeyin the matter of failure. "Such fellows are always pessimists, " he toldhimself. From the window at the back of the bank, he could see over theroofs of a row of small sheds and down a residence street to where twonew workingmen's houses were being built. His thoughts only differed fromthe thoughts of John Clark because he was a younger man. "A few men ofthe younger generation, like Steve and myself will have to take hold ofthings, " he muttered aloud. "We'll have to have money to work with. We'llhave to take the responsibility of the ownership of money. "

At the front of the bank John Clark puffed at his cigar. He felt like asoldier weighing the chances of battle. Vaguely he thought of himself asa general, a kind of U. S. Grant of industry. The lives and happiness ofmany people, he told himself, depended on the clear working of his brain. "Well, " he thought, "when factories start coming to a town and it begins togrow as this town is growing no man can stop it. The fellow who thinks ofindividual men, little fellows with their savings invested, who may be hurtby an industrial failure, is just a weakling. Men have to face the dutieslife brings. The few men who see clearly have to think first of themselves. They have to save themselves in order that they may save others. "

 * * * * *

Things kept on the stir in Bidwell and the gods of chance played into thehands of Steve Hunter. Hugh invented an apparatus for lifting a loadedcoal-car off the railroad tracks, carrying it high up into the air anddumping its contents into a chute. By its use an entire car of coal couldbe emptied with a roaring rush into the hold of a ship or the engine roomof a factory. A model of the new invention was made and a patent secured. Then Steve Hunter carried it off to New York. He received two hundredthousand dollars in cash for it, half of which went to Hugh. Steve's faithin the inventive genius of the Missourian was renewed and strengthened. Helooked forward with a feeling almost approaching pleasure to the time whenthe town would be forced to face the fact that the plant-setting machinewas a failure, and the factory with its new machinery would have to bethrown on the market. He knew that his associates in the promotion of theenterprise were secretly selling their stock. One day he went to Clevelandand had a long talk with a banker there. Hugh was at work on a corn-cuttingmachine and already he had secured an option on it. "Perhaps when thetime comes to sell the factory there'll be more than one bidder, " he toldErnestine, the soap maker's daughter, who had married him within a monthafter the sale of the car-unloading device. He grew indignant when he toldher of the disloyalty of the two men in the bank, and the rich farmer, Tom Butterworth. "They're selling their shares and letting the smallstock-holders lose their money, " he declared. "I told 'em not to do it. Nowif anything happens to spoil their plans they'll not have me to blame. "

Nearly a year had been spent in stirring up the people of Bidwell to thepoint of becoming investors. Then things began to stir. The ground wasbroken for the erection of the factory. No one knew of the difficultiesthat had been encountered in attempting to perfect the machine and wordwas passed about that in actual tests in the fields it had proven itselfentirely practical. The skeptical farmers who came into town on Saturdayswere laughed at by the town enthusiasts. A field, that had been plantedduring one of the brief periods when the machine finding ideal soilconditions had worked perfectly, was left to grow. As when he operatedthe tiny model in the store window, Steve took no chances. He engaged EdHall to go at night and replace the plants that did not live. "It's fairenough, " he explained to Ed. "A hundred things can cause the plants to die, but if they die it'll be blamed on the machine. What will become of thetown if we don't believe in the thing we're going to manufacture here?"

The crowds of people, who in the evenings walked out along Turner's Piketo look at the field with its long rows of sturdy young cabbages, movedrestlessly about and talked of the new days. From the field they went alongthe railroad tracks to the site of the factory. The brick walls began tomount up into the sky. Machinery began to arrive and was housed undertemporary sheds against the time when it could be installed. An advancehorde of workmen came to town and new faces appeared on Main Street in theevening. The thing that was happening in Bidwell happened in towns all overthe Middle West. Out through the coal and iron regions of Pennsylvania, into Ohio and Indiana, and on westward into the States bordering on theMississippi River, industry crept. Gas and oil were discovered in Ohio andIndiana. Over night, towns grew into cities. A madness took hold of theminds of the people. Villages like Lima and Findlay, Ohio, and like Muncieand Anderson in Indiana, became small cities within a few weeks. To some ofthese places, so anxious were the people to get to them and to invest theirmoney, excursion trains were run. Town lots that a few weeks before thediscovery of oil or gas could have been bought for a few dollars sold forthousands. Wealth seemed to be spurting out of the very earth. On farms inIndiana and Ohio giant gas wells blew the drilling machinery out of theground, and the fuel so essential to modern industrial development rushedinto the open. A wit, standing in the presence of one of the roaring gaswells exclaimed, "Papa, Earth has indigestion; he has gas on his stomach. His face will be covered with pimples. "

Having, before the factories came, no market for the gas, the wells werelighted and at night great torches of flame lit the skies. Pipes were laidon the surface of the ground and by a day's work a laborer earned enough toheat his house at tropical heat through an entire winter. Farmers owningoil-producing land went to bed in the evening poor and owing money at thebank, and awoke in the morning rich. They moved into the towns and investedtheir money in the factories that sprang up everywhere. In one county insouthern Michigan, over five hundred patents for woven wire farm fencingwere taken out in one year, and almost every patent was a magnet aboutwhich a company for the manufacture of fence formed itself. A vast energyseemed to come out of the breast of earth and infect the people. Thousandsof the most energetic men of the middle States wore themselves out informing companies, and when the companies failed, immediately formedothers. In the fast-growing towns, men who were engaged in organizingcompanies representing a capital of millions lived in houses thrownhurriedly together by carpenters who, before the time of the greatawakening, were engaged in building barns. It was a time of hideousarchitecture, a time when thought and learning paused. Without music, without poetry, without beauty in their lives or impulses, a whole people, full of the native energy and strength of lives lived in a new land, rushedpell-mell into a new age. A man in Ohio, who had been a dealer in horses, made a million dollars out of a patent churn he had bought for the price ofa farm horse, took his wife to visit Europe and in Paris bought a paintingfor fifty thousand dollars. In another State of the Middle West, a man whosold patent medicine from door to door through the country began dealing inoil leases, became fabulously rich, bought himself three daily newspapers, and before he had reached the age of thirty-five succeeded in havinghimself elected Governor of his State. In the glorification of his energyhis unfitness as a statesman was forgotten. 

In the days before the coming of industry, before the time of the madawakening, the towns of the Middle West were sleepy places devoted to thepractice of the old trades, to agriculture and to merchandising. In themorning the men of the towns went forth to work in the fields or to thepractice of the trade of carpentry, horse-shoeing, wagon making, harnessrepairing, and the making of shoes and clothing. They read books andbelieved in a God born in the brains of men who came out of a civilizationmuch like their own. On the farms and in the houses in the towns the menand women worked together toward the same ends in life. They lived in smallframe houses set on the plains like boxes, but very substantially built. The carpenter who built a farmer's house differentiated it from the barn byputting what he called scroll work up under the eaves and by building atthe front a porch with carved posts. After one of the poor little houseshad been lived in for a long time, after children had been born and men haddied, after men and women had suffered and had moments of joy together inthe tiny rooms under the low roofs, a subtle change took place. The housesbecame almost beautiful in their old humanness. Each of the houses beganvaguely to shadow forth the personality of the people who lived within itswalls. 

In the farmhouses and in the houses on the side streets in the villages, life awoke at dawn. Back of each of the houses there was a barn for thehorses and cows, and sheds for pigs and chickens. At daylight a chorus ofneighs, squeals, and cries broke the silence. Boys and men came out ofthe houses. They stood in the open spaces before the barns and stretchedtheir bodies like sleepy animals. The arms extended upward seemed to besupplicating the gods for fair days, and the fair days came. The men andboys went to a pump beside the house and washed their faces and handsin the cold water. In the kitchens there was the smell and sound of thecooking of food. The women also were astir. The men went into the barns tofeed the animals and then hurried to the houses to be themselves fed. Acontinual grunting sound came from the sheds where pigs were eating corn, and over the houses a contented silence brooded. 

After the morning meal men and animals went together to the fields and tothe doing of their tasks, and in the houses the women mended clothes, putfruit in cans against the coming of winter and talked of woman's affairs. On the streets of the towns on fair days lawyers, doctors, the officials ofthe county courts, and the merchants walked about in their shirt sleeves. The house painter went along with his ladder on his shoulder. In thestillness there could be heard the hammers of the carpenters building anew house for the son of a merchant who had married the daughter of ablacksmith. A sense of quiet growth awoke in sleeping minds. It was thetime for art and beauty to awake in the land. 

Instead, the giant, Industry, awoke. Boys, who in the schools had read ofLincoln, walking for miles through the forest to borrow his first book, andof Garfield, the towpath lad who became president, began to read in thenewspapers and magazines of men who by developing their faculty for gettingand keeping money had become suddenly and overwhelmingly rich. Hiredwriters called these men great, and there was no maturity of mind in thepeople with which to combat the force of the statement, often repeated. Like children the people believed what they were told. 

While the new factory was being built with the carefully saved dollarsof the people, young men from Bidwell went out to work in other places. After oil and gas were discovered in neighboring states, they went to thefast-growing towns and came home telling wonder tales. In the boom townsmen earned four, five and even six dollars a day. In secret and when noneof the older people were about, they told of adventures on which they hadgone in the new places; of how, attracted by the flood of money, women camefrom the cities; and the times they had been with these women. Young HarleyParsons, whose father was a shoemaker and who had learned the blacksmithtrade, went to work in one of the new oil fields. He came home wearing afancy silk vest and astonished his fellows by buying and smoking ten-centcigars. His pockets were bulging with money. "I'm not going to stay longin this town, you can bet on that, " he declared one evening as he stood, surrounded by a group of admirers before Fanny Twist's Millinery Shop onlower Main Street. "I have been with a Chinese woman, and an Italian, andwith one from South America. " He took a puff of his cigar and spat on thesidewalk. "I'm out to get what I can out of life, " he declared. "I'm goingback and I'm going to make a record. Before I get through I'm going to bewith a woman of every nationality on earth, that's what I'm going to do. "

Joseph Wainsworth the harness maker, who had been the first man in Bidwellto feel the touch of the heavy finger of industrialism, could not get overthe effect of the conversation had with Butterworth, the farmer who hadasked him to repair harnesses made by machines in a factory. He became asilent disgruntled man and muttered as he went about his work in the shop. When Will Sellinger his apprentice threw up his place and went to Clevelandhe did not get another boy but for a time worked alone in the shop. He gotthe name of being disagreeable, and on winter afternoons the farmers nolonger came into his place to loaf. Being a sensitive man, Joe felt like apigmy, a tiny thing walking always in the presence of a giant that mightat any moment and by a whim destroy him. All his life he had been somewhatoff-hand with his customers. "If they don't like my work, let 'em go to thedevil, " he said to his apprentices. "I know my trade and I don't have tobow down to any one here. "

When Steve Hunter organized the Bidwell Plant-Setting Machine Company, theharness maker put his savings, twelve hundred dollars, into the stock ofthe company. One day, during the time when the factory was building, heheard that Steve had paid twelve hundred dollars for a new lathe that hadjust arrived by freight and had been set on the floor of the uncompletedbuilding. The promoter had told a farmer that the lathe would do the workof a hundred men, and the farmer had come into Joe's shop and repeated thestatement. It stuck in Joe's mind and he came to believe that the twelvehundred dollars he had invested in stock had been used for the purchase ofthe lathe. It was money he had earned in a long lifetime of effort and ithad now bought a machine that would do the work of a hundred men. Alreadyhis money had increased by a hundred fold and he wondered why he couldnot be happy about the matter. On some days he was happy, and then hishappiness was followed by an odd fit of depression. Suppose, after all, the plant-setting machine wouldn't work? What then could be done with thelathe, with the machine bought with his money?

One evening after dark and without saying anything to his wife, he wentdown along Turner's Pike to the old factory at Pickleville where Hugh withthe half-wit Allie Mulberry, and the two mechanics from the city, werestriving to correct the faults in the plant-setting machine. Joe wantedto look at the tall gaunt man from the West, and had some notion oftrying to get into conversation with him and of asking his opinion of thepossibilities of the success of the new machine. The man of the age offlesh and blood wanted to walk in the presence of the man who belonged tothe new age of iron and steel. When he got to the factory it was dark andon an express truck in front of the Wheeling Station the two city workmensat smoking their evening pipes. Joe walked past them to the station doorand then returned along the platform and got again into Turner's Pike. Hestumbled along the path beside the road and presently saw Hugh McVey comingtoward him. It was one of the evenings when Hugh, overcome with loneliness, and puzzled that his new position in the town's life did not bring him anycloser to people, had gone to town to walk through Main Street, half hopingsome one would break through his embarrassment and enter into conversationwith him. 

When the harness maker saw Hugh walking in the path, he crept into a fencecorner, and crouching down, watched the man as Hugh had watched the Frenchboys at work in the cabbage fields. Strange thoughts came into his head. Hethought the extraordinarily tall figure before him in some way terrible. Hebecame childishly angry and for a moment thought that if he had a stone inhis hand he would throw it at the man, the workings of whose brain had soupset his own life. Then as the figure of Hugh went away along the pathanother mood came. "I have worked all my life for twelve hundred dollars, for money that will buy one machine that this man thinks nothing about, " hemuttered aloud. "Perhaps I'll get more money than I invested: Steve Huntersays maybe I will. If machines kill the harness-making trade what's thedifference? I'll be all right. The thing to do is to get in with the newtimes, to wake up, that's the ticket. With me it's like with every oneelse: nothing venture nothing gain. "

Joe crawled out of the fence corner and went stealthily along the roadbehind Hugh. A fervor seized him and he thought he would like to creepclose and touch with his finger the hem of Hugh's coat. Afraid to tryanything so bold his mind took a new turn. He ran in the darkness along theroad toward town and, when he had crossed the bridge and come to the NewYork Central tracks, turned west and went along the tracks until he came tothe new factory. In the darkness the half completed walls stuck up into thesky, and all about were piles of building materials. The night had beendark and cloudy, but now the moon began to push its way through the clouds. Joe crawled over a pile of bricks and through a window into the building. He felt his way along the walls until he came to a mass of iron covered bya rubber blanket. He was sure it must be the lathe his money had bought, the machine that was to do the work of a hundred men and that was to makehim comfortably rich in his old age. No one had spoken of any other machinehaving been brought in on the factory floor. Joe knelt on the floor and puthis hands about the heavy iron legs of the machine. "What a strong thingit is! It will not break easily, " he thought. He had an impulse to dosomething he knew would be foolish, to kiss the iron legs of the machineor to say a prayer as he knelt before it. Instead he got to his feet andcrawling out again through the window, went home. He felt renewed and fullof new courage because of the experiences of the night, but when he got tohis own house and stood at the door outside, he heard his neighbor, DavidChapman, a wheelwright who worked in Charlie Collins' wagon shop, prayingin his bedroom before an open window. Joe listened for a moment and, forsome reason he couldn't understand, his new-found faith was destroyed bywhat he heard. David Chapman, a devout Methodist, was praying for HughMcVey and for the success of his invention. Joe knew his neighbor had alsoinvested his savings in the stock of the new company. He had thought thathe alone was doubtful of success, but it was apparent that doubt had comealso into the mind of the wheelwright. The pleading voice of the prayingman, as it broke the stillness of the night, cut across and for the momentutterly destroyed his confidence. "O God, help the man Hugh McVey to removeevery obstacle that stands in his way, " David Chapman prayed. "Make theplant-setting machine a success. Bring light into the dark places. O Lord, help Hugh McVey, thy servant, to build successfully the plant-settingmachine. "

BOOK THREE

CHAPTER VIII

When Clara Butterworth, the daughter of Tom Butterworth, was eighteen yearsold she graduated from the town high school. Until the summer of herseventeenth year, she was a tall, strong, hard-muscled girl, shy in thepresence of strangers and bold with people she knew well. Her eyes wereextraordinarily gentle. 

The Butterworth house on Medina Road stood back of an apple orchard andthere was a second orchard beside the house. The Medina Road ran south fromBidwell and climbed gradually upward toward a country of low hills, andfrom the side porch of the Butterworth house the view was magnificent. The house itself was a large brick affair with a cupola on top and wasconsidered at that time the most pretentious place in the county. 

Behind the house were several great barns for the horses and cattle. Mostof Tom Butterworth's farm land lay north of Bidwell, and some of his fieldswere five miles from his home; but as he did not himself work the land itdid not matter. The farms were rented to men who worked them on shares. Beside the business of farming Tom carried on other affairs. He owned twohundred acres of hillside land near his house and, with the exception ofa few fields and a strip of forest land, it was devoted to the grazingof sheep and cattle. Milk and cream were delivered each morning to thehouseholders of Bidwell by two wagons driven by his employees. A half mileto the west of his residence there was a slaughter house on a side road andat the edge of a field where cattle were killed for the Bidwell market. Tomowned it and employed the men who did the killing. A creek that came downout of the hills through one of the fields past his house had been dammed, and south of the pond there was an ice house. He also supplied the townwith ice. In his orchards beneath the trees stood more than a hundredbeehives and every year he shipped honey to Cleveland. The farmer himselfwas a man who appeared to do nothing, but his shrewd mind was always atwork. In the summer throughout the long sleepy afternoons, he drove aboutover the county buying sheep and cattle, stopping to trade horses with somefarmer, dickering for new pieces of land, everlastingly busy. He had onepassion. He loved fast trotting horses, but would not humor himself byowning one. "It's a game that only gets you into trouble and debt, " he saidto his friend John Clark, the banker. "Let other men own the horses and gobroke racing them. I'll go to the races. Every fall I can go to Clevelandto the grand circuit. If I go crazy about a horse I can bet ten dollarshe'll win. If he doesn't I'm out ten dollars. If I owned him I would maybebe out hundreds for the expense of training and all that. " The farmer wasa tall man with a white beard, broad shoulders, and rather small slenderwhite hands. He chewed tobacco, but in spite of the habit kept both himselfand his white beard scrupulously clean. His wife had died while he was yetin the full vigor of life, but he had no eye for women. His mind, he oncetold one of his friends, was too much occupied with his own affairs andwith thoughts of the fine horses he had seen to concern itself with anysuch nonsense. 

For many years the farmer did not appear to pay much attention to hisdaughter Clara, who was his only child. Throughout her childhood she wasunder the care of one of his five sisters, all of whom except the one wholived with him and managed his household being comfortably married. His ownwife had been a somewhat frail woman, but his daughter had inherited hisown physical strength. 

When Clara was seventeen, she and her father had a quarrel that eventuallydestroyed their relationship. The quarrel began late in July. It was a busysummer on the farms and more than a dozen men were employed about thebarns, in the delivery of ice and milk to the town, and at the slaughteringpens a half mile away. During that summer something happened to the girl. For hours she sat in her own room in the house reading books, or lay ina hammock in the orchard and looked up through the fluttering leaves ofthe apple trees at the summer sky. A light, strangely soft and enticing, sometimes came into her eyes. Her figure that had been boyish and strongbegan to change. As she went about the house she sometimes smiled atnothing. Her aunt hardly noticed what was happening to her, but her father, who all her life had seemed hardly to take account of her existence, wasinterested. In her presence he began to feel like a young man. As in thedays of his courtship of her mother and before the possessive passion inhim destroyed his ability to love, he began to feel vaguely that life abouthim was full of significance. Sometimes in the afternoon when he wentfor one of his long drives through the country he asked his daughter toaccompany him, and although he had little to say a kind of gallantry creptinto his attitude toward the awakening girl. While she was in the buggywith him, he did not chew tobacco, and after one or two attempts to indulgein the habit without having the smoke blow in her face, he gave up smokinghis pipe during the drives. 

Always before that summer Clara had spent the months when there was noschool in the company of the farm hands. She rode on wagons, visited thebarns, and when she grew weary of the company of older people, went intotown to spend an afternoon with one of her friends among the town girls. 

In the summer of her seventeenth year she did none of these things. At thetable she ate in silence. The Butterworth household was at that time runon the old-fashioned American plan, and the farm hands, the men who drovethe ice and milk wagons and even the men who killed and dressed cattle andsheep, ate at the same table with Tom Butterworth, his sister, who was thehousekeeper, and his daughter. Three hired girls were employed in the houseand after all had been served they also came and took their places attable. The older men among the farmer's employees, many of whom had knownher from childhood, had got into the habit of teasing the daughter of thehouse. They made comments concerning town boys, young fellows who clerkedin stores or who were apprenticed to some tradesman and one of whom hadperhaps brought the girl home at night from a school party or from one ofthe affairs called "socials" that were held at the town churches. Afterthey had eaten in the peculiar silent intent way common to hungry laborers, the farm hands leaned back in their chairs and winked at each other. Twoof them began an elaborate conversation touching on some incident in thegirl's life. One of the older men, who had been on the farm for many yearsand who had a reputation among the others of being something of a wit, chuckled softly. He began to talk, addressing no one in particular. Theman's name was Jim Priest, and although the Civil War had come upon thecountry when he was past forty, he had been a soldier. In Bidwell he waslooked upon as something of a rascal, but his employer was very fond ofhim. The two men often talked together for hours concerning the meritsof well known trotting horses. In the war Jim had been what was calleda bounty man, and it was whispered about town that he had also been adeserter and a bounty jumper. He did not go to town with the other menon Saturday afternoons, and had never attempted to get into the Bidwellchapter of the G. A. R. On Saturdays when the other farm hands washed, shaved and dressed themselves in their Sunday clothes preparatory to theweekly flight to town, he called one of them into the barn, slipped aquarter into his hand, and said, "Bring me a half pint and don't you forgetit. " On Sunday afternoons he crawled into the hayloft of one of the barns, drank his weekly portion of whisky, got drunk, and sometimes did not appearagain until time to go to work on Monday morning. In the fall Jim took hissavings and went to spend a week at the grand circuit trotting meeting atCleveland, where he bought a costly present for his employer's daughter andthen bet the rest of his money on the races. When he was lucky he stayed onin Cleveland, drinking and carousing until his winnings were gone. 

It was Jim Priest who always led the attacks of teasing at the table, andin the summer of her seventeenth year, when she was no longer in the moodfor such horse-play, it was Jim who brought the practice to an end. At thetable Jim leaned back in his chair, stroked his red bristly beard, nowrapidly graying, looked out of a window over Clara's head, and told a taleconcerning an attempt at suicide on the part of a young man in love withClara. He said the young man, a clerk in a Bidwell store, had taken a pairof trousers from a shelf, tied one leg about his neck and the other to abracket in the wall. Then he jumped off a counter and had only been savedfrom death because a town girl, passing the store, had seen him and hadrushed in and cut him down. "Now what do you think of that?" he cried. "Hewas in love with our Clara, I tell you. "

After the telling of the tale, Clara got up from the table and ran out ofthe room. The farm hands joined by her father laughed heartily. Her auntshook her finger at Jim Priest, the hero of the occasion. "Why don't youlet her alone?" she asked. 

"She'll never get married if she stays here where you make fun of everyyoung man who pays her any attention. " At the door Clara stopped and, turning, put out her tongue at Jim Priest. Another roar of laughter arose. Chairs were scraped along the floor and the men filed out of the house togo back to the work in the barns and about the farm. 

In the summer when the change came over her Clara sat at the table and didnot hear the tales told by Jim Priest. She thought the farm hands who ateso greedily were vulgar, a notion she had never had before, and wished shedid not have to eat with them. One afternoon as she lay in the hammock inthe orchard, she heard several of the men in a nearby barn discussing thechange that had come over her. Jim Priest was explaining what had happened. "Our fun's over with Clara, " he said. "Now we'll have to treat her in a newway. She's no longer a kid. We'll have to let her alone or pretty soon shewon't speak to any of us. It's a thing that happens when a girl begins tothink about being a woman. The sap has begun to run up the tree. "

The puzzled girl lay in the hammock and looked up at the sky. She thoughtabout Jim Priest's words and tried to understand what he meant. Sadnesscrept over her and tears came into her eyes. Although she did not know whatthe old man meant by the words about the sap and the tree, she did, in adetached subconscious way, understand something of the import of the words, and she was grateful for the thoughtfulness that had led to his telling theothers to stop trying to tease her at the table. The half worn-out old farmhand, with the bristly beard and the strong old body, became a figure fullof significance to her mind. She remembered with gratitude that, in spiteof all of his teasing, Jim Priest had never said anything that had in anyway hurt her. In the new mood that had come upon her that meant much. Agreater hunger for understanding, love, and friendliness took possession ofher. She did not think of turning to her father or to her aunt, with whomshe had never talked of anything intimate or close to herself, but turnedinstead to the crude old man. A hundred minor points in the character ofJim Priest she had never thought of before came sharply into her mind. In the barns he had never mistreated the animals as the other farm handssometimes did. When on Sunday afternoons he was drunk and went staggeringthrough the barns, he did not strike the horses or swear at them. Shewondered if it would be possible for her to talk to Jim Priest, to ask himquestions about life and people and what he meant by his words regardingthe sap and the tree. The farm hand was old and unmarried. She wondered ifin his youth he had ever loved a woman. She decided he had. His words aboutthe sap were, she was sure, in some way connected with the idea of love. How strong his hands were. They were gnarled and rough, but there wassomething beautifully powerful about them. She half wished the old man hadbeen her father. In his youth, in the darkness at night or when he wasalone with a girl, perhaps in a quiet wood in the late afternoon when thesun was going down, he had put his hands on her shoulders. He had drawn thegirl to him. He had kissed her. 

Clara jumped quickly out of the hammock and walked about under the trees inthe orchard. Her thoughts of Jim Priest's youth startled her. It was asthough she had walked suddenly into a room where a man and woman weremaking love. Her cheeks burned and her hands trembled. As she walked slowlythrough the clumps of grass and weeds that grew between the trees where thesunlight struggled through, bees coming home to the hives heavily ladenwith honey flew in droves about her head. There was something heady andpurposeful about the song of labor that arose out of the beehives. It gotinto her blood and her step quickened. The words of Jim Priest that keptrunning through her mind seemed a part of the same song the bees weresinging. "The sap has begun to run up the tree, " she repeated aloud. Howsignificant and strange the words seemed! They were the kind of words alover might use in speaking to his beloved. She had read many novels, butthey contained no such words. It was better so. It was better to hear themfrom human lips. Again she thought of Jim Priest's youth and boldly wishedhe were still young. She told herself that she would like to see him youngand married to a beautiful young woman. She stopped by a fence that lookedout upon a hillside meadow. The sun seemed extraordinarily bright, thegrass in the meadow greener than she had ever seen it before. Two birds ina tree nearby made love to each other. The female flew madly about and waspursued by the male bird. In his eagerness he was so intent that he flewdirectly before the girl's face, his wing nearly touching her cheek. Shewent back through the orchard to the barns and through one of them to theopen door of a long shed that was used for housing wagons and buggies, hermind occupied with the idea of finding Jim Priest, of standing perhaps nearhim. He was not about, but in the open space before the shed, John May, ayoung man of twenty-two who had just come to work on the farm, was oilingthe wheels of a wagon. His back was turned and as he handled the heavywagon wheels the muscles could be seen playing beneath his thin cottonshirt. "It is so Jim Priest must have looked in his youth, " the girlthought. 

The farm girl wanted to approach the young man, to speak to him, to ask himquestions concerning many strange things in life she did not understand. She knew that under no circumstances would she be able to do such a thing, that it was but a meaningless dream that had come into her head, but thedream was sweet. She did not, however, want to talk to John May. At themoment she was in a girlish period of being disgusted at what she thoughtof as the vulgarity of the men who worked on the place. At the table theyate noisily and greedily like hungry animals. She wanted youth that waslike her own youth, crude and uncertain perhaps, but reaching eagerly outinto the unknown. She wanted to draw very near to something young, strong, gentle, insistent, beautiful. When the farm hand looked up and saw herstanding and looking intently at him, she was embarrassed. For a moment thetwo young animals, so unlike each other, stood staring at each other andthen, to relieve her embarrassment, Clara began to play a game. Among themen employed on the farm she had always passed for something of a tomboy. In the hayfields and in the barns she had wrestled and fought playfullywith both the old and the young men. To them she had always been aprivileged person. They liked her and she was the boss's daughter. One didnot get rough with her or say or do rough things. A basket of corn stoodjust within the door of the shed, and running to it Clara took an ear ofthe yellow corn and threw it at the farm hand. It struck a post of the barnjust above his head. Laughing shrilly Clara ran into the shed among thewagons, and the farm hand pursued her. 

John May was a very determined man. He was the son of a laborer in Bidwelland for two or three years had been employed about the stable of a doctor, something had happened between him and the doctor's wife and he had leftthe place because he had a notion that the doctor was becoming suspicious. The experience had taught him the value of boldness in dealing with women. Ever since he had come to work on the Butterworth farm, he had been havingthoughts regarding the girl who had now, he imagined, given him directchallenge. He was a little amazed by her boldness but did not stop to askhimself questions, she had openly invited him to pursue her. That wasenough. His accustomed awkwardness and clumsiness went away and he leapedlightly over the extended tongues of wagons and buggies. He caught Clarain dark corner of the shed. Without a word he took her tightly into hisarms and kissed her, first upon the neck and then on the mouth. She laytrembling and weak in his arms and he took hold of the collar of her dressand tore it open. Her brown neck and one of her hard, round breasts wereexposed. Clara's eyes grew big with fright. Strength came back into herbody. With her sharp hard little fist she struck John May in the face; andwhen he stepped back she ran quickly out of the shed. John May did notunderstand. He thought she had sought him out once and would return. "She'sa little green. I was too fast. I scared her. Next time I'll go a littleeasy, " he thought. 

Clara ran through the barn and then walked slowly to the house and wentupstairs to her own room. A farm dog followed her up the stairs and stoodat her door wagging his tail. She shut the door in his face. For the momenteverything that lived and breathed seemed to her gross and ugly. Her cheekswere pale and she pulled shut the blinds to the window and sat down on thebed, overcome with the strange new fear of life. She did not want even thesunlight to come into her presence. John May had followed her through thebarn and now stood in the barnyard staring at the house. She could see himthrough the cracks of the blinds and wished it were possible to kill himwith a gesture of her hand. 

The farm hand, full of male confidence, waited for her to come to thewindow and look down at him. He wondered if there were any one else in thehouse. Perhaps she would beckon to him. Something of the kind had happenedbetween him and the doctor's wife and it had turned out that way. Whenafter five or ten minutes he did not see her, he went back to the work ofoiling the wagon wheels. "It's going to be a slower thing. She's shy, agreen girl, " he told himself. 

One evening a week later Clara sat on the side porch of the house with herfather when John May came into the barnyard. It was a Wednesday evening andthe farm hands were not in the habit of going into town until Saturday, buthe was dressed in his Sunday clothes and had shaved and oiled his hair. Onthe occasion of a wedding or a funeral the laborers put oil in their hair. It was indicative of something very important about to happen. Clara lookedat him, and in spite of the feeling of repugnance that swept over her, hereyes glistened. Ever since the affair in the barn she had managed to avoidmeeting him but she was not afraid. He had in fact taught her something. There was a power within her with which she could conquer men. The touchof her father's shrewdness, that was a part of her nature, had come to herrescue. She wanted to laugh at the silly pretensions of the man, to make afool of him. Her cheeks flushed with pride in her mastery of the situation. 

John May walked almost to the house and then turned along the path thatled to the road. He made a gesture with his hand and by chance TomButterworth, who had been looking off across the open country towardBidwell, turned and saw both the movement and the leering confident smileon the farm hand's face. He arose and followed John May into the road, astonishment and anger fighting for possession of him. The two men stoodtalking for three minutes in the road before the house and then returned. The farm hand went to the barn and then came back along the path to theroad carrying under his arm a grain bag containing his work clothes. He didnot look up as he went past. The farmer returned to the porch. 

The misunderstanding that was to wreck the tender relationship that hadbegun to grow up between father and daughter began on that evening. TomButterworth was furious. He muttered and clinched his fists. Clara's heartbeat heavily. For some reason she felt guilty, as though she had beencaught in an intrigue with the man. For a long time her father remainedsilent and then he, like the farm hand, made a furious and brutal attack onher. "Where have you been with that fellow? What you been up to?" he askedharshly. 

For a time Clara did not answer her father's question. She wanted toscream, to strike him in the face with her fist as she had struck the manin the shed. Then her mind struggled to take hold of the new situation. Thefact that her father had accused her of seeking the thing that had happenedmade her hate John May less heartily. She had some one else to hate. 

Clara did not think the matter out clearly on that first evening but, afterdenying that she had ever been anywhere with John May, burst into tears andran into the house. In the darkness of her own room she began to think ofher father's words. For some reason she could not understand, the attackmade on her spirit seemed more terrible and unforgivable than the attackupon her body made by the farm hand in the shed. She began to understandvaguely that the young man had been confused by her presence on that warmsunshiny afternoon as she had been confused by the words uttered by JimPriest, by the song of the bees in the orchard, by the love-making of thebirds, and by her own uncertain thoughts. He had been confused and hewas stupid and young. There had been an excuse for his confusion. It wasunderstandable and could be dealt with. She had now no doubt of her ownability to deal with John May. As for her father--it was all right for himto be suspicious regarding the farm hand, but why had he been suspicious ofher?

The perplexed girl sat down in the darkness on the edge of the bed, and ahard look came into her eyes. After a time her father came up the stairsand knocked at her door. He did not come in but stood in the hallwayoutside and talked. She remained calm while the conversation lasted, andthat confused the man who had expected to find her in tears. That she wasnot seemed to him an evidence of guilt. 

Tom Butterworth, in many ways a shrewd, observing man, never understood thequality of his own daughter. He was an intensely possessive man and once, when he was newly married, there had been a suspicion in his mind thatthere was something between his wife and a young man who had worked on thefarm where he then lived. The suspicion was unfounded, but he dischargedthe man and one evening, when his wife had gone into town to do someshopping and did not return at the accustomed time, he followed, and whenhe saw her on the street stepped into a store to avoid a meeting. She wasin trouble. Her horse had become suddenly lame and she had to walk home. Without letting her see him the husband followed along the road. It wasdark and she heard the footsteps in the road behind her and becomingfrightened ran the last half mile to her own house. He waited until shehad entered and then followed her in, pretending he had just come from thebarns. When he heard her story of the accident to the horse and of herfright in the road he was ashamed; but as the horse, that had been left ina livery stable, seemed all right when he went for it the next day hebecame suspicious again. 

As he stood outside the door of his daughter's room, the farmer felt as hehad felt that evening long before when he followed his wife along the road. When on the porch downstairs he had looked up suddenly and had seen thegesture made by the farm hand, he had also looked quickly at his daughter. She looked confused and, he thought, guilty. "Well, it is the same thingover again, " he thought bitterly, "like mother, like daughter--they areboth of the same stripe. " Getting quickly out of his chair he had followedthe young man into the road and had discharged him. "Go, to-night. I don'twant to see you on the place again, " he said. In the darkness before thegirl's room he thought of many bitter things he wanted to say. He forgotshe was a girl and talked to her as he might have talked to a mature, sophisticated, and guilty woman. "Come, " he said, "I want to know thetruth. If you have been with that farm hand you are starting young. Hasanything happened between you?"

Clara walked to the door and confronted her father. The hatred of him, bornin that hour and that never left her, gave her strength. She did not knowwhat he was talking about, but had a keen sense of the fact that he, likethe stupid, young man in the shed, was trying to violate something veryprecious in her nature. "I don't know what you are talking about, " she saidcalmly, "but I know this. I am no longer a child. Within the last week I'vebecome a woman. If you don't want me in your house, if you don't like meany more, say so and I'll go away. "

The two people stood in the darkness and tried to look at each other. Clarawas amazed by her own strength and by the words that had come to her. Thewords had clarified something. She felt that if her father would but takeher into his arms or say some kindly understanding word, all could beforgotten. Life could be started over again. In the future she wouldunderstand much that she had not understood. She and her father could drawclose to each other. Tears came into her eyes and a sob trembled in herthroat. As her father, however, did not answer her words and turned to gosilently away, she shut the door with a loud bang and afterward lay awakeall night, white and furious with anger and disappointment. 

Clara left home to become a college student that fall, but before she lefthad another passage at arms with her father. In August a young man who wasto teach in the town schools came to Bidwell, and she met him at a suppergiven in the basement of the church. He walked home with her and came onthe following Sunday afternoon to call. She introduced the young man, aslender fellow with black hair, brown eyes, and a serious face, to herfather who answered by nodding his head and walking away. She and the youngman walked along a country road and went into a wood. He was five yearsolder than herself and had been to college, but she felt much the older andwiser. The thing that happens to so many women had happened to her. Shefelt older and wiser than all the men she had ever seen. She had decided, as most women finally decide, that there are two kinds of men in the world, those who are kindly, gentle, well-intentioned children, and those who, while they remain children, are obsessed with stupid, male vanity andimagine themselves born to be masters of life. Clara's thoughts on thematter were not very clear. She was young and her thoughts were indefinite. She had, however, been shocked into an acceptance of life and she was madeof the kind of stuff that survives the blows life gives. 

In the wood with the young school teacher, Clara began an experiment. Evening came on and it grew dark. She knew her father would be furious thatshe did not come home but she did not care. She led the school teacherto talk of love and the relationships of men and women. She pretended aninnocence that was not hers. School girls know many things that they do notapply to themselves until something happens to them such as had happened toClara. The farmer's daughter became conscious. She knew a thousand thingsshe had not known a month before and began to take her revenge upon men fortheir betrayal of her. In the darkness as they walked home together, shetempted the young man into kissing her, and later lay in his arms for twohours, entirely sure of herself, striving to find out, without risk toherself, the things she wanted to know about life. 

That night she again quarreled with her father. He tried to scold her forremaining out late with a man, and she shut the door in his face. Onanother evening she walked boldly out of the house with the school teacher. The two walked along a road to where a bridge went over a small stream. John May, who was still determined that the farmer's daughter was inlove with him, had on that evening followed the school teacher to theButterworth house and had been waiting outside intending to frighten hisrival with his fists. On the bridge something happened that drove theschool teacher away. John May came up to the two people and began to makethreats. The bridge had just been repaired and a pile of small, sharp-edgedstones lay close at hand. Clara picked one of them up and handed it to theschool teacher. "Hit him, " she said. "Don't be afraid. He's only a coward. Hit him on the head with the stone. "

The three people stood in silence waiting for something to happen. John Maywas disconcerted by Clara's words. He had thought she wanted him to pursueher. He stepped toward the school teacher, who dropped the stone that hadbeen put into his hand and ran away. Clara went back along the road towardher own house followed by the muttering farm hand who, after her speech atthe bridge, did not dare approach. "Maybe she was making a bluff. Maybeshe didn't want that young fellow to get on to what is between us, " hemuttered, as he stumbled along in the darkness. 

In the house Clara sat for a half hour at a table in the lighted livingroom beside her father, pretending to read a book. She half hoped he wouldsay something that would permit her to attack him. When nothing happenedshe went upstairs and to bed, only again to spend the night awake and whitewith anger at the thought of the cruel and unexplainable things life seemedtrying to do to her. 

In September Clara left the farm to attend the State University atColumbus. She was sent there because Tom Butterworth had a sister who wasmarried to a manufacturer of plows and lived at the State Capital. Afterthe incident with the farm hand and the misunderstanding that had sprungup between himself and his daughter, he was uncomfortable with her in thehouse and was glad to have her away. He did not want to frighten his sisterby telling of what had happened, and when he wrote, tried to be diplomatic. "Clara has been too much among the rough men who work on my farms and hadbecome a little rough, " he wrote. "Take her in hand. I want her to becomemore of a lady. Get her acquainted with the right kind of people. " Insecret he hoped she would meet and marry some young man while she was away. Two of his sisters had gone away to school and it had turned out that way. 

During the month before his daughter left home the farmer tried to besomewhat more human and gentle in his attitude toward her, but did notsucceed in dispelling the dislike of himself that had taken deep rootin her nature. At table he made jokes at which the farm hands laughedboisterously. Then he looked at his daughter who did not appear to havebeen listening. Clara ate quickly and hurried out of the room. She did notgo to visit her girl friends in town and the young school teacher cameno more to see her. During the long summer afternoons she walked in theorchard among the beehives or climbed over fences and went into a wood, where she sat for hours on a fallen log staring at the trees and the sky. Tom Butterworth also hurried out of his house. He pretended to be busy andevery day drove far and wide over the country. Sometimes he thought he hadbeen brutal and crude in his treatment of his daughter, and decided hewould speak to her regarding the matter and ask her to forgive him. Thenhis suspicion returned. He struck the horse with the whip and drovefuriously along the lonely roads. "Well, there's something wrong, " hemuttered aloud. "Men don't just look at women and approach them boldly, asthat young fellow did with Clara. He did it before my very eyes. He's beengiven some encouragement. " An old suspicion awoke in him. "There wassomething wrong with her mother, and there's something wrong with her. I'llbe glad when the time comes for her to marry and settle down, so I can gether off my hands, " he thought bitterly. 

On the evening when Clara left the farm to go to the train that was totake her away, her father said he had a headache, a thing he had neverbeen known to complain of before, and told Jim Priest to drive her to thestation. Jim took the girl to the station, saw to the checking of herbaggage, and waited about until her train came in. Then he boldly kissedher on the cheek. "Good-by, little girl, " he said gruffly. Clara was sograteful she could not reply. On the train she spent an hour weepingsoftly. The rough gentleness of the old farm hand had done much to take thegrowing bitterness out of her heart. She felt that she was ready to beginlife anew, and wished she had not left the farm without coming to a betterunderstanding with her father. 

CHAPTER IX

The Woodburns of Columbus were wealthy by the standards of their day. Theylived in a large house and kept two carriages and four servants, but hadno children. Henderson Woodburn was small of stature, wore a gray beard, and was neat and precise about his person. He was treasurer of the plowmanufacturing company and was also treasurer of the church he and hiswife attended. In his youth he had been called "Hen" Woodburn and hadbeen bullied by larger boys, and when he grew to be a man and after hispersistent shrewdness and patience had carried him into a position of somepower in the business life of his native city he in turn became somethingof a bully to the men beneath him. He thought his wife Priscilla had comefrom a better family than his own and was a little afraid of her. When theydid not agree on any subject, she expressed her opinion gently but firmly, while he blustered for a time and then gave in. After a misunderstandinghis wife put her arms about his neck and kissed the bald spot on the top ofhis head. Then the subject was forgotten. 

Life in the Woodburn house was lived without words. After the stir andbustle of the farm, the silence of the house for a long time frightenedClara. Even when she was alone in her own room she walked about on tiptoe. Henderson Woodburn was absorbed in his work, and when he came home in theevening, ate his dinner in silence and then worked again. He brought homeaccount books and papers from the office and spread them out on a table inthe living room. His wife Priscilla sat in a large chair under a lamp andknitted children's stockings. They were, she told Clara, for the childrenof the poor. As a matter of fact the stockings never left her house. In alarge trunk in her room upstairs lay hundreds of pairs knitted during thetwenty-five years of her family life. 

Clara was not very happy in the Woodburn household, but on the other hand, was not very unhappy. She attended to her studies at the Universitypassably well and in the late afternoons took a walk with a girl classmate, attended a matinee at the theater, or read a book. In the evening she satwith her aunt and uncle until she could no longer bear the silence, andthen went to her own room, where she studied until it was time to go tobed. Now and then she went with the two older people to a social affair atthe church, of which Henderson Woodburn was treasurer, or accompanied themto dinners at the homes of other well-to-do and respectable business men. On several occasions young men, sons of the people with whom the Woodburnsdined, or students at the university, came in the evening to call. On suchan occasion Clara and the young man sat in the parlor of the house andtalked. After a time they grew silent and embarrassed in each other'spresence. From the next room Clara could hear the rustling of the paperscontaining the columns of figures over which her uncle was at work. Heraunt's knitting needles clicked loudly. The young man told a tale of somefootball game, or if he had already gone out into the world, talked of hisexperiences as a traveler selling the wares manufactured or merchandized byhis father. Such visits all began at the same hour, eight o'clock, and theyoung man left the house promptly at ten. Clara grew to feel that she wasbeing merchandized and that they had come to look at the goods. One eveningone of the men, a fellow with laughing blue eyes and kinky yellow hair, unconsciously disturbed her profoundly. All the evening he talked just asthe others had talked and got out of his chair to go away at the prescribedhour. Clara walked with him to the door. She put out her hand, which heshook cordially. Then he looked at her and his eyes twinkled. "I've hada good time, " he said. Clara had a sudden and almost overpowering desireto embrace him. She wanted to disturb his assurance, to startle him bykissing him on the lips or holding him tightly in her arms. Shutting thedoor quickly, she stood with her hand on the door-knob, her whole bodytrembling. The trivial by-products of her age's industrial madness wenton in the next room. The sheets of paper rustled and the knitting needlesclicked. Clara thought she would like to call the young man back into thehouse, lead him to the room where the meaningless industry went endlesslyon and there do something that would shock them and him as they had neverbeen shocked before. She ran quickly upstairs. "What is getting to be thematter with me?" she asked herself anxiously. 

 * * * * *

One evening in the month of May, during her third year at the University, Clara sat on the bank of a tiny stream by a grove of trees, far out on theedge of a suburban village north of Columbus. Beside her sat a young mannamed Frank Metcalf whom she had known for a year and who had once been astudent in the same classes with herself. He was the son of the presidentof the plow manufacturing company of which her uncle was treasurer. As theysat together by the stream the afternoon light began to fade and darknesscame on. Before them across an open field stood a factory, and Clararemembered that the whistle had long since blown and the men from thefactory had gone home. She grew restless and sprang to her feet. YoungMetcalf who had been talking very earnestly arose and stood beside her. "I can't marry for two years, but we can be engaged and that will be allthe same thing as far as the right and wrong of what I want and need isconcerned. It isn't my fault I can't ask you to marry me now, " he declared. "In two years now, I'll inherit eleven thousand dollars. My aunt left it tome and the old fool went and fixed it so I don't get it if I marry beforeI'm twenty-four. I want that money. I've got to have it, but I got to haveyou too. "

Clara looked away into the evening darkness and waited for him to finishhis speech. All afternoon he had been making practically the same speech, over and over. "Well, I can't help it, I'm a man, " he said doggedly. "Ican't help it, I want you. I can't help it, my aunt was an old fool. " Hebegan to explain the necessity of remaining unmarried in order that hecould receive the eleven thousand dollars. "If I don't get that money I'llbe just the same as I am now, " he declared. "I won't be any good. " He grewangry and, thrusting his hands into his pockets, stared also across thefield into the darkness. "Nothing keeps me satisfied, " he said. "I hatebeing in my father's business and I hate going to school. In only two yearsI'll get the money. Father can't keep it from me. I'll take it and lightout. I don't know just what I'll do. I'm going maybe to Europe, that's whatI'm going to do. Father wants me to stay here and work in his office. Tohell with that. I want to travel. I'll be a soldier or something. AnywayI'll get out of here and go somewhere and do something exciting, somethingalive. You can go with me. We'll cut out together. Haven't you got thenerve? Why don't you be my woman?"

Young Metcalf took hold of Clara's shoulder and tried to take her into hisarms. For a moment they struggled and then, in disgust, he stepped awayfrom her and again began to scold. 

Clara walked away across two or three vacant lots and got into a street ofworkingmen's houses, the man following at her heels. Night had come and thepeople in the street facing the factory had already disposed of the eveningmeal. Children and dogs played in the road and a strong smell of food hungin the air. To the west across the fields, a passenger train ran past goingtoward the city. Its light made wavering yellow patches against the bluishblack sky. Clara wondered why she had come to the out of the way place withFrank Metcalf. She did not like him, but there was a restlessness in himthat was like the restless thing in herself. He did not want stupidly toaccept life, and that fact made him brother to herself. Although he was buttwenty-two years old, he had already achieved an evil reputation. A servantin his father's house had given birth to a child by him, and it had cost agood deal of money to get her to take the child and go away without makingan open scandal. During the year before he had been expelled from theUniversity for throwing another young man down a flight of stairs, and itwas whispered about among the girl students that he often got violentlydrunk. For a year he had been trying to ingratiate himself with Clara, hadwritten her letters, sent flowers to her house, and when he met her on thestreet had stopped to urge that she accept his friendship. On the day inMay she had met him on the street and he had begged that she give him onechance to talk things out with her. They had met at a street crossing wherecars went past into the suburban villages that lay about the city. "Comeon, " he had urged, "let's take a street car ride, let's get out of thecrowds, I want to talk to you. " He had taken hold of her arm and fairlydragged her to a car. "Come and hear what I have to say, " he had urged, "then if you don't want to have anything to do with me, all right. Youcan say so and I'll let you alone. " After she had accompanied him to thesuburb of workingmen's houses, in the vicinity of which they had spent theafternoon in the fields, Clara had found he had nothing to urge upon herexcept the needs of his body. Still she felt there was something he wantedto say that had not been said. He was restless and dissatisfied with hislife, and at bottom she felt that way about her own life. During the lastthree years she had often wondered why she had come to the school and whatshe was to gain by learning things out of books. The days and months wentpast and she knew certain rather uninteresting facts she had not knownbefore. How the facts were to help her to live, she couldn't make out. They had nothing to do with such problems as her attitude toward men likeJohn May the farm hand, the school teacher who had taught her something byholding her in his arms and kissing her, and the dark sullen young man whonow walked beside her and talked of the needs of his body. It seemed toClara that every additional year spent at the University but served toemphasize its inadequacy. It was so also with the books she read and thethoughts and actions of the older people about her. Her aunt and uncledid not talk much, but seemed to take it for granted she wanted to livesuch another life as they were living. She thought with horror of theprobability of marrying a maker of plows or of some other dull necessityof life and then spending her days in the making of stockings for babiesthat did not come, or in some other equally futile manifestation of herdissatisfaction. She realized with a shudder that men like her uncle, whospent their lives in adding up rows of figures or doing over and over sometremendously trivial thing, had no conception of any outlook for theirwomen beyond living in a house, serving them physically, wearing perhapsgood enough clothes to help them make a show of prosperity and success, anddrifting finally into a stupid acceptance of dullness--an acceptance thatboth she and the passionate, twisted man beside her were fighting against. 

In a class in the University Clara had met, during that her third yearthere, a woman named Kate Chanceller, who had come to Columbus with herbrother from a town in Missouri, and it was this woman who had given herthoughts form, who had indeed started her thinking of the inadequacy ofher life. The brother, a studious, quiet man, worked as a chemist in amanufacturing plant somewhere at the edge of town. He was a musician andwanted to become a composer. One evening during the winter his sister Katehad brought Clara to the apartment where the two lived, and the three hadbecome friends. Clara had learned something there that she did not yetunderstand and never did get clearly into her consciousness. The truth wasthat the brother was like a woman and Kate Chanceller, who wore skirts andhad the body of a woman, was in her nature a man. Kate and Clara spent manyevenings together later and talked of many things not usually touched on bygirl students. Kate was a bold, vigorous thinker and was striving to gropeher way through her own problem in life and many times, as they walkedalong the street or sat together in the evening, she forgot her companionand talked of herself and the difficulties of her position in life. "It'sabsurd the way things are arranged, " she said. "Because my body is madein a certain way I'm supposed to accept certain rules for living. Therules were not made for me. Men manufactured them as they manufacturecan-openers, on the wholesale plan. " She looked at Clara and laughed. "Tryto imagine me in a little lace cap, such as your aunt wears about thehouse, and spending my days knitting baby stockings, " she said. 

The two women had spent hours talking of their lives and in speculatingon the differences in their natures. The experience had been tremendouslyeducational for Clara. As Kate was a socialist and Columbus was rapidlybecoming an industrial city, she talked of the meaning of capital and laborand the effect of changing conditions on the lives of men and women. ToKate, Clara could talk as to a man, but the antagonism that so often existsbetween men and women did not come into and spoil their companionship. Inthe evening when Clara went to Kate's house her aunt sent a carriage tobring her home at nine. Kate rode home with her. They got to the Woodburnhouse and went in. Kate was bold and free with the Woodburns, as with herbrother and Clara. "Come, " she said laughing, "put away your figures andyour knitting. Let's talk. " She sat in a large chair with her legs crossedand talked with Henderson Woodburn of the affairs of the plow company. Thetwo got into a discussion of the relative merits of the free trade andprotection ideas. Then the two older people went to bed and Kate talked toClara. "Your uncle is an old duffer, " she said. "He knows nothing about themeaning of what he's doing in life. " When she started home afoot across thecity, Clara was alarmed for her safety. "You must get a cab or let me wakeup uncle's man; something may happen, " she said. Kate laughed and went off, striding along the street like a man. Sometimes she thrust her hands intoher skirt pockets, that were like the trouser pockets of a man, and it wasdifficult for Clara to remember that she was a woman. In Kate's presenceshe became bolder than she had ever been with any one. One evening she toldthe story of the thing that had happened to her that afternoon long beforeon the farm, the afternoon when, her mind having been inflamed by the wordsof Jim Priest regarding the sap that goes up the tree and by the warmsensuous beauty of the day, she had wanted so keenly to draw close to someone. She explained to Kate how she had been so brutally jarred out of thefeeling in herself that she felt was at bottom all right. "It was like ablow in the face at the hand of God, " she said. 

Kate Chanceller was excited as Clara told the tale and listened with afiery light burning in her eyes. Something in her manner encouraged Clarato tell also of her experiments with the school teacher and for the firsttime she got a sense of justice toward men by talking to the woman who washalf a man. "I know that wasn't square, " she said. "I know now, when I talkto you, but I didn't know then. With the school teacher I was as unfair asJohn May and my father were with me. Why do men and women have to fighteach other? Why does the battle between them have to go on?"

Kate walked up and down before Clara and swore like a man. "Oh, hell, " sheexclaimed, "men are such fools and I suppose women are as bad. They areboth too much one thing. I fall in between. I've got my problem too, butI'm not going to talk about it. I know what I'm going to do. I'm going tofind some kind of work and do it. " She began to talk of the stupidity ofmen in their approach to women. "Men hate such women as myself, " she said. "They can't use us, they think. What fools! They should watch and study us. Many of us spend our lives loving other women, but we have skill. Beingpart women, we know how to approach women. We are not blundering and crude. Men want a certain thing from you. It is delicate and easy to kill. Loveis the most sensitive thing in the world. It's like an orchid. Men try topluck orchids with ice tongs, the fools. "

Walking to where Clara stood by a table, and taking her by the shoulder, the excited woman stood for a long time looking at her. Then she picked upher hat, put it on her head, and with a flourish of her hand started forthe door. "You can depend on my friendship, " she said. "I'll do nothing toconfuse you. You'll be in luck if you can get that kind of love orfriendship from a man. "

Clara kept thinking of the words of Kate Chanceller on the evening when shewalked through the streets of the suburban village with Frank Metcalf, andlater as the two sat on the car that took them back to the city. With theexception of another student named Phillip Grimes, who had come to see hera dozen times during her second year in the University, young Metcalf wasthe only one of perhaps a dozen men she had met since leaving the farm whohad been attracted to her. Phillip Grimes was a slender young fellow withblue eyes, yellow hair and a not very vigorous mustache. He was from asmall town in the northern end of the State, where his father published aweekly newspaper. When he came to see Clara he sat on the edge of his chairand talked rapidly. Some person he had seen in the street had interestedhim. "I saw an old woman on the car, " he began. "She had a basket on herarm. It was filled with groceries. She sat beside me and talked aloud toherself. " Clara's visitor repeated the words of the old woman on the car. He speculated about her, wondered what her life was like. When he hadtalked of the old woman for ten or fifteen minutes, he dropped the subjectand began telling of another experience, this time with a man who soldfruit at a street crossing. It was impossible to be personal with PhillipGrimes. Nothing but his eyes were personal. Sometimes he looked at Clara ina way that I made her feel that her clothes were being stripped from herbody, and that she was being made to stand naked in the room before hervisitor. The experience, when it came, was not entirely a physical one. Itwas only in part that. When the thing happened Clara saw her whole lifebeing stripped bare. "Don't look at me like that, " she once said somewhatsharply, when his eyes had made her so uncomfortable she could no longerremain silent. Her remark had frightened Phillip Grimes away. He got up atonce, blushed, stammered something about having another engagement, andhurried away. 

In the street car, homeward bound beside Frank Metcalf, Clara thought ofPhillip Grimes and wondered whether or not he would have stood the test ofKate Chanceller's speech regarding love and friendship. He had confusedher, but that was perhaps her own fault. He had not insisted on himselfat all. Frank Metcalf had done nothing else. "One should be able, " shethought, "to find somewhere a man who respects himself and his own desiresbut can understand also the desires and fears of a woman. " The street carwent bouncing along over railroad crossings and along residence streets. Clara looked at her companion, who stared straight ahead, and then turnedto look out of the car window. The window was open and she could see theinteriors of the laborers' houses along the streets. In the evening withthe lamps lighted they seemed cosy and comfortable. Her mind ran back tothe life in her father's house and its loneliness. For two summers she hadescaped going home. At the end of her first year in school she had made anillness of her uncle's an excuse for spending the summer in Columbus, andat the end of the second year she had found another excuse for not going. This year she felt she would have to go home. She would have to sit dayafter day at the farm table with the farm hands. Nothing would happen. Herfather would remain silent in her presence. She would become bored andweary of the endless small talk of the town girls. If one of the town boysbegan to pay her special attention, her father would become suspicious andthat would lead to resentment in herself. She would do something she didnot want to do. In the houses along the streets through which the carpassed, she saw women moving about. Babies cried and men came out of thedoors and stood talking to one another on the sidewalks. She decidedsuddenly that she was taking the problem of her own life too seriously. "The thing to do is to get married and then work things out afterward, " shetold herself. She made up her mind that the puzzling, insistent antagonismthat existed between men and women was altogether due to the fact that theywere not married and had not the married people's way of solving suchproblems as Frank Metcalf had been talking about all afternoon. She wishedshe were with Kate Chancellor so that she could discuss with her this newviewpoint. When she and Frank Metcalf got off the car she was no longer ina hurry to go home to her uncle's house. Knowing she did not want to marryhim, she thought that in her turn she would talk, that she would try tomake him see her point of view as all the afternoon he had been trying tomake her see his. 

For an hour the two people walked about and Clara talked. She forgot aboutthe passage of time and the fact that she had not dined. Not wishing totalk of marriage, she talked instead of the possibility of friendshipbetween men and women. As she talked her own mind seemed to her to havebecome clearer. "It's all foolishness your going on as you have, " shedeclared. "I know how dissatisfied and unhappy you sometimes are. I oftenfeel that way myself. Sometimes I think it's marriage I want. I reallythink I want to draw close to some one. I believe every one is hungry forthat experience. We all want something we are not willing to pay for. Wewant to steal it or have it given us. That's what's the matter with me, andthat's what's the matter with you. "

They came to the Woodburn house, and turning in stood on a porch in thedarkness by the front door. At the back of the house Clara could seea light burning. Her aunt and uncle were at the eternal figuring andknitting. They were finding a substitute for living. It was the thing FrankMetcalf was protesting against and was the real reason for her own constantsecret protest. She took hold of the lapel of his coat, intending to make aplea, to urge upon him the idea of a friendship that would mean somethingto them both. In the darkness she could not see his rather heavy, sullenface. The maternal instinct became strong in her and she thought of himas a wayward, dissatisfied boy, wanting love and understanding as she hadwanted to be loved and understood by her father when life in the moment ofthe awakening of her womanhood seemed ugly and brutal. With her free handshe stroked the sleeve of his coat. Her gesture was misunderstood by theman who was not thinking of her words but of her body and of his hungerto possess it. He took her into his arms and held her tightly against hisbreast. She tried to struggle, to tear herself away but, although she wasstrong and muscular, she found herself unable to move. As he held heruncle, who had heard the two people come up the steps to the door, threw itopen. Both he and his wife had on several occasions warned Clara to havenothing to do with young Metcalf. One day when he had sent flowers to thehouse, her aunt had urged her to refuse to receive them. "He's a bad, dissipated, wicked man, " she had said. "Have nothing to do with him. " Whenhe saw his niece in the arms of the man who had been the subject of so muchdiscussion in his own house and in every respectable house in Columbus, Henderson Woodburn was furious. He forgot the fact that young Metcalf wasthe son of the president of the company of which he was treasurer. Itseemed to him that some sort of a personal insult had been thrown at him bya common ruffian. "Get out of here, " he screamed. "What do you mean, younasty villain? Get out of here. "

Frank Metcalf went off along the street laughing defiantly, and Clara wentinto the house. The sliding doors that led into the living room had beenthrown open and the light from a hanging lamp streamed in upon her. Herhair was disheveled and her hat twisted to one side. The man and womanstared at her. The knitting needles and a sheet of paper held in theirhands suggested what they had been doing while Clara was getting anotherlesson from life. Her aunt's hands trembled and the knitting needlesclicked together. Nothing was said and the confused and angry girl ran up astairway to her own room. She locked herself in and knelt on the floor bythe bed. She did not pray. Her association with Kate Chanceller had givenher another outlet for her feelings. Pounding with her fists on the bedcoverings, she swore. "Fools, damned fools, the world is filled withnothing but a lot of damned fools. "

CHAPTER X

Clara Butterworth left Bidwell, Ohio, in September of the year in whichSteve Hunter's plant-setting machine company went into the hands of areceiver, and in January of the next year that enterprising young man, together with Tom Butterworth, bought the plant. In March a new company wasorganized and at once began making Hugh's corn-cutting machine, a successfrom the beginning. The failure of the first company and the sale of theplant had created a furor in the town. Both Steve and Tom Butterworthcould, however, point to the fact that they had held on to their stock andlost their money in common with every one else. Tom had indeed sold hisstock because he needed ready money, as he explained, but had shown hisgood faith by buying again just before the failure. "Do you suppose I wouldhave done that had I known what was up?" he asked the men assembled in thestores. "Go look at the books of the company. Let's have an investigationhere. You will find that Steve and I stuck to the rest of the stockholders. We lost our money with the rest. If any one was crooked and when they saw afailure coming went and got out from under at the expense of some one else, it wasn't Steve and me. The books of the company will show we were game. Itwasn't our fault the plant-setting machine wouldn't work. "

In the back room of the bank, John Clark and young Gordon Hart cursed Steveand Tom, who, they declared, had sold them out. They had lost no money bythe failure, but on the other hand they had gained nothing. The four menhad sent in a bid for the plant when it was put up for sale, but as theyexpected no competition, they had not bid very much. It had gone to a firmof Cleveland lawyers who bid a little more, and later had been resold atprivate sale to Steve and Tom. An investigation was started and it wasfound that Steve and Tom held large blocks of stock in the defunct company, while the bankers held practically none. Steve openly said that he hadknown of the possibility of failure for some time and had warned the largerstock-holders and asked them not to sell their stock. "While I was workingmy head off trying to save the company, what were they up to?" he askedsharply, and his question was repeated in the stores and in the homes ofthe people. 

The truth of the matter, and the thing the town never found out, was thatfrom the beginning Steve had intended to get the plant for himself, but atthe last had decided it would be better to take some one in with him. Hewas afraid of John Clark. For two or three days he thought about the matterand decided that the banker was not to be trusted. "He's too good a friendto Tom Butterworth, " he told himself. "If I tell him my scheme, he'll tellTom. I'll go to Tom myself. He's a money maker and a man who knows thedifference between a bicycle and a wheelbarrow when you put one of theminto bed with him. "

Steve drove out to Tom's house late one evening in September. He hated togo but was convinced it would be better to do so. "I don't want to burnall my bridges behind me, " he told himself. "I've got to have at least onefriend among the solid men here in town. I've got to do business with theserubes, maybe all my life. I can't shut myself off too much, at least notyet a while. "

When Steve got to the farm he asked Tom to get into his buggy, and the twomen went for a long drive. The horse, a gray gelding with one blind eyehired for the occasion from liveryman Neighbors, went slowly along throughthe hill country south of Bidwell. He had hauled hundreds of young men withtheir sweethearts. Ambling slowly along, thinking perhaps of his own youthand of the tyranny of man that had made him a gelding, he knew that as longas the moon shone and the intense voiceless quiet continued to reign overthe two people in the buggy, the whip would not come out of its socket andhe would not be expected to hurry. 

On the September evening, however, the gray gelding had behind him such aload as he had never carried before. The two people in the buggy on thatevening were not foolish, meandering sweethearts, thinking only of love, and allowing themselves to be influenced in their mood by the beauty of thenight, the softness of the black shadows in the road, and the gentle nightwinds that crept down over the crests of hills. They were solid businessmen, mentors of the new age, the kind of men who, in the future of Americaand perhaps of the whole world, were to be the makers of governments, themolders of public opinion, the owners of the press, the publishers ofbooks, buyers of pictures, and in the goodness of their hearts, the feedersof an occasional starving and improvident poet, lost on other roads. In anyevent the two men sat in the buggy and the gray gelding meandered alongthrough the hills. Great splashes of moonlight lay in the road. By chanceit was on the same evening that Clara Butterworth left home to become astudent in the State University. Remembering the kindness and tenderness ofthe rough old farm hand, Jim Priest, who had brought her to the station, she lay in her berth in the sleeping car and looked out at the roads, washed with moonlight, that slid away into the distance like ghosts. Shethought of her father on that night and of the misunderstanding that hadgrown up between them. For the moment she was tender with regrets. "Afterall, Jim Priest and my father must be a good deal alike, " she thought. "They have lived on the same farm, eaten the same food; they both lovehorses. There can't be any great difference between them. " All night shethought of the matter. An obsession, that the whole world was aboard themoving train and that, as it ran swiftly along, it was carrying the peopleof the world into some strange maze of misunderstanding, took possessionof her. So strong was it that it affected her deeply buried unconsciousself and made her terribly afraid. It seemed to her that the walls of thesleeping-car berth were like the walls of a prison that had shut her awayfrom the beauty of life. The walls seemed to close in upon her. The walls, like life itself, were shutting in upon her youth and her youthful desireto reach a hand out of the beauty in herself to the buried beauty inothers. She sat up in the berth and forced down a desire in herself tobreak the car window and leap out of the swiftly moving train into thequiet night bathed with moonlight. With girlish generosity she took uponher own shoulders the responsibility for the misunderstanding that hadgrown up between herself and her father. Later she lost the impulse thatled her to come to that decision, but during that night it persisted. Itwas, in spite of the terror caused by the hallucination regarding themoving walls of the berth that seemed about to crush her and that came backtime after time, the most beautiful night she had ever lived through, andit remained in her memory throughout her life. She in fact came to thinklater of that night as the time when, most of all, it would have beenbeautiful and right for her to have been able to give herself to a lover. Although she did not know it, the kiss on the cheek from the bewhiskeredlips of Jim Priest had no doubt something to do with that thought when itcame. 

And while the girl fought her battle with the strangeness of life and triedto break through the imaginary walls that shut her off from the opportunityto live, her father also rode through the night. With a shrewd eye hewatched the face of Steve Hunter. It had already begun to get a little fat, but Tom realized suddenly that it was the face of a man of ability. Therewas something about the jowls that made Tom, who had dealt much in livestock, think of the face of a pig. "The man goes after what he wants. He'sgreedy, " the farmer thought. "Now he's up to something. To get what hewants he'll give me a chance to get something I want. He's going to makesome kind of proposal to me in connection with the factory. He's hatched upa scheme to shut Gordon Hart and John Clark out because he doesn't want toomany partners. All right, I'll go in with him. Either one of them wouldhave done the same thing had they had the chance. "

Steve smoked a black cigar and talked. As he grew more sure of himself andthe affairs that absorbed him, he also became more smooth and persuasive inthe matter of words. He talked for a time of the necessity of certain men'ssurviving and growing constantly stronger and stronger in the industrialworld. "It's necessary for the good of the community, " he said. "A fewfairly strong men are a good thing for a town, but if they are fewerand relatively stronger it's better. " He turned to look sharply at hiscompanion. "Well, " he exclaimed, "we talked there in the bank of what wewould do when things went to pieces down at the factory, but there were toomany men in the scheme. I didn't realize it at the time, but I do now. " Heknocked the ashes off his cigar and laughed. "You know what they did, don'tyou?" he asked. "I asked you all not to sell any of your stock. I didn'twant to get the whole town bitter. They wouldn't have lost anything. Ipromised to see them through, to get the plant for them at a low price, to put them in the way to make some real money. They played the game in asmall-town way. Some men can think of thousands of dollars, others have tothink of hundreds. It's all their minds are big enough to comprehend. Theysnatch at a little measly advantage and miss the big one. That's what thesemen have done. "

For a long time the two rode in silence. Tom, who had also sold his stock, wondered if Steve knew. He decided he did. "However, he's decided to dealwith me. He needs some one and has chosen me, " he thought. He made up hismind to be bold. After all, Steve was young. Only a year or two before hewas nothing but a young upstart and the very boys in the street laughed athim. Tom grew a little indignant, but was careful to take thought beforehe spoke. "Perhaps, although he's young and don't look like much, he's afaster and shrewder thinker than any of us, " he told himself. 

"You do talk like a fellow who has something up his sleeve, " he saidlaughing. "If you want to know, I sold my stock the same as the others. Iwasn't going to take a chance of being a loser if I could help it. It maybe the small-town way, but you know things maybe I don't know. You can'tblame me for living up to my lights. I always did believe in the survivalof the fittest and I got a daughter to support and put through college. Iwant to make a lady of her. You ain't got any kids yet and you're younger. Maybe you want to take chances I don't want to take. How do I know whatyou're up to?"

Again the two rode in silence. Steve had prepared himself for the talk. Heknew there was a chance that, in its turn, the corn-cutting machine Hughhad invented might not prove practical and that in the end he might beleft with a factory on his hands and with nothing to manufacture in it. Hedid not, however, hesitate. Again, as on the day in the bank when he wasconfronted by the two older men, he made a bluff. "Well, you can come in orstay out, just as you wish, " he said a little sharply. "I'm going to gethold of that factory, if I can, and I'm going to manufacture corn-cuttingmachines. Already I have promises of orders enough to keep running for ayear. I can't take you in with me and have it said around town you wereone of the fellows who sold out the small investors. I've got a hundredthousand dollars of stock in the company. You can have half of it. I'lltake your note for the fifty thousand. You won't ever have to pay it. Theearnings of the new factory will clean you up. You got to come clean, though. Of course you can go get John Clark and come out and make an openfight to get the factory yourselves, if you want to. I own the rights tothe corn-cutting machine and will take it somewhere else and manufactureit. I don't mind telling you that, if we split up, I will pretty welladvertise what you three fellows did to the small investors after I askedyou not to do it. You can all stay here and own your empty factory and getwhat satisfaction you can out of the love and respect you'll get from thepeople. You can do what you please. I don't care. My hands are clean. Iain't done anything I'm ashamed of, and if you want to come in with me, youand I together will pull off something in this town we don't neither one ofus have to be ashamed of. "

The two men drove back to the Butterworth farm house and Tom got out of thebuggy. He intended to tell Steve to go to the devil, but as they drovealong the road, he changed his mind. The young school teacher from Bidwell, who had come on several occasions to call on his daughter Clara, was onthat night abroad with another young woman. He sat in a buggy with his armaround her waist and drove slowly through the hill country. Tom and Stevedrove past them and the farmer, seeing in the moonlight the woman in thearms of the man, imagined his daughter in her place. The thought made himfurious. "I'm losing the chance to be a big man in the town here in orderto play safe and be sure of money to leave to Clara, and all she caresabout is to galavant around with some young squirt, " he thought bitterly. He began to see himself as a wronged and unappreciated father. When hegot out of the buggy, he stood for a moment by the wheel and looked hardat Steve. "I'm as good a sport as you are, " he said finally. "Bringaround your stock and I'll give you the note. That's all it will be, youunderstand: just my note. I don't promise to back it up with any collateraland I don't expect you to offer it for sale. " Steve leaned out of the buggyand took him by the hand. "I won't sell your note, Tom, " he said. "I'llput it away. I want a partner to help me. You and I are going to do thingstogether. "

The young promoter drove off along the road, and Tom went into the houseand to bed. Like his daughter he did not sleep. For a time he thought ofher and in imagination saw her again in the buggy with the school teacherwho had her in his arms. The thought made him stir restlessly about beneaththe sheets. "Damn women anyway, " he muttered. To relieve his mind hethought of other things. "I'll make out a deed and turn three of my farmsover to Clara, " he decided shrewdly. "If things go wrong we won't beentirely broke. I know Charlie Jacobs in the court-house over at the countyseat. I ought to be able to get a deed recorded without any one knowing itif I oil Charlie's hand a little. "

 * * * * *

Clara's last two weeks in the Woodburn household were spent in the midst ofa struggle, no less intense because no words were said. Both HendersonWood, burn and his wife felt that Clara owed them an explanation of thescene at the front door with Frank Metcalf. When she did not offer it theywere offended. When he threw open the door and confronted the two people, the plow manufacturer had got an impression that Clara was trying to escapeFrank Metcalf's embraces. He told his wife that he did not think she wasto blame for the scene on the front porch. Not being the girl's father hecould look at the matter coldly. "She's a good girl, " he declared. "Thatbeast of a Frank Metcalf is all to blame. I daresay he followed her home. She's upset now, but in the morning she'll tell us the story of whathappened. "

The days went past and Clara said nothing. During her last week in thehouse she and the two older people scarcely spoke. The young woman was inan odd way relieved. Every evening she went to dine with Kate Chancellerwho, when she heard the story of the afternoon in the suburb and theincident on the porch, went off without Clara's knowing of it and had atalk with Henderson Woodburn in his office. After the talk the manufacturerwas puzzled and just a little afraid of both Clara and her friend. He triedto tell his wife about it, but was not very clear. "I can't make it out, "he said. "She is the kind of woman I can't understand, that Kate. She saysClara wasn't to blame for what happened between her and Frank Metcalf, butdon't want to tell us the story, because she thinks young Metcalf wasn't toblame either. " Although he had been respectful and courteous as he listenedto Kate's talk, he grew angry when he tried to tell his wife what she hadsaid. "I'm afraid it was just a lot of mixed up nonsense, " he declared. "It makes me glad we haven't a daughter. If neither of them were to blamewhat were they up to? What's getting the matter with the women of thenew generation? When you come down to it what's the matter with KateChanceller?"

The plow manufacturer advised his wife to say nothing to Clara. "Let's washour hands of it, " he suggested. "She'll go home in a few days now and wewill say nothing about her coming back next year. Let's be polite, but actas though she didn't exist. "

Clara accepted the new attitude of her uncle and aunt without comment. Inthe afternoon she did not come home from the University but went to Kate'sapartment. The brother came home and after dinner played on the piano. Atten o'clock Clara started home afoot and Kate accompanied her. The twowomen went out of their way to sit on a bench in a park. They talked ofa thousand hidden phases of life Clara had hardly dared think of before. During all the rest of her life she thought of those last weeks in Columbusas the most deeply satisfactory time she ever lived through. In theWoodburn house she was uncomfortable because of the silence and the hurt, offended look on her aunt's face, but she did not spend much time there. In the morning Henderson Woodburn ate his breakfast alone at seven, andclutching his ever present portfolio of papers, was driven off to the plowfactory. Clara and her aunt had a silent breakfast at eight, and thenClara also hurried away. "I'll be out for lunch and will go to Kate's fordinner, " she said as she went out of her aunt's presence, and she said it, not with the air of one asking permission as had been her custom before theFrank Metcalf incident, but as one having the right to dispose of her owntime. Only once did her aunt break the frigid air of offended dignity shehad assumed. One morning she followed Clara to the front door, and as shewatched her go down the steps from the front porch to the walk that led tothe street, called to her. Some faint recollection of a time of revolt inher own youth perhaps came to her. Tears came into her eyes. To her theworld was a place of terror, where wolf-like men prowled about seekingwomen to devour, and she was afraid something dreadful would happen to herniece. "If you don't want to tell me anything, it's all right, " she saidbravely, "but I wish you felt you could. " When Clara turned to look at her, she hastened to explain. "Mr. Woodburn said I wasn't to bother you about itand I won't, " she added quickly. Nervously folding and unfolding her arms, she turned to stare up the street with the air of a frightened child thatlooks into a den of beasts. "O Clara, be a good girl, " she said. "I knowyou're grown up now, but, O Clara, do be careful! Don't get into trouble. "

The Woodburn house in Columbus, like the Butterworth house in the countrysouth of Bidwell, sat on a hill. The street fell away rather sharply as onewent toward the business portion of the city and the street car line, andon the morning when her aunt spoke to her and tried with her feeble handsto tear some stones out of the wall that was being built between them, Clara hurried along the street under the trees, feeling as though she wouldlike also to weep. She saw no possibility of explaining to her aunt the newthoughts she was beginning to have about life and did not want to hurt herby trying. "How can I explain my thoughts when they're not clear in my ownmind, when I am myself just groping blindly about?" she asked herself. "Shewants me to be good, " she thought. "What would she think if I told her thatI had come to the conclusion that, judging by her standards, I have beenaltogether too good? What's the use trying to talk to her when I would onlyhurt her and make things harder than ever?" She got to a street crossingand looked back. Her aunt was still standing at the door of her house andlooking at her. There was something soft, small, round, insistent, bothterribly weak and terribly strong about the completely feminine thing shehad made of herself or that life had made of her. Clara shuddered. She didnot make a symbol of the figure of her aunt and her mind did not forma connection between her aunt's life and what she had become, as KateChanceller's mind would have done. She saw the little, round, weeping womanas a boy, walking in the tree-lined streets of a town, sees suddenly thepale face and staring eyes of a prisoner that looks out at him throughthe iron bars of a town jail. Clara was startled as the boy would bestartled and, like the boy, she wanted to run quickly away. "I must thinkof something else and of other kinds of women or I'll get things terriblydistorted, " she told herself. "If I think of her and women like her I'llgrow afraid of marriage, and I want to be married as soon as I can find theright man. It's the only thing I can do. What else is there a woman cando?"

As Clara and Kate walked about in the evening, they talked continually ofthe new position Kate believed women were on the point of achieving in theworld. The woman who was so essentially a man wanted to talk of marriageand to condemn it, but continually fought the impulse in herself. She knewthat were she to let herself go she would say many things that, while theymight be true enough as regards herself, would not necessarily be true ofClara. "Because I do not want to live with a man or be his wife is not verygood proof that the institution is wrong. It may be that I want to keepClara for myself. I think more of her than of any one else I've ever met. How can I think straight about her marrying some man and becoming dulled tothe things that mean most to me?" she asked herself. One evening, when thewomen were walking from Kate's apartment to the Woodburn house, they wereaccosted by two men who wanted to walk with them. There was a small parknearby and Kate led the men to it. "Come, " she said, "we won't walk withyou, but you may sit with us here on a bench. " The men sat down beside themand the older one, a man with a small black mustache, made some remarkabout the fineness of the night. The younger man who sat beside Claralooked at her and laughed. Kate at once got down to business. "Well, youwanted to walk with us: what for?" she asked sharply. She explained whatthey had been doing. "We were walking and talking of women and what theywere to do with their lives, " she explained. "We were expressing opinions, you see. I don't say either of us had said anything that was very wise, butwe were having a good time and trying to learn something from each other. Now what have you to say to us? You interrupted our talk and wanted to walkwith us: what for? You wanted to be in our company: now tell us what you'vegot to contribute. You can't just come and walk with us like dumb things. What have you got to offer that you think will make it worth while for usto break up our conversation with each other and spend the time talkingwith you?"

The older man, he of the mustache, turned to look at Kate, then got up fromthe bench. He walked a little away and then turned and made a sign with hishand to his companion. "Come on, " he said, "let's get out of here. We'rewasting our time. It's a cold trail. They're a couple of highbrows. Comeon, let's be on our way. "

The two women again walked along the street. Kate could not help feelingsomewhat proud of the way in which she had disposed of the men. She talkedof it until they got to the door of the Woodburn house, and, as she wentaway along the street Clara thought she swaggered a little. She stood bythe door and watched her friend until she had disappeared around a corner. A flash of doubt of the infallibility of Kate's method with men crossed hermind. She remembered suddenly the soft brown eyes of the younger of the twomen in the park and wondered what was back of the eyes. Perhaps after all, had she been alone with him, the man might have had something to say quiteas much to the point as the things she and Kate had been saying to eachother. "Kate made the men look like fools, but after all she wasn't veryfair, " she thought as she went into the house. 

 * * * * *

Clara was in Bidwell for a month before she realized what a change hadtaken place in the life of her home town. On the farm things went on verymuch as always, except that her father was very seldom there. He had gonedeeply into the project of manufacturing and selling corn-cutting machineswith Steve Hunter, and attended to much of the selling of the output of thefactory. Almost every month he went on trips to cities of the West. Evenwhen he was in Bidwell, he had got into the habit of staying at the townhotel for the night. "It's too much trouble to be always running back andforth, " he explained to Jim Priest, whom he had put in charge of the farmwork. He swaggered before the old man who for so many years had been almostlike a partner in his smaller activities. "Well, I wouldn't like to haveanything said, but I think it just as well to have an eye on what's goingon, " he declared. "Steve's all right, but business is business. We'redealing in big affairs, he and I. I don't say he would try to get the bestof me; I'm just telling you that in the future I'll have to be in town mostof the time and can't think of things out here. You look out for the farm. Don't bother me with details. You just tell me about it when there is anybuying or selling to do. "

Clara arrived in Bidwell in the early afternoon of a warm day in June. Thehill country through which her train came into town was in the full flushof its summer beauty. In the little patches of level land between the hillsgrain was ripening in the fields. Along the streets of the tiny towns andon dusty country roads farmers in overalls stood up in their wagons andscolded at the horses, rearing and prancing in half pretended fright of thepassing train. In the forests on the hillsides the open places among thetrees looked cool and enticing. Clara put her cheek against the car windowand imagined herself wandering in cool forests with a lover. She forgotthe words of Kate Chanceller in regard to the independent future of women. It was, she thought vaguely, a thing to be thought about only after somemore immediate problem was solved. Just what the problem was she didn'tdefinitely know, but she did know that it concerned some close warm contactwith life that she had as yet been unable to make. When she closed hereyes, strong warm hands seemed to come out of nothingness and touch herflushed cheeks. The fingers of the hands were strong like the branches oftrees. They touched with the firmness and gentleness of the branches oftrees nodding in a summer breeze. 

Clara sat up stiffly in her seat and when the train stopped at Bidwell gotoff and went to her waiting father with a firm, business-like air. Comingout of the land of dreams, she took on something of the determined airof Kate Chanceller. She stared at her father and an onlooker might havethought them two strangers, meeting for the purpose of discussing somebusiness arrangement. A flavor of something like suspicion hung over them. They got into Tom's buggy, and as Main Street was torn up for the purposeof laying a brick pavement and digging a new sewer, they drove by aroundabout way through residence streets until they got into Medina Road. Clara looked at her father and felt suddenly very alert and on her guard. It seemed to her that she was far removed from the green, unsophisticatedgirl who had so often walked in Bidwell's streets; that her mind and spirithad expanded tremendously in the three years she had been away; and shewondered if her father would realize the change in her. Either one of tworeactions on his part might, she felt, make her happy. The man might turnsuddenly and taking her hand receive her into fellowship, or he mightreceive her as a woman and his daughter by kissing her. 

He did neither. They drove in silence through the town and passed overa small bridge and into the road that led to the farm. Tom was curiousabout his daughter and a little uncomfortable. Ever since the eveningon the porch of the farmhouse, when he had accused her of some unnamedrelationship with John May, he had felt guilty in her presence but hadsucceeded in transferring the notion of guilt to her. While she was awayat school he had been comfortable. Sometimes he did not think of her fora month at a time. Now she had written that she did not intend to go back. She had not asked his advice, but had said positively that she was cominghome to stay. He wondered what was up. Had she got into another affair witha man? He wanted to ask, had intended to ask, but in her presence foundthat the words he had intended to say would not come to his lips. Aftera long silence Clara began to ask questions about the farm, the men whoworked there, her aunt's health, the usual home-coming questions. Herfather answered with generalities. "They're all right, " he said, "every oneand everything's all right. "

The road began to lift out of the valley in which the town lay, and Tomstopped the horse and pointing with the whip talked of the town. He wasrelieved to have the silence broken, and decided not to say anything aboutthe letter announcing the end of her school life. "You see there, " he said, pointing to where the wall of a new brick factory arose above the treesthat grew beside the river. "That's a new factory we're building. We'regoing to make corn-cutting machines there. The old factory's already toosmall. We've sold it to a new company that's going to manufacture bicycles. Steve Hunter and I sold it. We got twice what we paid for it. When thebicycle factory's started, he and I'll own the control in that too. I tellyou the town's on the boom. "

Tom boasted of his new position in the town and Clara turned and lookedsharply at him and then looked quickly away. He was annoyed by the actionand a flush of anger came to his cheeks. A side of his character hisdaughter had never seen before came to the surface. When he was a simplefarmer he had been too shrewd to attempt to play the aristocrat with hisfarm hands, but often, as he went about the barns and as he drove alongcountry roads and saw men at work in his fields, he had felt like a princein the presence of his vassals. Now he talked like a prince. It was thatthat had startled Clara. There was about him an indefinable air of princelyprosperity. When she turned to look at him she noticed for the first timehow much his person had also changed. Like Steve Hunter he was beginningto grow fat. The lean hardness of his cheeks had gone, his jaws seemedheavier, even his hands had changed their color. He wore a diamond ring onthe left hand and it glistened in the sunlight. "Things have changed, " hedeclared, still pointing at the town. "Do you want to know who changed it?Well, I had more to do with it than any one else. Steve thinks he did itall, but he didn't. I'm the man who has done the most. He put through theplant-setting machine company, but that was a failure. When you come rightdown to it, things would have gone to pieces again if I hadn't gone to JohnClark and talked and bluffed him into giving us money when we wanted it. Ihad most to do with finding the big market for our corn-cutters, too. Stevelied to me and said he had 'em all sold for a year. He didn't have any soldat all. "

Tom struck the horse with the whip and drove rapidly along the road. Evenwhen the climb became difficult he would not let the horse walk, but keptcracking the whip over his back. "I'm a different man than I was when youwent away, " he declared. "You might as well know it, I'm the big man inthis town. It comes pretty near being my town when you come right down toit. I'm going to take care of every one in Bidwell and give every one achance to make money, but it's my town now pretty near and you might aswell know it. "

Embarrassed by his own words, Tom talked to cover his embarrassment. Something he wanted very much to say got itself said. "I'm glad you wentto school and fitted yourself to be a lady, " he began. "I want you shouldmarry pretty soon now. I don't know whether you met any one at school thereor not. If you did and he's all right, it's all right with me. I don'twant you should marry an ordinary man, but a smart one, an educated man, agentleman. We Butterworths are going to be bigger and bigger people here. If you get married to a good man, a smart one, I'll build a house for you;not just a little house but a big place, the biggest place Bidwell everseen. " They came to the farm and Tom stopped the buggy in the road. Heshouted to a man in the barnyard who came running for her bags. When shehad got out of the buggy he immediately turned the horse about and droverapidly away. Her aunt, a large, moist woman, met her on the steps leadingto the front door, and embraced her warmly. The words her father had justspoken ran a riotous course through Clara's brain. She realized that fora year she had been thinking of marriage, had been wanting some man toapproach and talk of marriage, but she had not thought of the matter in theway her father had put it. The man had spoken of her as though she were apossession of his that must be disposed of. He had a personal interest inher marriage. It was in someway not a private matter, but a family affair. It was her father's idea, she gathered, that she was to go into marriageto strengthen what he called his position in the community, to help himbe some vague thing he called a big man. She wondered if he had some onein mind and could not avoid being a little curious as to who it could be. It had never occurred to her that her marriage could mean anything to herfather beyond the natural desire of the parent that his child make a happymarriage. She began to grow angry at the thought of the way in which herfather had approached the subject, but was still curious to know whetherhe had gone so far as to have some one in mind for the role of husband, and thought she would try to find out from her aunt. The strange farm handcame into the house with her bags and she followed him upstairs to what hadalways been her own room. Her aunt came puffing at her heels. The farm handwent away and she began to unpack, while the older woman, her face veryred, sat on the edge of the bed. "You ain't been getting engaged to a mandown there where you been to school, have you, Clara?" she asked. 

Clara looked at her aunt and blushed; then became suddenly and furiouslyangry. Dropping the bag she had opened to the floor, she ran out of theroom. At the door she stopped and turned on the surprised and startledwoman. "No, I haven't, " she declared furiously. "It's nobody's businesswhether I have or not. I went to school for an education. I didn't go toget me a man. If that's what you sent me for, why didn't you say so?"

Clara hurried out of the house and into the barnyard. She went into allof the barns, but there were no men about. Even the strange farm hand whohad carried her bags into the house had disappeared, and the stalls inthe horse and cattle barns were empty. Then she went into the orchard andclimbing a fence went through a meadow and into the wood to which she hadalways fled, when as a girl on the farm she was troubled or angry. Fora long time she sat on a log beneath a tree and tried to think her waythrough the new idea of marriage she had got from her father's words. Shewas still angry and told herself that she would leave home, would go tosome city and get work. She thought of Kate Chanceller who intended to bea doctor, and tried to picture herself attempting something of the kind. It would take money for study. She tried to imagine herself talking to herfather about the matter and the thought made her smile. Again she wonderedif he had any definite person in mind as her husband, and who it couldbe. She tried to check off her father's acquaintances among the young menof Bidwell. "It must be some new man who has come here, some one havingsomething to do with one of the factories, " she thought. 

After sitting on the log for a long time, Clara got up and walked underthe trees. The imaginary man, suggested to her mind by her father's words, became every moment more and more a reality. Before her eyes danced thelaughing eyes of the young man who for a moment had lingered beside herwhile Kate Chanceller talked to his companion that evening when they hadbeen challenged on the streets of Columbus. She remembered the young schoolteacher, who had held her in his arms through a long Sunday afternoon, andthe day when, as an awakening maiden, she had heard Jim Priest talking tothe laborers in the barn about the sap that ran up the tree. The afternoonslipped away and the shadows of the trees lengthened. On such a day andalone there in the quiet wood, it was impossible for her to remain in theangry mood in which she had left the house. Over her father's farm broodedthe passionate fulfillment of summer. Before her, seen through the trees, lay yellow wheat fields, ripe for the cutting; insects sang and danced inthe air about her head; a soft wind blew and made a gentle singing noisein the tops of the trees; at her back among the trees a squirrel chattered;and two calves came along a woodland path and stood for a long time staringat her with their large gentle eyes. She arose and went out of the wood, crossed a falling meadow and came to a rail fence surrounding a corn field. Jim Priest was cultivating corn and when he saw her left his horses andcame to her. He took both her hands in his and pumped her arms up anddown. "Well, Lord A'mighty, I'm glad to see you, " he said heartily. "LordA'mighty, I'm glad to see you. " The old farm hand pulled a long blade ofgrass out of the ground beneath the fence and leaning against the top railbegan to chew it. He asked Clara the same question her aunt had asked, buthis asking did not annoy her. She laughed and shook her head. "No, Jim, "she said, "I seem to have made a failure of going away to school. I didn'tget me a man. No one asked me, you see. "

Both the woman and the old man became silent. Over the tops of the youngcorn they could see down the hillside into the distant town. Clara wonderedif the man she was to marry was there. The idea of a marriage with herhad perhaps been suggested to his mind also. Her father, she decided, wascapable of that. He was evidently ready to go to any length to see hersafely married. She wondered why. When Jim Priest began to talk, strivingto explain his question, his words fitted oddly into the thoughts she washaving in regard to herself. "Now about marriage, " he began, "you see now, I never done it. I didn't get married at all. I don't know why. I wanted toand I didn't. I was afraid to ask, maybe. I guess if you do it you're sorryyou did and if you don't you're sorry you didn't. "

Jim went back to his team, and Clara stood by the fence and watched himgo down the long field and turn to come back along another of the pathsbetween the corn rows. When the horses came to where she stood, he stoppedagain and looked at her. "I guess you'll get married pretty soon now, "he said. The horses started on again and he held the cultivating machinewith one hand and looked back over his shoulder at her. "You're one of themarrying kind, " he called. "You ain't like me. You don't just think aboutthings. You do 'em. You'll be getting yourself married before very long. You are one of the kind that does. "

CHAPTER XI

If many things had happened to Clara Butterworth in the three years sincethat day when John May so rudely tripped her first hesitating girlishattempt to run out to life, things had also happened to the people shehad left behind in Bidwell. In so short a space of time her father, hisbusiness associate Steve Hunter, Ben Peeler the town carpenter, JoeWainsworth the harness maker, almost every man and woman in town had becomesomething different in his nature from the man or woman bearing the samename she had known in her girlhood. 

Ben Peeler was forty years old when Clara went to Columbus to school. Hewas a tall, slender, stoop-shouldered man who worked hard and was muchrespected by his fellow townsmen. Almost any afternoon he might have beenseen going through Main Street, wearing his carpenter's apron and with acarpenter's pencil stuck under his cap and balanced on his ear. He wentinto Oliver Hall's hardware store and came out with a large package ofnails under his arm. A farmer who was thinking of building a new barnstopped him in front of the post-office and for a half hour the two mentalked of the project. Ben put on his glasses, took the pencil out of hiscap and made some notation on the back of the package of nails. "I'll do alittle figuring; then I'll talk things over with you, " he said. During thespring, summer and fall Ben had always employed another carpenter and anapprentice, but when Clara came back to town he was employing four gangsof six men each and had two foremen to watch the work and keep it moving, while his son, who in other times would also have been a carpenter, hadbecome a salesman, wore fancy vests and lived in Chicago. Ben was makingmoney and for two years had not driven a nail or held a saw in his hand. Hehad an office in a frame building beside the New York Central tracks, southof Main Street, and employed a book-keeper and a stenographer. In additionto carpentry he had embarked in another business. Backed by Gordon Hart, he had become a lumber dealer and bought and sold lumber under the firmname of Peeler and Hart. Almost every day cars of lumber were unloadedand stacked under sheds in the yard back of his office. He was no longersatisfied with his income as a workman but, under the influence of GordonHart, demanded also a swinging profit on the building materials. Ben nowdrove about town in a vehicle called a buckboard and spent the entire dayhurrying from job to job. He had no time now to stop for a half hour'sgossip with a prospective builder of a barn, and did not come to loaf inBirdie Spinks' drug-store at the end of the day. In the evening he went tothe lumber office and Gordon Hart came over from the bank. The two menfigured on jobs to be built, rows of workingmen's houses, sheds alongsideone of the new factories, large frame houses for the superintendents andother substantial men of the town's new enterprises. In the old days Benhad been glad to go occasionally into the country on a barn-building job. He had liked the country food, the gossip with the farmer and his men atthe noon hour and the drive back and forth to town, mornings and evenings. While he was in the country he managed to make a deal for his winterpotatoes, hay for his horse, and perhaps a barrel of cider to drink onwinter evenings. Now he had no time to think of such things. When a farmercame to see him he shook his head. "Get some one else to figure on yourjob, " he advised. "You'll save money by getting a barn-building carpenter. I can't bother. I have too many houses to build. " Ben and Gordon sometimesworked in the lumber office until midnight. On warm still nights the sweetsmell of new-cut boards filled the air of the yard and crept in through theopen windows, but the two men, intent on their figures, did not notice. Inthe early evening one or two teams came back to the yard to finish haulinglumber to a job where the men were to work on the next day. The voicesof the men, talking and singing as they loaded their wagons, broke thesilence. Later the wagons loaded high with boards went creaking away. When the two men grew tired and sleepy, they locked the office and walkedthrough the yard to the driveway that led to a residence street. Ben wasnervous and irritable. One evening they found three men, sleeping on a pileof boards in the yard, and drove them out. It gave both men something tothink about. Gordon Hart went home and before he slept made up his mindthat he would not let another day go by without getting the lumber in theyard more heavily insured. Ben had not handled affairs long enough to comequickly to so sensible a decision. All night he rolled and tumbled about inhis bed. "Some tramp with his pipe will set the place afire, " he thought. "I'll lose all the money I've made. " For a long time he did not think ofthe simple expedient of hiring a watchman to drive sleepy and pennilesswanderers away, and charging enough more for his lumber to cover theadditional expense. He got out of bed and dressed, thinking he would gethis shotgun out of the barn and go back to the yard and spend the night. Then he undressed and got into bed again. "I can't work all day and spendmy nights down there, " he thought resentfully. When at last he slept, hedreamed of sitting in the lumber yard in the darkness with the gun inhis hand. A man came toward him and he discharged the gun and killed theman. With the inconsistency common to the physical aspect of dreams, thedarkness passed away and it was daylight. The man he had thought dead wasnot quite dead. Although the whole side of his head was torn away, he stillbreathed. His mouth opened and closed convulsively. A dreadful illness tookpossession of the carpenter. He had an elder brother who had died whenhe was a boy, but the face of the man on the ground was the face of hisbrother. Ben sat up in bed and shouted. "Help, for God's sake, help! It'smy own brother. Don't you see, it is Harry Peeler?" he cried. His wifeawoke and shook him. "What's the matter, Ben, " she asked anxiously. "What'sthe matter?" "It was a dream, " he said, and let his head drop wearily onthe pillow. His wife went to sleep again, but he stayed awake the rest ofthe night. When on the next morning Gordon Hart suggested the insuranceidea, he was delighted. "That settles it of course, " he said to himself. "It's simple enough, you see. That settles everything. "

In his shop on Main Street Joe Wainsworth had plenty to do after the boomcame to Bidwell. Many teams were employed in the hauling of buildingmaterials; loads of paving brick were being carted from cars to where theywere to be laid on Main Street; and teams hauled earth from where the newMain Street sewer was being dug and from the freshly dug cellars of houses. Never had there been so many teams employed and so much repairing ofharness to do. Joe's apprentice had left him, had been carried off by therush of young men to the places where the boom had arrived earlier. For ayear Joe had worked alone and had then employed a journeyman harness makerwho had drifted into town drunk and who got drunk every Saturday evening. The new man was an odd character. He had a faculty for making money, butseemed to care little about making it for himself. Within a week after hecame to town he knew every one in Bidwell. His name was Jim Gibson and hehad no sooner come to work for Joe than a contest arose between them. Thecontest concerned the question of who was to run the shop. For a timeJoe asserted himself. He growled at the men who brought harness in to berepaired, and refused to make promises as to when the work would be done. Several jobs were taken away and sent to nearby towns. Then Jim Gibsonasserted himself. When one of the teamsters who had come to town with theboom came with a heavy work harness on his shoulder, he went to meet him. The harness was thrown with a rattling crash on the floor and Jim examinedit. "Oh, the devil, that's an easy job, " he declared. "We'll fix that up ina jiffy. You can have it to-morrow afternoon if you want it. "

For a time Jim made it a practice to come to where Joe stood at work at hisbench and consult with him regarding prices to be charged for work. Then hereturned to the customer and charged more than Joe had suggested. After afew weeks he slopped consulting Joe at all. "You're no good, " he exclaimed, laughing. "What you're doing in business I don't know. " The old harnessmaker stared at him for a minute and then went to his bench and to work. "Business, " he muttered, "what do I know about business? I'm a harnessmaker, I am. "

After Jim came to work for him, Joe made in one year almost twice theamount he had lost in the failure of the plant-setting machine factory. Themoney was not invested in stock of any factory but lay in the bank. Stillhe was not happy. All day Jim Gibson, whom Joe had never dared tell thetales of his triumph as a workman and to whom he did not brag as he hadformerly done to his apprentices, talked of his ability to get the best ofcustomers. He had, he declared, managed, in the last place he had workedbefore he came to Bidwell, to sell a good many sets of harness as handmadethat were in reality made in a factory. "It isn't like the old times, " hesaid, "things are changing. We used to sell harness only to farmers or toteamsters right in our towns who owned their own horses. We always knew themen we did business with and always would know them. Now it's different. The men now, you see, who are here in this town to work--well, next monthor next year they'll be somewhere else. All they care about you and me ishow much work they can get for a dollar. Of course they talk big abouthonesty and all that stuff, but that's only their guff. They think maybewe'll fall for it and they'll get more for the money they pay out. That'swhat they're up to. "

Jim tried hard to make his version of how the shop should be run clearto his employer. Every day he talked for hours regarding the matter. Hetried to get Joe to put in a stock of factory-made harness and when he wasunsuccessful was angry. "O the devil, " he cried. "Can't you understand whatyou're up against? The factories are bound to win. For why? Look here, there can't any one but some old moss-back who has worked around horses allhis life tell the difference between hand- and machine-sewed harness. Themachine-made can be sold cheaper. It looks all right and the factories areable to put on a lot of do-dads. That catches the young fellows. It's goodbusiness. Quick sales and profits, that's the story. " Jim laughed and thensaid something that made the shivers run up and down Joe's back. "If I hadthe money and was steady I'd start a shop in this town and show you up, " hesaid. "I'd pretty near run you out. The trouble with me is I wouldn't stickto business if I had the money. I tried it once and made money; then whenI got a little ahead I shut up the shop and went on a big drunk. I was nogood for a month. When I work for some one else I'm all right. I get drunkon Saturdays and that satisfies me. I like to work and scheme for money, but it ain't any good to me when I get it and never will be. What I wantyou to do here is to shut your eyes and give me a chance. That's all I ask. Just shut your eyes and give me a chance. "

All day Joe sat astride his harness maker's horse, and when he was notat work, stared out through a dirty window into an alleyway and tried tounderstand Jim's idea of what a harness maker's attitude should be towardhis customers, now that new times had come. He felt very old. Although Jimwas as old in years lived as himself, he seemed very young. He began to bea little afraid of the man. He could not understand why the money, nearlytwenty-five hundred dollars he had put in the bank during the two years Jimhad been with him, seemed so unimportant and the twelve hundred dollars hehad earned slowly after twenty years of work seemed so important. As therewas much repair work always waiting to be done in the shop, he did not gohome to lunch, but every day carried a few sandwiches to the shop in hispocket. At the noon hour, when Jim had gone to his boarding-house, he wasalone, and if no one came in, he was happy. It seemed to him the best timeof the day. Every few minutes he went to the front door to look out. Thequiet Main Street, on which his shop had faced since he was a young manjust come home from his trade adventures, and which had always been such asleepy place at the noon hour in the summer, was now like a battle-fieldfrom which an army had retreated. A great gash had been cut in the streetwhere the new sewer was to be laid. Swarms of workingmen, most of themstrangers, had come into Main Street from the factories by the railroadtracks. They stood in groups in lower Main Street by Wymer's tobacco store. Some of them had gone into Ben Head's saloon for a glass of beer and cameout wiping their mustaches. The men who were digging the sewer, foreignmen, Italians he had heard, sat on the banks of dry earth in the middle ofthe street. Their dinner pails were held between their legs and as they atethey talked in a strange language. He remembered the day he had come toBidwell with his bride, the girl he had met on his trade journey and whohad waited for him until he had mastered his trade and had a shop of hisown. He had gone to New York State to get her and had arrived back inBidwell at noon on just such another summer day. There had not been manypeople about, but every one had known him. On that day every one had beenhis friend. Birdie Spinks rushed out of his drug store and had insistedthat he and his bride go home to dinner with him. Every one had wanted themto come to his house for dinner. It had been a happy, joyous time. 

The harness maker had always been sorry his wife had borne him no children. He had said nothing and had always pretended he did not want them and now, at last, he was glad they had not come. He went back to his bench and towork, hoping Jim would be late in getting back from lunch. The shop wasvery quiet after the activity of the street that had so bewildered him. Itwas, he thought, like a retreat, almost like a church when you went to thedoor and looked in on a week day. He had done that once and had liked theempty silent church better than he did a church with a preacher and a lotof people in it. He had told his wife about the matter. "It was like theshop in the evening when I've got a job of work done and the boy has gonehome, " he had said. 

The harness maker looked out through the open door of his shop and saw TomButterworth and Steve Hunter going along Main Street, engaged in earnestconversation. Steve had a cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth and Tomhad on a fancy vest. He thought again of the money he had lost in theplant-setting machine venture and was furious. The noon hour was spoiledand he was almost glad when Jim came back from his mid-day meal. 

The position in which he found himself in the shop amused Jim Gibson. Hechuckled to himself as he waited on the customers who came in, and as heworked at the bench. One day when he came back along Main Street fromthe noon meal, he decided to try an experiment. "If I lose my job whatdifference does it make?" he asked himself. He stopped at a saloon and hada drink of whisky. When he got to the shop he began to scold his employer, to threaten him as though he were his apprentice. Swaggering suddenly in, he walked to where Joe was at work and slapped him roughly on the back. "Come, cheer up, old daddy, " he said. "Get the gloom out of you. I'm tiredof your muttering and growling at things. "

The employee stepped back and watched his employer. Had Joe ordered him outof the shop he would not have been surprised, and as he said later when hetold Ben Head's bartender of the incident, would not have cared very much. The fact that he did not care, no doubt saved him. Joe was frightened. Forjust a moment he was so angry he could not speak, and then he rememberedthat if Jim left him he would have to wait on trade and would have todicker with the strange teamsters regarding the repairing of the workharness. Bending over the bench he worked for an hour in silence. Then, instead of demanding an explanation of the rude familiarity with which Jimhad treated him, he began to explain. "Now look here, Jim, " he pleaded, "don't you pay any attention to me. You do as you please here. Don't youpay any attention to me. "

Jim said nothing, but a smile of triumph lit up his face. Late in theafternoon he left the shop. "If any one comes in, tell them to wait. Iwon't be gone very long, " he said insolently. Jim went into Ben Head'ssaloon and told the bartender how his experiment had come out. The storywas later told from store to store up and down the Main Street of Bidwell. "He was like a boy who has been caught with his hand in the jam pot, " Jimexplained. "I can't think what's the matter with him. Had I been in his, shoes I would have kicked Jim Gibson out of the shop. He told me not topay any attention to him and to run the shop as I pleased. Now what do youthink of that? Now what do you think of that for a man who owns his ownshop and has money in the bank? I tell you, I don't know how it is, but Idon't work for Joe any more. He works for me. Some day you come in the shopcasual-like and I'll boss him around for you. I'm telling you I don't knowhow it is that it come about, but I'm the boss of the shop as sure as thedevil. "

All of Bidwell was looking at itself and asking itself questions. Ed Hall, who had been a carpenter's apprentice earning but a few dollars a week withhis master, Ben Peeler, was now foreman in the corn-cutter factory andreceived a salary of twenty-five dollars every Saturday night. It wasmore money than he had ever dreamed of earning in a week. On pay nightshe dressed himself in his Sunday clothes and had himself shaved at JoeTrotter's barber shop. Then he went along Main Street, fingering the moneyin his pocket and half fearing he would suddenly awaken and find it all adream. He went into Wymer's tobacco store to get a cigar, and old ClaudeWymer came to wait on him. On the second Saturday evening after he got hisnew position, the tobacconist, a rather obsequious man, called him Mr. Hall. It was the first time such a thing had happened and it upset him alittle. He laughed and made a joke of it. "Don't get high and mighty, " hesaid, and turned to wink at the men loafing in the shop. Later he thoughtabout the matter and was sorry he had not accepted the new title withoutprotest. "Well, I'm foreman, and a lot of the young fellows I've alwaysknown and fooled around with will be working under me, " he told himself. "Ican't be getting thick with them. "

Ed walked along the street feeling very keenly the importance of his newplace in the community. Other young fellows in the factory were getting adollar and a half a day. At the end of the week he got twenty-five dollars, almost three times as much. The money was an indication of superiority. There could be no doubt about that. Ever since he had been a boy he hadheard older men speak respectfully of men who possessed money. "Get onin the world, " they said to young men, when they talked seriously. Amongthemselves they did not pretend that they did not want money. "It's moneymakes the mare go, " they said. 

Down Main Street to the New York Central tracks Ed went, and then turnedout of the street and disappeared into the station. The evening train hadpassed and the place was deserted. He went into the dimly lightedwaiting-room. An oil lamp, turned low, and fastened by a bracket to thewall made a little circle of light in a corner. The room was like a churchin the early morning of a wintry day, cold and still. He went hurriedlyto the light, and taking the roll of money from his pocket, counted it. Then he went out of the room and along the station platform almost to MainStreet, but was not satisfied. On an impulse he returned to the waitingroom again and, late in the evening on his way home, he stopped there for afinal counting of the money before he went to bed. 

Peter Fry was a blacksmith and had a son who was clerk in the BidwellHotel. He was a tall young fellow with curly yellow hair and watery blueeyes and smoked cigarettes, a habit that was an offense to the nostrils ofthe men of his times. His name was Jacob, but he was called in derisionFizzy Fry. The young man's mother was dead and he got his meals at thehotel and at night slept on a cot in the hotel office. He had a passion forgayly colored neckties and waistcoats and was forever trying unsuccessfullyto attract the attention of the town girls. When he and his father met onthe street, they did not speak to each other. Sometimes the father stoppedand stared at his son. "How did I happen to be the father of a thing likethat?" he muttered aloud. 

The blacksmith was a square-shouldered, heavily built man with a bushyblack beard and a tremendous voice. When he was a young man he sang in theMethodist choir, but after his wife died he stopped going to church andbegan putting his voice to other uses. He smoked a short clay pipe that hadbecome black with age and that at night could not be seen against his blackcurly beard. Smoke rolled out of his mouth in clouds and appeared to comeup out of his belly. He was like a volcanic mountain and was called, by themen who loafed in Birdie Spinks' drug store, Smoky Pete. 

Smoky Pete was in more ways than one like a mountain given to eruptions. Hedid not get drunk, but after his wife died he got into the habit of havingtwo or three drinks of whisky every evening. The whisky inflamed his mindand he strode up and down Main Street, ready to quarrel with any one hiseye lighted upon. He got into the habit of roaring at his fellow citizensand making ribald jokes at their expense. Every one was a little afraidof him and he became in an odd way the guardian of the town morals. SandyFerris, a house painter, became a drunkard and did not support his family. Smoky Pete abused him in the public streets and in the sight of all men. "You cheap thing, warming your belly with whisky while jour childrenfreeze, why don't you try being a man?" he shouted at the house painter, who staggered into a side street and went to sleep off his intoxication ina stall in Clyde Neighbors' livery barn. The blacksmith kept at the painteruntil the whole town took up his cry and the saloons became ashamed toaccept his custom. He was forced to reform. 

The blacksmith did not, however, discriminate in the choice of victims. Hiswas not the spirit of the reformer. A merchant of Bidwell, who had alwaysbeen highly respected and who was an elder in his church, went one eveningto the county seat and there got into the company of a notorious womanknown throughout the county as Nell Hunter. The two went into a little roomat the back of a saloon and were seen by two Bidwell young men who hadgone to the county seat for an evening of adventure. When the merchant, named Pen Beck, realized he had been seen, he was afraid the tale of hisindiscretion would be carried to his home town, and left the woman to jointhe young men. He was not a drinking man, but began at once to buy drinksfor his companions. The three got very drunk and drove home together lateat night in a rig the young men had hired for the occasion from ClydeNeighbors. On the way the merchant kept trying to explain his presence inthe company of the woman. "Don't say anything about it, " he urged. "Itwould be misunderstood. I have a friend whose son has been taken in by thewoman. I was trying to get her to let him alone. "

The two young men were delighted that they had caught the merchant off hisguard. "It's all right, " they assured him. "Be a good fellow and we won'ttell your wife or the minister of your church. " When they had all thedrinks they could carry, they got the merchant into the buggy and began towhip the horse. They had driven half way to Bidwell and all of them hadfallen into a drunken sleep, when the horse became frightened at somethingin the road and ran away. The buggy was overturned and they were all throwninto the road. One of the young men had an arm broken and Pen Beck's coatwas almost torn in two. He paid the young man's doctor's bill and settledwith Clyde Neighbors for the damage to the buggy. 

For a long time the story of the merchant's adventure did not leak out, andwhen it did, but a few intimate friends of the young men knew it. Then itreached the ears of Smoky Pete. On the day he heard it he could hardly bearto wait until evening came. He hurried to Ben Head's saloon, had two drinksof whisky and then went to stand with the loafers before Birdie Spinks'drug store. At half past seven Pen Beck turned into Main Street from CherryStreet, where he lived. When he was more than three blocks away from thecrowd of men before the drug store, Smoky Pete's roaring voice began toquestion him. "Well, Penny, my lad, so you went for a night among theladies?" he shouted. "You've been fooling around with my girl, Nell Hunter, over at the county seat. I'd like to know what you mean. You'll have tomake an explanation to me. "

The merchant stopped and stood on the sidewalk, unable to decide whether toface his tormentor or flee. It was just at the quiet time of the eveningwhen the housewives of the town had finished their evening's work and stoodresting by the kitchen doors. It seemed to Pen Beck that Smoky Pete's voicecould be heard for a mile. He decided to face it out and if necessary tofight the blacksmith. As he came hurriedly toward the group before thedrug store, Smoky Pete's voice took up the story of the merchant's wildnight. He stepped out from the men in front of the store and seemed to beaddressing himself to the whole street. Clerks, merchants, and customersrushed out of the stores. "Well, " he cried, "so you made a night of it withmy girl Nell Hunter. When you sat with her in the back room of the saloonyou didn't know I was there. I was hidden under a table. If you'd doneanything more than bite her on the neck I'd have come out and called you totime. "

Smoky Pete broke into a roaring laugh and waved his arms to the peoplegathered in the street and wondering what it was all about. It was for himone of the really delicious spots of his life. He tried to explain to thepeople what he was talking about. "He was with Nell Hunter in the back roomof a saloon over at the county seat, " he shouted. "Edgar Duncan and DaveOldham saw him there. He came home with them and the horse ran away. Hedidn't commit adultery. I don't want you to think that happened. All thathappened was he bit my best girl, Nell Hunter, on the neck. That's whatmakes me so mad. I don't like to have her bitten by him. She is my girl andbelongs to me. "

The blacksmith, forerunner of the modern city newspaper reporter in hislove of taking the center of the stage in order to drag into public sightthe misfortunes of his fellows, did not finish his tirade. The merchant, white with anger, rushed up and struck him a blow on the chest with hissmall and rather fat fist. The blacksmith knocked him into the gutter andlater, when he was arrested, went proudly off to the office of the townmayor and paid his fine. 

It was said by the enemies of Smoky Pete that he had not taken a bath foryears. He lived alone in a small frame house at the edge of town. Behindhis house was a large field. The house itself was unspeakably dirty. Whenthe factories came to town, Tom Butterworth and Steve Hunter bought thefield intending to cut it into building lots. They wanted to buy theblacksmith's house and finally did secure it by paying a high price. Heagreed to move out within a year but after the money was paid repented andwished he had not sold. A rumor began to run about town connecting the nameof Tom Butterworth with that of Fanny Twist, the town milliner. It wassaid the rich farmer had been seen coming out of her shop late at night. The blacksmith also heard another story whispered in the streets. LouiseTrucker, the farmer's daughter who had at one time been seen creepingthrough a side street in the company of young Steve Hunter, had gone toCleveland and it was said she had become the proprietor of a prosperoushouse of ill fame. Steve's money, it was declared, had been used to set herup in business. The two stories offered unlimited opportunity for expansionin the blacksmith's mind, but while he was preparing himself to do whathe called bringing the two men down in the sight and hearing of the wholetown, a thing happened that upset his plans. His son Fizzy Fry left hisplace as clerk in the hotel and went to work in the corn-cutting machinefactory. One day his father saw him coming from the factory at noon with adozen other workmen. The young man had on overalls and smoked a pipe. Whenhe saw his father he stopped, and when the other men had gone on, explainedhis sudden transformation. "I'm in the shop now, but I won't be therelong, " he said proudly. "You know Tom Butterworth stays at the hotel? Well, he's given me a chance. I got to stay in the shop for a while to learnabout things. After that I'm to have a chance as shipping clerk. Then I'llbe a traveler on the road. " He looked at his father and his voice broke. "You haven't thought very much of me, but I'm not so bad, " he said. "Idon't want to be a sissy, but I'm not very strong. I worked at the hotelbecause there wasn't anything else I thought I could do. "

Peter Fry went home to his house but could not eat the food he had cookedfor himself on the tiny stove in the kitchen. He went outdoors and stoodfor a long time, looking out across the cow-pasture Tom Butterworth andSteve Hunter had bought and that they proposed should become a part of therapidly growing city. He had himself taken no part in the new impulses thathad come upon the town, except that he had taken advantage of the failureof the town's first industrial effort to roar insults at those of histownsmen who had lost their money. One evening he and Ed Hall had gotinto a fight about the matter on Main Street, and the blacksmith had beencompelled to pay another fine. Now he wondered what was the matter withhim. He had evidently made a mistake about his son. Had he made a mistakeabout Tom Butterworth and Steve Hunter?

The perplexed man went back to his shop and all the afternoon worked insilence. His heart had been set on the creation of a dramatic scene on MainStreet, when he openly attacked the two most prominent men of the town, and he even pictured himself as likely to be put in the town jail wherehe would have an opportunity to roar things through the iron bars at thecitizens gathered in the street. In anticipation of such an event, he hadprepared himself to attack the reputation of other people. He had neverattacked women but, if he were locked up, he intended to do so. John Mayhad once told him that Tom Butterworth's daughter, who had been away tocollege for a year, had been sent away because she was in the family way. John May had claimed he was responsible for her condition. Several of Tom'sfarm hands he said had been on intimate terms with the girl. The blacksmithhad told himself that if he got into trouble for publicly attacking thefather he would be justified in telling what he knew about the daughter. 

The blacksmith did not come into Main Street that evening. As he went homefrom work he saw Tom Butterworth standing with Steve Hunter before thepost-office. For several weeks Tom had been spending most of his time awayfrom town, had only appeared in town for a few hours at a time, and had notbeen seen on the streets in the evening. The blacksmith had been waitingto catch both men on the street at one time. Now that this opportunity hadcome, he began to be afraid he would not dare take it. "What right have Ito spoil my boy's chances?" he asked himself, as he went rather heavilyalong the street toward his own house. 

It rained on that evening and for the first time in years Smoky Pete didnot go into Main Street. He told himself that the rain kept him at home, but the thought did not satisfy him. All evening he moved restlessly aboutthe house and at half past eight went to bed. He did not, however, sleep, but lay with his trousers on and with his pipe in his mouth, trying tothink. Every few minutes he took the pipe from his mouth, blew out a cloudof smoke and swore viciously. At ten o'clock the farmer, who had owned thecow-pasture back of his house and who still kept his cows there, saw hisneighbor tramping about in the rain in the field and saying things he hadplanned to say on Main Street in the hearing of the entire town. 

The farmer also had gone to bed early, but at ten o'clock he decided that, as the rain continued to fall and as it was growing somewhat cold, he hadbetter get up and let his cows into the barn. He did not dress, but threw ablanket about his shoulders and went out without a light. He let down thebars separating the field from the barnyard and then saw and heard SmokyPete in the field. The blacksmith walked back and forth in the darkness, and as the farmer stood by the fence, began to talk in a loud voice. "Well, Tom Butterworth, you're fooling around with Fanny Twist, " he cried into thesilence and emptiness of the night. "You're sneaking into her shop late atnight, eh? Steve Hunter has set Louise Trucker up in business in a house inCleveland. Are you and Fanny Twist going to open a house here? Is that thenext industrial enterprise we're to have here in this town?"

The amazed farmer stood in the rain in the darkness, listening to the wordsof his neighbor. The cows came through the gate and went into the barn. Hisbare legs were cold and he drew them alternately up under the blanket. Forten minutes Peter Fry tramped up and down in the field. Once he came quitenear the farmer, who drew himself down beside the fence and listened, filled with amazement and fright. He could dimly see the tall, old manstriding along and waving his arms about. When he had said many bitter, hateful things regarding the two most prominent men of Bidwell, he beganto abuse Tom Butterworth's daughter, calling her a bitch and the daughterof a dog. The farmer waited until Smoky Pete had gone back to his houseand, when he saw a light in the kitchen, and fancied he could also see hisneighbor cooking food at a stove, he went again into his own house. He hadhimself never quarreled with Smoky Pete and was glad. He was glad also thatthe field at the back of his house had been sold. He intended to sell therest of his farm and move west to Illinois. "The man's crazy, " he toldhimself. "Who but a crazy man would talk that way in the darkness? Isuppose I ought to report him and get him locked up, but I guess I'llforget what I heard. A man who would talk like that about nice respectablepeople would do anything. He might set fire to my house some night orsomething like that. I guess I'll just forget what I heard. "

BOOK FOUR

CHAPTER XII

After the success of his corn cutting machine and the apparatus forunloading coal cars that brought him a hundred thousand dollars in cash, Hugh could not remain the isolated figure he had been all through the firstseveral years of his life in the Ohio community. From all sides men reachedout their hands to him: and more than one woman thought she would like tobe his wife. All men lead their lives behind a wall of misunderstandingthey themselves have built, and most men die in silence and unnoticedbehind the walls. Now and then a man, cut off from his fellows by thepeculiarities of his nature, becomes absorbed in doing something that isimpersonal, useful, and beautiful. Word of his activities is carried overthe walls. His name is shouted and is carried by the wind into the tinyinclosure in which other men live and in which they are for the most partabsorbed in doing some petty task for the furtherance of their own comfort. Men and women stop their complaining about the unfairness and inequality oflife and wonder about the man whose name they have heard. 

From Bidwell, Ohio, to farms all over the Middle West, Hugh McVey's namehad been carried. His machine for cutting corn was called the McVeyCorn-Cutter. The name was printed in white letters against a background ofred on the side of the machine. Farmer boys in the States of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and all the great corn-growing States sawit and in idle moments wondered what kind of man had invented the machinethey operated. A Cleveland newspaper man came to Bidwell and went toPickleville to see Hugh. He wrote a story telling of Hugh's early povertyand his efforts to become an inventor. When the reporter talked to Hughhe found the inventor so embarrassed and uncommunicative that he gave uptrying to get a story. Then he went to Steve Hunter who talked to him foran hour. The story made Hugh a strikingly romantic figure. His people, thestory said, came out of the mountains of Tennessee, but they were not poorwhites. It was suggested that they were of the best English stock. Therewas a tale of Hugh's having in his boyhood contrived some kind of an enginethat carried water from a valley to a mountain community; another of hishaving seen a clock in a store in a Missouri town and of his having latermade a clock of wood for his parents; and a tale of his having gone intothe forest with his father's gun, shot a wild hog and carried it down themountain side on his shoulder in order to get money to buy school books. After the tale was printed the advertising manager of the corn-cutterfactory got Hugh to go with him one day to Tom Butterworth's farm. Manybushels of corn were brought out of the corn cribs and a great mountain ofcorn was built on the ground at the edge of a field. Back of the mountainof corn was a corn field just coming into tassel. Hugh was told to climbup on the mountain and sit there. Then his picture was taken. It was sentto newspapers all over the West with copies of the biography cut from theCleveland paper. Later both the picture and the biography were used in thecatalogue that described the McVey Corn-Cutter. 

The cutting of corn and putting it in shocks against the time of thehusking is heavy work. In recent times it has come about that much of thecorn grown on mid-American prairie lands is not cut. The corn is leftstanding in the fields, and men go through it in the late fall to pick theyellow ears. The workers throw the corn over their shoulders into a wagondriven by a boy, who follows them in their slow progress, and it is thenhauled away to the cribs. When a field has been picked, the cattle areturned in and all winter they nibble at the dry corn blades and tramp thestalks into the ground. All day long on the wide western prairies when thegray fall days have come, you may see the men and the horses working theirway slowly through the fields. Like tiny insects they crawl across theimmense landscapes. After them in the late fall and in the winter when theprairies are covered with snow, come the cattle. They are brought from thefar West in cattle cars and after they have nibbled the corn blades allday, are taken to barns and stuffed to bursting with corn. When they arefat they are sent to the great killing-pens in Chicago, the giant city ofthe prairies. In the still fall nights, as you stand on prairie roads or inthe barnyard back of one of the farm houses, you may hear the rustling ofthe dry corn blades and then the crash of the heavy bodies of the beastsgoing forward as they nibble and trample the corn. 

In earlier days the method of corn harvesting was different. There waspoetry in the operation then as there is now, but it was set to anotherrhythm. When the corn was ripe men went into the fields with heavy cornknives and cut the stalks of corn close to the ground. The stalks were cutwith the right hand swinging the corn knife and carried on the left arm. All day a man carried a heavy load of the stalks from which yellow earshung down. When the load became unbearably heavy it was carried to theshock, and when all the corn was cut in a certain area, the shock was madesecure by binding it with tarred rope or with a tough stalk twisted to takethe place of the rope. When the cutting was done the long rows of stalksstood up in the fields like sentinels, and the men crawled off to thefarmhouses and to bed, utterly weary. 

Hugh's machine took all of the heavier part of the work away. It cut thecorn near the ground and bound it into bundles that fell upon a platform. Two men followed the machine, one to drive the horses and the other toplace the bundles of stalks against the shocks and to bind the completedshocks. The men went along smoking their pipes and talking. The horsesstopped and the driver stared out over the prairies. His arms did not achewith weariness and he had time to think. The wonder and mystery of the wideopen places got a little into his blood. At night when the work was doneand the cattle fed and made comfortable in the barns, he did not go at onceto bed but sometimes went out of his house and stood for a moment under thestars. 

This thing the brain of the son of a mountain man, the poor white of theriver town, had done for the people of the plains. The dreams he had triedso hard to put away from him and that the New England woman Sarah Shepardhad told him would lead to his destruction had come to something. Thecar-dumping apparatus, that had sold for two hundred thousand dollars, hadgiven Steve Hunter money to buy the plant-setting machine factory, and withTom Butterworth to start manufacturing the corn-cutters, had affected thelives of fewer people, but it had carried the Missourian's name into otherplaces and had also made a new kind of poetry in railroad yards and alongrivers at the back of cities where ships are loaded. On city nights as youlie in your houses you may hear suddenly a long reverberating roar. It is agiant that has cleared his throat of a carload of coal. Hugh McVey helpedto free the giant. He is still doing it. In Bidwell, Ohio, he is still atit, making new inventions, cutting the bands that have bound the giant. Heis one man who had not been swept aside from his purpose by the complexityof life. 

That, however, came near happening. After the coming of his success, athousand little voices began calling to him. The soft hands of womenreached out of the masses of people about him, out of the old dwellers andnew dwellers in the city that was growing up about the factories wherehis machines were being made in ever increasing numbers. New houses wereconstantly being built along Turner's Pike that led down to his workshop atPickleville. Beside Allie Mulberry a dozen mechanics were now employed inhis experimental shop. They helped Hugh with a new invention, a hay-loadingapparatus on which he was at work, and also made special tools for use inthe corn-cutter factory and the new bicycle factory. A dozen new houseshad been built in Pickleville itself. The wives of the mechanics lived inthe houses and occasionally one of them came to see her husband at Hugh'sshop. He found it less and less difficult to talk to people. The workmen, themselves not given to the use of many words, did not think his habitualsilence peculiar. They were more skilled than Hugh in the use of tools andthought it rather an accident that he had done what they had not done. Ashe had grown rich by that road they also tried their hand at inventions. One of them made a patent door hinge that Steve sold for ten thousanddollars, keeping half the money for his services, as he had done in thecase of Hugh's car-dumping apparatus. At the noon hour the men hurried totheir houses to eat and then came back to loaf before the factory andsmoke their noonday pipes. They talked of money-making, of the price offood stuffs, of the advisability of a man's buying a house on the partialpayment plan. Sometimes they talked of women and of their adventures withwomen. Hugh sat by himself inside the door of the shop and listened. Atnight after he had gone to bed he thought of what they had said. He livedin a house belonging to a Mrs. McCoy, the widow of a railroad section handkilled in a railroad accident, who had a daughter. The daughter, RoseMcCoy, taught a country school and most of the year was away from home fromMonday morning until late on Friday afternoon. Hugh lay in bed thinking ofwhat his workmen had said of women and heard the old housekeeper movingabout down stairs. Sometimes he got out of bed to sit by an open window. Because she was the woman whose life touched his most closely, he thoughtoften of the school teacher. The McCoy house, a small frame affair with apicket fence separating it from Turner's Pike, stood with its back doorfacing the Wheeling Railroad. The section hands on the railroad rememberedtheir former fellow workman, Mike McCoy, and wanted to be good to hiswidow. They sometimes dumped half decayed railroad ties over the fence intoa potato patch back of the house. At night, when heavily loaded coal trainsrumbled past, the brakemen heaved large chunks of coal over the fence. Thewidow awoke whenever a train passed. When one of the brakemen threw a chunkof coal he shouted and his voice could be heard above the rumble of thecoal cars. "That's for Mike, " he cried. Sometimes one of the chunks knockeda picket out of the fence and the next day Hugh put it back again. When thetrain had passed the widow got out of bed and brought the coal into thehouse. "I don't want to give the boys away by leaving it lying aroundin the daylight, " she explained to Hugh. On Sunday mornings Hugh took acrosscut saw and cut the railroad ties into lengths that would go into thekitchen stove. Slowly his place in the McCoy household had become fixed, and when he received the hundred thousand dollars and everybody, even themother and daughter, expected him to move, he did not do so. He triedunsuccessfully to get the widow to take more money for his board and whenthat effort failed, life in the McCoy household went as it had when he wasa telegraph operator receiving forty dollars a month. 

In the spring or fall, as he sat by his window at night, and when the mooncame up and the dust in Turner's Pike was silvery white, Hugh thought ofRose McCoy, sleeping in some farmer's house. It did not occur to him thatshe might also be awake and thinking. He imagined her lying very still inbed. The section hand's daughter was a slender woman of thirty with tiredblue eyes and red hair. Her skin had been heavily freckled in her youth andher nose was still freckled. Although Hugh did not know it, she had oncebeen in love with George Pike, the Wheeling station agent, and a day hadbeen set for the marriage. Then a difficulty arose in regard to religiousbeliefs and George Pike married another woman. It was then she became aschool teacher. She was a woman of few words and she and Hugh had neverbeen alone together, but as Hugh sat by the window on fall evenings, shelay awake in a room in the farmer's house, where she was boarding duringthe school season, and thought of him. She thought that had Hugh remained atelegraph operator at forty dollars a month something might have happenedbetween them. Then she had other thoughts, or rather, sensations that hadlittle to do with thoughts. The room in which she lay was very still anda streak of moonlight came in through the window. In the barn back of thefarmhouse she could hear the cattle stirring about. A pig grunted and inthe stillness that followed she could hear the farmer, who lay in thenext room with his wife, snoring gently. Rose was not very strong and thephysical did not rule in her nature, but she was very lonely and thoughtthat, like the farmer's wife, she would like to have a man to lie with her. Warmth crept over her body and her lips became dry so that she moistenedthem with her tongue. Had you been able to creep unobserved into the room, you might have thought her much like a kitten lying by a stove. She closedher eyes and gave herself over to dreams. In her conscious mind she dreamedof being the wife of the bachelor Hugh McVey, but deep within her there wasanother dream, a dream having its basis in the memory of her one physicalcontact with a man. When they were engaged to be married George had oftenkissed her. On one evening in the spring they had gone to sit together onthe grassy bank beside the creek in the shadow of the pickle factory, thendeserted and silent, and had come near to going beyond kissing. Why nothingelse had happened Rose did not exactly know. She had protested, but herprotest had been feeble and had not expressed what she felt. George Pikehad desisted in his effort to press love upon her because they were to bemarried, and he did not think it right to do what he thought of as takingadvantage of a girl. 

At any rate he did desist and long afterward, as she lay in the farmhouseconsciously thinking of her mother's bachelor boarder, her thoughts becameless and less distinct and when she had slipped off into sleep, George Pikecame back to her. She stirred uneasily in bed and muttered words. Rough butgentle hands touched her cheeks and played in her hair. As the night woreon and the position of the moon shifted, the streak of moonlight lightedher face. One of her hands reached up and seemed to be caressing themoonbeams. The weariness had all gone out of her face. "Yes, George, I loveyou, I belong to you, " she whispered. 

Had Hugh been able to creep like the moonbeam into the presence of thesleeping school teacher, he must inevitably have loved her. Also he wouldperhaps have understood that it is best to approach human beings directlyand boldly as he had approached the mechanical problems by which his dayswere filled. Instead he sat by his window in the presence of the moonlitnight and thought of women as beings utterly unlike himself. Words droppedby Sarah Shepard to the awakening boy came creeping back to his mind. Hethought women were for other men but not for him, and told himself he didnot want a woman. 

And then in Turner's Pike something happened. A farmer boy, who had beento town and who had the daughter of a neighbor in his buggy, stopped infront of the house. A long freight train, grinding its way slowly past thestation, barred the passage along the road. He held the reins in one handand put the other about the waist of his companion. The two heads soughteach other and lips met. They clung to each other. The same moon that shedits light on Rose McCoy in the distant farmhouse lighted the open placewhere the lovers sat in the buggy in the road. Hugh had to close his eyesand fight to put down an almost overpowering physical hunger in himself. His mind still protested that women were not for him. When his fancy madefor him a picture of the school teacher Rose McCoy sleeping in a bed, hesaw her only as a chaste white thing to be worshiped from afar and not tobe approached, at least not by himself. Again he opened his eyes and lookedat the lovers whose lips still clung together. His long slouching bodystiffened and he sat up very straight in his chair. Then he closed his eyesagain. A gruff voice broke the silence. "That's for Mike, " it shouted and agreat chunk of coal thrown from the train bounded across the potato patchand struck against the back of the house. Downstairs he could hear old Mrs. McCoy getting out of bed to secure the prize. The train passed and thelovers in the buggy sank away from each other. In the silent night Hughcould hear the regular beat of the hoofs of the farmer boy's horse as itcarried him and his woman away into the darkness. 

The two people, living in the house with the old woman who had almostfinished her life, and themselves trying feebly to reach out to life, nevergot to anything very definite in relation to each other. One Saturdayevening in the late fall the Governor of the State came to Bidwell. Therewas a parade to be followed by a political meeting and the Governor, whowas a candidate for re-election, was to address the people from the stepsof the town hall. Prominent citizens were to stand on the steps beside theGovernor. Steve and Tom were to be there, and they had asked Hugh to come, but he had refused. He asked Rose McCoy to go to the meeting with him, andthey set out from the house at eight o'clock and walked to town. Then theystood at the edge of the crowd in the shadow of a store building andlistened to the speech. To Hugh's amazement his name was mentioned. TheGovernor spoke of the prosperity of the town, indirectly hinting thatit was due to the political sagacity of the party of which he was arepresentative, and then mentioned several individuals also partlyresponsible. "The whole country is sweeping forward to new triumphs underour banner, " he declared, "but not every community is so fortunate as Ifind you here. Labor is employed at good wages. Life here is fruitful andhappy. You are fortunate here in having among you such business men asSteven Hunter and Thomas Butterworth; and in the inventor Hugh McVey youhave one of the greatest intellects and the most useful men that ever livedto help lift the burden off the shoulder of labor. What his brain is doingfor labor, our party is doing in another way. The protective tariff isreally the father of modern prosperity. "

The speaker paused and a cheer arose from the crowd. Hugh took hold of theschool teacher's arm and drew her away down a side street. They walked homein silence, but when they got to the house and were about to go in, theschool teacher hesitated. She wanted to ask Hugh to walk about in thedarkness with her but did not have the courage of her desires. As theystood at the gate and as the tall man with the long serious face lookeddown at her, she remembered the speaker's words. "How could he care for me?How could a man like him care anything for a homely little school teacherlike me?" she asked herself. Aloud she said something quite different. Asthey had come along Turner's Pike she had made up her mind she would boldlysuggest a walk under the trees along Turner's Pike beyond the bridge, andhad told herself that she would later lead him to the place beside thestream and in the shadow of the old pickle factory where she and GeorgePike had come so near being lovers. Instead she hesitated for a moment bythe gate and then laughed awkwardly and passed in. "You should be proud. Iwould be proud if I could be spoken of like that. I don't see why you keepliving here in a cheap little house like ours, " she said. 

On a warm spring Sunday night during the year in which Clara Butterworthcame back to Bidwell to live, Hugh made what was for him an almostdesperate effort to approach the school teacher. It had been a rainyafternoon and Hugh had spent a part of it in the house. He came over fromhis shop at noon and went to his room. When she was at home the schoolteacher occupied a room next his own. The mother who seldom left the househad on that day gone to the country to visit a brother. The daughter gotdinner for herself and Hugh and he tried to help her wash the dishes. Aplate fell out of his hands and its breaking seemed to break the silent, embarrassed mood that had possession of them. For a few minutes they werechildren and acted like children. Hugh picked up another plate and theschool teacher told him to put it down. He refused. "You're as awkward as apuppy. How you ever manage to do anything over at that shop of yours ismore than I know. "

Hugh tried to keep hold of the plate which the school teacher tried tosnatch away and for a few minutes they struggled laughing. Her cheeks wereflushed and Hugh thought she looked bewitching. An impulse he had never hadbefore came to him. He wanted to shout at the top of his lungs, throw theplate at the ceiling, sweep all of the dishes off the table and hear themcrash on the floor, play like some huge animal loose in a tiny world. Helooked at Rose and his hands trembled from the strength of the strangeimpulse. As he stood staring she took the plate out of his hand and wentinto the kitchen. Not knowing what else to do he put on his hat and wentfor a walk. Later he went to the shop and tried to work, but his handtrembled when he tried to hold a tool and the hay-loading apparatus onwhich he was at work seemed suddenly a very trivial and unimportant thing. 

At four o'clock Hugh got back to the house and found it apparently empty, although the door leading to Turner's Pike was open. The rain had stoppedfalling and the sun struggled to work its way through the clouds. He wentupstairs to his own room and sat on the edge of his bed. The convictionthat the daughter of the house was in her room next door came to him, andalthough the thought violated all the beliefs he had ever held regardingwomen in relation to himself, he decided that she had gone to her room tobe near him when he came in. For some reason he knew that if he went toher door and knocked she would not be surprised and would not refuse himadmission. He took off his shoes and set them gently on the floor. Then hewent on tiptoes out into the little hallway. The ceiling was so low thathe had to stoop to avoid knocking his head against it. He raised his handintending to knock on the door, and then lost courage. Several timeshe went into the hallway with the same intent, and each time returnednoiselessly to his own room. He sat in the chair by the window and waited. An hour passed. He heard a noise that indicated that the school teacher hadbeen lying on her bed. Then he heard footsteps on the stairs, and presentlysaw her go out of the house and go along Turner's Pike. She did not gotoward town but over the bridge past his shop and into the country. Hughdrew himself back out of sight. He wondered where she could be going. "The roads are muddy. Why does she go out? Is she afraid of me?" he askedhimself. When he saw her turn at the bridge and look back toward the house, his hands trembled again. "She wants me to follow. She wants me to go withher, " he thought. 

Hugh did presently go out of the house and along the road but did not meetthe school teacher. She had in fact crossed the bridge and had gone alongthe bank of the creek on the farther side. Then she crossed over again ona fallen log and went to stand by the wall of the pickle factory. A lilacbush grew beside the wall and she stood out of sight behind it. When shesaw Hugh in the road her heart beat so heavily that she had difficulty inbreathing. He went along the road and presently passed out of sight, and agreat weakness took possession of her. Although the grass was wet she saton the ground against the wall of the building and closed her eyes. Latershe put her face in her hands and wept. 

The perplexed inventor did not get back to his boarding house until latethat night, and when he did he was unspeakably glad that he had not knockedon the door of Rose McCoy's room. He had decided during the walk thatthe whole notion that she had wanted him had been born in his own brain. "She's a nice woman, " he had said to himself over and over during thewalk, and thought that in coming to that conclusion he had swept away allpossibilities of anything else in her. He was tired when he got home andwent at once to bed. The old woman came home from the country and herbrother sat in his buggy and shouted to the school teacher, who came out ofher room and ran down the stairs. He heard the two women carry somethingheavy into the house and drop it on the floor. The farmer brother had givenMrs. McCoy a bag of potatoes. Hugh thought of the mother and daughterstanding together downstairs and was unspeakably glad he had not given wayto his impulse toward boldness. "She would be telling her now. She is agood woman and would be telling her now, " he thought. 

At two o'clock that night Hugh got out of bed. In spite of the convictionthat women were not for him, he had found himself unable to sleep. Something that shone in the eyes of the school teacher, when she struggledwith him for the possession of the plate, kept calling to him and he gotup and went to the window. The clouds had all gone out of the sky and thenight was clear. At the window next his own sat Rose McCoy. She was dressedin a night gown and was looking away along Turner's Pike to the place whereGeorge Pike the station master lived with his wife. Without giving himselftime to think, Hugh knelt on the floor and with his long arm reached acrossthe space between the two windows. His fingers had almost touched the backof the woman's head and ached to play in the mass of red hair that felldown over her shoulders, when again self-consciousness overcame him. Hedrew his arm quickly back and stood upright in the room. His head bangedagainst the ceiling and he heard the window of the room next door go softlydown. With a conscious effort he took himself in hand. "She's a good woman. Remember, she's a good woman, " he whispered to himself, and when he gotagain into his bed he refused to let his mind linger on the thoughts ofthe school teacher, but compelled them to turn to the unsolved problems hestill had to face before he could complete his hay-loading apparatus. "Youtend to your business and don't be going off on that road any more, " hesaid, as though speaking to another person. "Remember she's a good womanand you haven't the right. That's all you have to do. Remember you haven'tthe right, " he added with a ring of command in his voice. 

CHAPTER XIII

Hugh first saw Clara Butterworth one day in July when she had been at homefor a month. She came to his shop late one afternoon with her father and aman who had been employed to manage the new bicycle factory. The three gotout of Tom's buggy and came into the shop to see Hugh's new invention, thehay-loading apparatus. Tom and the man named Alfred Buckley went to therear of the shop, and Hugh was left alone with the woman. She was dressedin a light summer gown and her cheeks were flushed. Hugh stood by a benchnear an open window and listened while she talked of how much the town hadchanged in the three years she had been away. "It is your doing, every onesays that, " she declared. 

Clara had been waiting for an opportunity to talk to Hugh. She began askingquestions regarding his work and what was to come of it. "When everythingis done by machines, what are people to do?" she asked. She seemed to takeit for granted that the inventor had thought deeply on the subject ofindustrial development, a subject on which Kate Chanceller had often talkedduring a whole evening. Having heard Hugh spoken of as one who had a greatbrain, she wanted to see the brain at work. 

Alfred Buckley came often to her father's house and wanted to marry Clara. In the evening the two men sat on the front porch of the farmhouse andtalked of the town and the big things that were to be done there. Theyspoke of Hugh, and Buckley, an energetic, talkative fellow with a long jawand restless gray eyes who had come from New York City, suggested schemesfor using him. Clara gathered that there was a plan on foot to get controlof Hugh's future inventions and thereby gain an advantage over SteveHunter. 

The whole matter puzzled Clara. Alfred Buckley had asked her to marry himand she had put the matter off. The proposal had been a formal thing, notat all what she had expected from a man she was to take as a partner forlife, but Clara was at the moment very seriously determined upon marriage. The New York man was at her father's house several evenings every week. She had never walked about with him nor had they in any way come close toeach other. He seemed too much occupied with work to be personal and hadproposed marriage by writing her a letter. Clara got the letter from thepost-office and it upset her so that she felt she could not for a time gointo the presence of any one she knew. "I am unworthy of you, but I wantyou to be my wife. I will work for you. I am new here and you do not knowme very well. All I ask is the privilege of proving my merit. I want you tobe my wife, but before I dare come and ask you to do me so great an honor Ifeel I must prove myself worthy, " the letter said. 

Clara had driven into town alone on the day when she received it and latergot into her buggy and drove south past the Butterworth farm into thehills. She forgot to go home to lunch or to the evening meal. The horsejogged slowly along, protesting and trying to turn back at every crossroad, but she kept on and did not get home until midnight. When she reachedthe farmhouse her father was waiting. He went with her into the barnyardand helped unhitch the horse. Nothing was said, and after a moment'sconversation having nothing to do with the subject that occupied both theirminds, she went upstairs and tried to think the matter out. She becameconvinced that her father had something to do with the proposal of marriagethat he knew about it and had waited for her to come home in order to seehow it had affected her. 

Clara wrote a reply that was as non-committal as the proposal itself. "Ido not know whether I want to marry you or not. I will have to becomeacquainted with you. I however thank you for the offer of marriage and whenyou feel that the right time has come, we will talk about it, " she wrote. 

After the exchange of letters, Alfred Buckley came to her father's housemore often than before, but he and Clara did not become better acquainted. He did not talk to her, but to her father. Although she did not know it, the rumor that she was to marry the New York man had already run abouttown. She did not know whether her father or Buckley had told the tale. 

On the front porch of the farmhouse through the summer evenings the two mentalked of the progress, of the town and the part they were taking and hopedto take in its future growth. The New York man had proposed a scheme toTom. He was to go to Hugh and propose a contract giving the two men anoption on all his future inventions. As the inventions were completedthey were to be financed in New York City, and the two men would give upmanufacture and make money much more rapidly as promoters. They hesitatedbecause they were afraid of Steve Hunter, and because Tom was afraid Hughwould not fall in with their plan. "It wouldn't surprise me if Stevealready had such a contract with him. He's a fool if he hasn't, " the olderman said. 

Evening after evening the two men talked and Clara sat in the deep shadowsat the back of the porch and listened. The enmity that had existed betweenherself and her father seemed to be forgotten. The man who had asked her tomarry him did not look at her, but her father did. Buckley did most of thetalking and spoke of New York City business men, already famous throughoutthe Middle West as giants of finance, as though they were his life-longfriends. "They'll put over anything I ask them to, " he declared. 

Clara tried to think of Alfred Buckley as a husband. Like Hugh McVey hewas tall and gaunt but unlike the inventor, whom she had seen two or threetimes on the street, he was not carelessly dressed. There was somethingsleek about him, something that suggested a well-bred dog, a hound perhaps. As he talked he leaned forward like a greyhound in pursuit of a rabbit. Hishair was carefully parted and his clothes fitted him like the skin of ananimal. He wore a diamond scarf pin. His long jaw, it seemed to her, wasalways wagging. Within a few days after the receipt of his letter shehad made up her mind that she did not want him as a husband, and she wasconvinced he did not want her. The whole matter of marriage had, she wassure, been in some way suggested by her father. When she came to thatconclusion she was both angry and in an odd way touched. She did notinterpret it as fear of some sort of indiscretion on her part, but thoughtthat her father wanted her to marry because he wanted her to be happy. Asshe sat in the darkness on the front porch of the farmhouse the voices ofthe two men became indistinct. It was as though her mind went out of herbody and like a living thing journeyed over the world. Dozens of men shehad seen and had casually addressed, young fellows attending school atColumbus and boys of the town with whom she had gone to parties and danceswhen she was a young girl, came to stand before her. She saw their figuresdistinctly, but remembered them at some advantageous moment of her contactwith them. At Columbus there was a young man from a town in the southernend of the State, one of the sort that is always in love with a woman. During her first year in school he had noticed Clara, had been undecidedas to whether he had better pay attention to her or to a little black-eyedtown girl who was in their classes. Several times he walked down thecollege hill and along the street with Clara. The two stood at a streetcrossing where she was in the habit of taking a car. Several cars wentby as they stood together by a bush that grew by a high stone wall. Theytalked of trivial matters, a comedy club that had been organized in theschool, the chances of victory for the football team. The young man was oneof the actors in a play to be given by the comedy club and told Clara ofhis experiences at rehearsals. As he talked his eyes began to shine and heseemed to be looking, not at her face or body, but at something within her. For a time, perhaps for fifteen minutes, there was a possibility that thetwo people would love each other. Then the young man went away and latershe saw him walking under the trees on the college campus with the littleblack-eyed town girl. 

As she sat on the porch in the darkness in the summer evenings, Clarathought of the incident and of dozens of other swift-passing contactsshe had made with men. The voices of the two men talking of money-makingwent on and on. Whenever she came back out of her introspective world ofthought, Alfred Buckley's long jaw was wagging. He was always at work, steadily, persistently urging something on her father. It was difficultfor Clara to think of her father as a rabbit, but the notion that AlfredBuckley was like a hound stayed with her. "The wolf and the wolfhound, " shethought absent-mindedly. 

Clara was twenty-three and seemed to herself mature. She did not intendwasting any more time going to school and did not want to be a professionalwoman, like Kate Chanceller. There was something she did want and in away some man, she did not know what man it would be, was concerned in thematter. She was very hungry for love, but might have got that from anotherwoman. Kate Chanceller would have loved her. She was not unconscious ofthe fact that their friendship had been something more than friendship. Kate loved to hold Clara's hand and wanted to kiss and caress her. Theinclination had been put down by Kate herself, a struggle had gone on inher, and Clara had been dimly conscious of it and had respected Kate formaking it. 

Why? Clara asked herself that question a dozen times during the early weeksof that summer. Kate Chanceller had taught her to think. When they weretogether Kate did both the thinking and the talking, but now Clara's mindhad a chance. There was something back of her desire for a man. She wantedsomething more than caresses. There was a creative impulse in her thatcould not function until she had been made love to by a man. The man shewanted was but an instrument she sought in order that she might fulfillherself. Several times during those evenings in the presence of the twomen, who talked only of making money out of the products of another man'smind, she almost forced her mind out into a concrete thought concerningwomen, and then it became again befogged. 

Clara grew tired of thinking, and listened to the talk. The name of HughMcVey played through the persistent conversation like a refrain. It becamefixed in her mind. The inventor was not married. By the social system underwhich she lived that and that only made him a possibility for her purposes. She began to think of the inventor, and her mind, weary of playing abouther own figure, played about the figure of the tall, serious-looking manshe had seen on Main Street. When Alfred Buckley had driven away to townfor the night, she went upstairs to her own room but did not get into bed. Instead, she put out her light and sat by an open window that looked outupon the orchard and from which she could see a little stretch of the roadthat ran past the farm house toward town. Every evening before AlfredBuckley went away, there was a little scene on the front porch. When thevisitor got up to go, her father made some excuse for going indoors oraround the corner of the house into the barnyard. "I will have Jim Priesthitch up your horse, " he said and hurried away. Clara was left in thecompany of the man who had pretended he wanted to marry her, and who, shewas convinced, wanted nothing of the kind. She was not embarrassed, butcould feel his embarrassment and enjoyed it. He made formal speeches. 

"Well, the night is fine, " he said. Clara hugged the thought that he wasuncomfortable. "He has taken me for a green country girl, impressed withhim because he is from the city and dressed in fine clothes, " she thought. Sometimes her father stayed away five or ten minutes and she did not say aword. When her father returned Alfred Buckley shook hands with him and thenturned to Clara, apparently now quite at his ease. "We have bored you, I'mafraid, " he said. He took her hand and leaning over, kissed the back of itceremoniously. Her father looked away. Clara went upstairs and sat by thewindow. She could hear the two men continuing their talk in the road beforethe house. After a time the front door banged, her father came into thehouse and the visitor drove away. Everything became quiet and for a longtime she could hear the hoofs of Alfred Buckley's horse beating a rapidtattoo on the road that led down into town. 

Clara thought of Hugh McVey. Alfred Buckley had spoken of him as abackwoodsman with a streak of genius. He constantly harped on the notionthat he and Tom could use the man for their own ends, and she wondered ifboth of the men were making as great a mistake about the inventor as theywere about her. In the silent summer night, when the sound of the horse'shoofs had died away and when her father had quit stirring about the house, she heard another sound. The corn-cutting machine factory was very busy andhad put on a night shift. When the night was still, or when there was aslight breeze blowing up the hill from town, there was a low rumbling soundcoming from many machines working in wood and steel, followed at regularintervals by the steady breathing of a steam engine. 

The woman at the window, like every one else in her town and in all thetowns of the mid-western country, became touched with the idea of theromance of industry. The dreams of the Missouri boy that he had fought, hadby the strength of his persistency twisted into new channels so that theyhad expressed themselves in definite things, in corn-cutting machines andin machines for unloading coal cars and for gathering hay out of a fieldand loading it on wagons without aid of human hands, were still dreams andcapable of arousing dreams in others. They awoke dreams in the mind of thewoman. The figures of other men that had been playing through her mindslipped away and but the one figure remained. Her mind made up storiesconcerning Hugh. She had read the absurd tale that had been printed in theCleveland paper and her fancy took hold of it. Like every other citizenof America she believed in heroes. In books and magazines she had readof heroic men who had come up out of poverty by some strange alchemy tocombine in their stout persons all of the virtues. The broad, rich landdemanded gigantic figures, and the minds of men had created the figures. Lincoln, Grant, Garfield, Sherman, and a half dozen other men weresomething more than human in the minds of the generation that cameimmediately after the days of their stirring performance. Already industrywas creating a new set of semi-mythical figures. The factory at work in thenight-time in the town of Bidwell became, to the mind of the woman sittingby the window in the farm house, not a factory but a powerful animal, a powerful beast-like thing that Hugh had tamed and made useful to hisfellows. Her mind ran forward and took the taming of the beast for granted. The hunger of her generation found a voice in her. Like every one else shewanted heroes, and Hugh, to whom she had never talked and about whom sheknew nothing, became a hero. Her father, Alfred Buckley, Steve Hunter andthe rest were after all pigmies. Her father was a schemer; he had evenschemed to get her married, perhaps to further his own plans. In realityhis schemes were so ineffective that she did not need to be angry with him. There was but one man of them all who was not a schemer. Hugh was what shewanted to be. He was a creative force. In his hands dead inanimate thingsbecame creative forces. He was what she wanted not herself but perhaps ason, to be. The thought, at last definitely expressed, startled Clara, andshe arose from the chair by the window and prepared to go to bed. Somethingwithin her body ached, but she did not allow herself to pursue further thethoughts she had been having. 

On the day when she went with her father and Alfred Buckley to visit Hugh'sshop, Clara knew that she wanted to marry the man she would see there. Thethought was not expressed in her but slept like a seed newly planted infertile soil. She had herself managed that she be taken to the factory andhad also managed that she be left with Hugh while the two men went to lookat the half-completed hay-loader at the back of the shop. 

She had begun talking to Hugh while the four people stood on the littlegrass plot before the shop. They went inside and her father and Buckleywent through a door toward the rear. She stopped by a bench and as shecontinued talking Hugh was compelled to stop and stand beside her. Sheasked questions, paid him vague compliments, and as he struggled, trying tomake conversation, she studied him. To cover his confusion he half turnedaway and looked out through a window into Turner's Pike. His eyes, shedecided, were nice. They were somewhat small, but there was something grayand cloudy in them, and the gray cloudiness gave her confidence in theperson behind the eyes. She could, she felt, trust him. There was somethingin his eyes that was like the things most grateful to her own nature, the sky seen across an open stretch of country or over a river that ranstraight away into the distance. Hugh's hair was coarse like the mane of ahorse, and his nose was like the nose of a horse. He was, she decided, verylike a horse; an honest, powerful horse, a horse that was humanized by themysterious, hungering thing that expressed itself through his eyes. "If Ihave to live with an animal; if, as Kate Chanceller once said, we womenhave to decide what other animal we are to live with before we can beginbeing humans, I would rather live with a strong, kindly horse than a wolfor a wolfhound, " she found herself thinking. 

CHAPTER XIV

Hugh had no suspicion that Clara had him under consideration as a possiblehusband. He knew nothing about her, but after she went away he began tothink. She was a woman and good to look upon and at once took Rose McCoy'splace in his mind. All unloved men and many who are loved play in a halfsubconscious way with the figures of many women as women's minds play withthe figures of men, seeing them in many situations, vaguely caressing them, dreaming of closer contacts. With Hugh the impulse toward women had startedlate, but it was becoming every day more active. When he talked to Claraand while she stayed in his presence, he was more embarrassed than he hadever been before, because he was more conscious of her than he had everbeen of any other woman. In secret he was not the modest man he thoughthimself. The success of his corn-cutting machine and his car-dumpingapparatus and the respect, amounting almost to worship, he sometimes saw inthe eyes of the people of the Ohio town had fed his vanity. It was a timewhen all America was obsessed with one idea, and to the people of Bidwellnothing could be more important, necessary and vital to progress than thethings Hugh had done. He did not walk and talk like the other people of thetown, and his body was over-large and loosely put together, but in secrethe did not want to be different even in a physical way. Now and then therecame an opportunity for a test of physical strength: an iron bar was to belifted or a part of some heavy machine swung into place in the shop. Insuch a test he had found he could lift almost twice the load another couldhandle. Two men grunted and strained, trying to lift a heavy bar off thefloor and put it on a bench. He came along and did the job alone andwithout apparent effort. 

In his room at night or in the late afternoon or evening in the summer whenhe walked on country roads, he sometimes felt keen hunger for recognitionof his merits from his fellows, and having no one to praise him, he praisedhimself. When the Governor of the State spoke in praise of him before acrowd and when he made Rose McCoy come away because it seemed immodest forhim to stay and hear such words, he found himself unable to sleep. Aftertossing in his bed for two or three hours he got up and crept quietly outof the house. He was like a man who, having an unmusical voice, sings tohimself in a bath-room while the water is making a loud, splashing noise. On that night Hugh wanted to be an orator. As he stumbled in the darknessalong Turner's Pike he imagined himself Governor of a State addressinga multitude of people. A mile north of Pickleville a dense thicket grewbeside the road, and Hugh stopped and addressed the young trees and bushes. In the darkness the mass of bushes looked not unlike a crowd standing atattention, listening. The wind blew and played in the thick, dry growth andthere was a sound as of many voices whispering words of encouragement. Hughsaid many foolish things. Expressions he had heard from the lips of SteveHunter and Tom Butterworth came into his mind and were repeated by hislips. He spoke of the swift growth that had come to the town of Bidwellas though it were an unmixed blessing, the factories, the homes of happy, contented people, the coming of industrial development as something akin toa visit of the gods. Rising to the height of egotism he shouted, "I havedone it. I have done it. "

Hugh heard a buggy coming along the road and fled into the thicket. Afarmer, who had gone to town for the evening and who had stayed after thepolitical meeting to talk with other farmers in Ben Head's saloon, wenthomeward, asleep in his buggy. His head nodded up and down, heavy withthe vapors rising from many glasses of beer. Hugh came out of the thicketfeeling somewhat ashamed. The next day he wrote a letter to Sarah Shepherdand told her of his progress. "If you or Henry want any money, I can letyou have all you want, " he wrote, and did not resist the temptation to tellher something of what the Governor had said of his work and his mind. "Anyway they must think I amount to something whether I do or not, " he saidwistfully. 

Having awakened to his own importance in the life about him, Hugh wanteddirect, human appreciation. After the failure of the effort both he andRose had made to break through the wall of embarrassment and reserve thatkept them apart, he knew pretty definitely that he wanted a woman, andthe idea, once fixed in his mind, grew to gigantic proportions. All womenbecame interesting, and he looked with hungry eyes at the wives of theworkmen who sometimes came to the shop door to pass a word with theirhusbands, at young farm girls who drove along Turner's Pike on summerafternoons, town girls who walked in the Bidwell Main Street in theevening, at fair women and dark women. As he wanted a woman moreconsciously and determinedly he became more afraid of individual women. Hissuccess and his association with the workmen in his shop had made him lessself-conscious in the presence of men, but the women were different. Intheir presence he was ashamed of his secret thoughts of them. 

On the day when he was left alone with Clara, Tom Butterworth and AlfredBuckley stayed at the back of the shop for nearly twenty minutes. It was ahot day and beads of sweat stood on Hugh's face. His sleeves were rolled tohis elbows and his hands and hairy arms were covered with shop grime. Heput up his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead, leaving a long, blackmark. Then he became aware of the fact that as she talked the woman lookedat him in an absorbed, almost calculating way. It was as though he were ahorse and she were a buyer examining him to be sure he was sound and ofa kindly disposition. While she stood beside him her eyes were shiningand her cheeks were flushed. The awakening, assertive male thing in himwhispered that the flush on her cheeks and the shining eyes were indicativeof something. His mind had been taught that lesson by the slight and whollyunsatisfactory experience with the school teacher at his boarding-house. 

Clara drove away from the shop with her father and Alfred Buckley. Tomdrove and Alfred Buckley leaned forward and talked. "You must find outwhether or not Steve has an option on the new tool. It would be foolish toask outright and give ourselves away. That inventor is stupid and vain. Those fellows always are. They appear to be quiet and shrewd, but theyalways let the cat out of the bag. The thing to do is to flatter him insome way. A woman could find out all he knows in ten minutes. " He turned toClara and smiled. There was something infinitely impertinent in the fixed, animal-like stare of his eyes. "We do take you into our plans, your fatherand me, eh?" he said. "You must be careful not to give us away when youtalk to that inventor. "

From his shop window Hugh stared at the backs of the heads of the threepeople. The top of Tom Butterworth's buggy had been let down, and when hetalked Alfred Buckley leaned forward and his head disappeared. Hugh thoughtClara must look like the kind of woman men meant when they spoke of a lady. The farmer's daughter had an instinct for clothes, and Hugh's mind got theidea of gentility by way of the medium of clothes. He thought the dressshe had worn the most stylish thing he had ever seen. Clara's friend KateChanceller, while mannish in her dress, had an instinct for style and hadtaught Clara some valuable lessons. "Any woman can dress well if she knowshow, " Kate had declared. She had taught Clara how to study and emphasize bydress the good points of her body. Beside Clara, Rose McCoy looked dowdyand commonplace. 

Hugh went to the rear of his shop to where there was a water-tap and washedhis hands. Then he went to a bench and tried to take up the work he hadbeen doing. Within five minutes he went to wash his hands again. He wentout of the shop and stood beside the small stream that rippled alongbeneath willow bushes and disappeared under the bridge beneath Turner'sPike, and then went back for his coat and quit work for the day. Aninstinct led him to go past the creek again and he knelt on the grass atthe edge and again washed his hands. 

Hugh's growing vanity was fed by the thought that Clara was interested inhim, but it was not yet strong enough to sustain the thought. He took along walk, going north from the shop along Turner's Pike for two or threemiles and then by a cross road between corn and cabbage fields to where hecould, by crossing a meadow, get into a wood. For an hour he sat on a logat the wood's edge and looked south. Away in the distance, over the roofsof the houses of the town, he could see a white speck against a backgroundof green--the Butterworth farm house. Almost at once he decided that thething he had seen in Clara's eyes and that was sister to something he hadseen in Rose McCoy's eyes had nothing to do with him. The mantle of vanityhe had been wearing dropped off and left him naked and sad. "What would shebe wanting of me?" he asked himself, and got up from the log to look withcritical eyes at his long, bony body. For the first time in two or threeyears he thought of the words so often repeated in his presence by SarahShepard in the first few months after he left his father's shack by theshore of the Mississippi River and came to work at the railroad station. She had called his people lazy louts and poor white trash and had railedagainst his inclination to dreams. By struggle and work he had conqueredthe dreams but could not conquer his ancestry, nor change the fact that hewas at bottom poor white trash. With a shudder of disgust he saw himselfagain a boy in ragged clothes that smelled of fish, lying stupid and halfasleep in the grass beside the Mississippi River. He forgot the majesty ofthe dreams that sometimes came to him, and only remembered the swarms offlies that, attracted by the filth of their clothes, hovered over him andover the drunken father who lay sleeping beside him. 

A lump arose in his throat and for a moment he was consumed with self-pity. Then he went out of the wood, crossed the field, and with his peculiar, long, shambling gait that got him over the ground with surprising rapidity, went again along the road. Had there been a stream nearby he would havebeen tempted to tear off his clothes and plunge in. The notion that hecould ever become a man who would in any way be attractive to a woman likeClara Butterworth seemed the greatest folly in the world. "She's a lady. What would she be wanting of me? I ain't fitten for her. I ain't fitten forher, " he said aloud, unconsciously falling into the dialect of his father. 

Hugh walked the entire afternoon away and in the evening went back to hisshop and worked until midnight. So energetically did he work that severalknotty problems in the construction of the hay-loading apparatus werecleared away. 

On the second evening after the encounter with Clara, Hugh went for a walkin the streets of Bidwell. He thought of the work on which he had beenengaged all day and then of the woman he had made up his mind he couldunder no circumstances win. As darkness came on he went into the country, and at nine returned along the railroad tracks past the corn-cutterfactory. The factory was working day and night, and the new plant, alsobeside the tracks and but a short distance away, was almost completed. Behind the new plant was a field Tom Butterworth and Steve Hunter hadbought and laid out in streets of workingmen's houses. The houses werecheaply constructed and ugly, and in all directions there was a vastdisorder; but Hugh did not see the disorder or the ugliness of thebuildings. The sight that lay before him strengthened his waning vanity. Something of the loose shuffle went out of his stride and he threw back hisshoulders. "What I have done here amounts to something. I'm all right, " hethought, and had almost reached the old corn-cutter plant when several mencame out of a side door and getting upon the tracks, walked before him. 

In the corn-cutter plant something had happened that excited the men. EdHall the superintendent had played a trick on his fellow townsmen. He hadput on overalls and gone to work at a bench in a long room with some fiftyother men. "I'm going to show you up, " he said, laughing. "You watch me. We're behind on the work and I'm going to show you up. "

The pride of the workmen had been touched, and for two weeks they hadworked like demons to outdo the boss. At night when the amount of work donewas calculated, they laughed at Ed. Then they heard that the piece-workplan was to be installed in the factory, and were afraid they would be paidby a scale calculated on the amount of work done during the two weeks offurious effort. 

The workman who stumbled along the tracks cursed Ed Hall and the men forwhom he worked. "I lost six hundred dollars in the plant-setting machinefailure and this is all I get, to be played a trick on by a young suck likeEd Hall, " a voice grumbled. Another voice took up the refrain. In the dimlight Hugh could see the speaker, a man with a bent back, a product of thecabbage fields, who had come to town to find employment. Although he didnot recognize it, he had heard the voice before. It came from a son ofthe cabbage farmer, Ezra French and was the same voice he had once heardcomplaining at night as the French boys crawled across a cabbage field inthe moonlight. The man now said something that startled Hugh. "Well, " hedeclared, "it's a joke on me. I quit Dad and made him sore; now he won'ttake me back again. He says I'm a quitter and no good. I thought I'd cometo town to a factory and find it easier here. Now I've got married and haveto stick to my job no matter what they do. In the country I worked like adog a few weeks a year, but here I'll probably have to work like that allthe time. It's the way things go. I thought it was mighty funny, all thistalk about the factory work being so easy. I wish the old days were back. Idon't see how that inventor or his inventions ever helped us workers. Dadwas right about him. He said an inventor wouldn't do nothing for workers. He said it would be better to tar and feather that telegraph operator. Iguess Dad was right. "

The swagger went out of Hugh's walk and he stopped to let the men pass outof sight and hearing along the track. When they had gone a little away aquarrel broke out. Each man felt the others must be in some way responsiblefor his betrayal in the matter of the contest with Ed Hall and accusationsflew back and forth. One of the men threw a heavy stone that ran down alongthe tracks and jumped into a ditch filled with dry weeds. It made a heavycrashing sound. Hugh heard heavy footsteps running. He was afraid the menwere going to attack him, and climbed over a fence, crossed a barnyard, andgot into an empty street. As he went along trying to understand what hadhappened and why the men were angry, he met Clara Butterworth, standing andapparently waiting for him under a street lamp. 

 * * * * *

Hugh walked beside Clara, too perplexed to attempt to understand the newimpulses crowding in upon his mind. She explained her presence in thestreet by saying she had been to town to mail a letter and intended walkinghome by a side road. "You may come with me if you're just out for a walk, "she said. The two walked in silence. Hugh's mind, unaccustomed to travelingin wide circles, centered on his companion. Life seemed suddenly tobe crowding him along strange roads. In two days he had felt more newemotions and had felt them more deeply than he would have thought possibleto a human being. The hour through which he had just passed had beenextraordinary. He had started out from his boarding-house sad anddepressed. Then he had come by the factories and pride in what he thoughthe had accomplished swept in on him. Now it was apparent the workers in thefactories were not happy, that there was something the matter. He wonderedif Clara would know what was wrong and would tell him if he asked. Hewanted to ask many questions. "That's what I want a woman for. I wantsome one close to me who understands things and will tell me about them, "he thought. Clara remained silent and Hugh decided that she, like thecomplaining workman stumbling along the tracks, did not like him. Theman had said he wished Hugh had never come to town. Perhaps every one inBidwell secretly felt that way. 

Hugh was no longer proud of himself and his achievements. Perplexity hadcaptured him. When he and Clara got out of town into a country road, hebegan thinking of Sarah Shepard, who had been friendly and kind to him whenhe was a lad, and wished she were with him, or better yet that Clara wouldtake the attitude toward him she had taken. Had Clara taken it into herhead to scold as Sarah Shepard had done he would have been relieved. 

Instead Clara walked in silence, thinking of her own affairs and planningto use Hugh for her own ends. It had been a perplexing day for her. Latethat afternoon there had been a scene between her and her father and shehad left home and come to town because she could no longer bear being inhis presence. When she had seen Hugh coming toward her she had stoppedunder a street lamp to wait for him. "I could set everything straight bygetting him to ask me to marry him, " she thought. 

The new difficulty that had arisen between Clara and her father wassomething with which she had nothing to do. Tom, who thought himself soshrewd and crafty, had been taken in by the city man, Alfred Buckley. Afederal officer had come to town during the afternoon to arrest Buckley. The man had turned out to be a notorious swindler wanted in several cities. In New York he had been one of a gang who distributed counterfeit money, and in other states he was wanted for swindling women, two of whom hemarried unlawfully. 

The arrest had been like a shot fired at Tom by a member of his ownhousehold. He had almost come to think of Alfred Buckley as one of hisfamily, and as he drove rapidly along the road toward home, he had beenprofoundly sorry for his daughter and had intended to ask her to forgivehim for his part in betraying her into a false position. That he had notopenly committed himself to any of Buckley's schemes, had signed no papersand written no letters that would betray the conspiracy he had enteredinto against Steve, filled him with joy. He had intended to be generous, and even, if necessary, confess to Clara his indiscretion in talking of apossible marriage, but when he got to the farm house and had taken Clarainto the parlor and had closed the door, he changed his mind. He told herof Buckley's arrest, and then started tramping excitedly up and down inthe room. Her coolness infuriated him. "Don't set there like a clam!" heshouted. "Don't you know what's happened? Don't you know you're disgraced, have brought disgrace on my name?"

The angry father explained that half the town knew of her engagement tomarry Alfred Buckley, and when Clara declared they were not engaged andthat she had never intended marrying the man, his anger did not abate. Hehad himself whispered the suggestion about town, had told Steve Hunter, Gordon Hart, and two or three others, that Alfred Buckley and his daughterwould no doubt do what he spoke of as "hitting it off, " and they had ofcourse told their wives. The fact that he had betrayed his daughter into anugly position gnawed at his consciousness. "I suppose the rascal told ithimself, " he said, in reply to her statement, and again gave way to anger. He glared at his daughter and wished she were a son so he could strike withhis fists. His voice arose to a shout and could be heard in the barnyardwhere Jim Priest and a young farm hand were at work. They stopped work andlistened. "She's been up to something. Do you suppose some man has got herin trouble?" the young farm hand asked. 

In the house Tom expressed his old dissatisfaction with his daughter. "Whyhaven't you married and settled down like a decent woman?" he shouted. "Tell me that. Why haven't you married and settled down? Why are you alwaysgetting in trouble? Why haven't you married and settled down?"

 * * * * *

Clara walked in the road beside Hugh and thought that all her troubleswould come to an end if he would ask her to be his wife. Then she becameashamed of her thoughts. As they passed the last street lamp and preparedto set out by a roundabout way along a dark road, she turned to look atHugh's long, serious face. The tradition that had made him appear differentfrom other men in the eyes of the people of Bidwell began to affect her. Ever since she had come home she had been hearing people speak of him withsomething like awe in their voices. For her to marry the town's hero would, she knew, set her on a high place in the eyes of her people. It would be atriumph for her and would re-establish her, not only in her father's eyesbut in the eyes of every one. Every one seemed to think she should marry;even Jim Priest had said so. He had said she was the marrying kind. Herewas her chance. She wondered why she did not want to take it. 

Clara had written her friend Kate Chanceller a letter in which she haddeclared her intention of leaving home and going to work, and had come totown afoot to mail it. On Main Street as she went through the crowds ofmen who had come to loaf the evening away before the stores, the forceof what her father had said concerning the connection of her name withthat of Buckley the swindler had struck her for the first time. The menwere gathered together in groups, talking excitedly. No doubt they werediscussing Buckley's arrest. Her own name was, no doubt, being bandiedabout. Her cheeks burned and a keen hatred of mankind had possession ofher. Now her hatred of others awoke in her an almost worshipful attitudetoward Hugh. By the time they had walked together for five minutes allthought of using him to her own ends had gone. "He's not like Father orHenderson Woodburn or Alfred Buckley, " she told herself. "He doesn't schemeand twist things about trying to get the best of some one else. He works, and because of his efforts things are accomplished. " The figure of the farmhand Jim Priest working in a field of corn came to her mind. "The farm handworks, " she thought, "and the corn grows. This man sticks to his task inhis shop and makes a town grow. "

In her father's presence during the afternoon Clara had remained calm andapparently indifferent to his tirade. In town in the presence of the menshe was sure were attacking her character, she had been angry, ready tofight. Now she wanted to put her head on Hugh's shoulder and cry. 

They came to the bridge near where the road turned and led to her father'shouse. It was the same bridge to which she had come with the school teacherand to which John May had followed, looking for a fight. Clara stopped. She did not want any one at the house to know that Hugh had walked homewith her. "Father is so set on my getting married, he would go to see himto-morrow, " she thought. She put her arms upon the rail of the bridge andbending over buried her face between them. Hugh stood behind her, turninghis head from side to side and rubbing his hands on his trouser legs, beside himself with embarrassment. There was a flat, swampy field besidethe road and not far from the bridge, and after a moment of silencethe voices of a multitude of frogs broke the stillness. Hugh becameoverwhelmingly sad. The notion that he was a big man and deserved to have awoman to live with and understand him went entirely away. For the moment hewanted to be a boy and put his head on the shoulder of the woman. He didnot look at Clara but at himself. In the dim light his hands, nervouslyfumbling about, his long, loosely-put-together body, everything connectedwith his person, seemed ugly and altogether unattractive. He could seethe woman's small firm hands that lay on the railing of the bridge. Theywere, he thought, like everything connected with her person, shapely andbeautiful, just as everything connected with his own person was unshapelyand ugly. 

Clara aroused herself from the meditative mood that had taken possession ofher, and after shaking Hugh's hand and explaining that she did not want himto go further went away. When he thought she had quite gone she came back. "You'll hear I was engaged to that Alfred Buckley who has got into troubleand has been arrested, " she said. Hugh did not reply and her voice becamesharp and a little challenging. "You'll hear we were going to be married. I don't know what you'll hear. It's a lie, " she said and turning, hurriedaway. 

CHAPTER XV

Hugh and Clara were married in less than a week after their first walktogether. A chain of circumstances touching their two lives hurled theminto marriage, and the opportunity for the intimacy with a woman for whichHugh so longed came to him with a swiftness that made him fairly dizzy. 

It was a Wednesday evening and cloudy. After dining in silence with hislandlady, Hugh started along Turner's Pike toward Bidwell, but when he hadgot almost into town, turned back. He had left the house intending to gothrough town to the Medina Road and to the woman who now occupied so largea place in his thoughts, but hadn't the courage. Every evening for almost aweek he had taken the walk, and every evening and at almost the same spothe turned back. He was disgusted and angry with himself and went to hisshop, walking in the middle of the road and kicking up clouds of dust. People passed along the path under the trees at the side of the road andturned to stare at him. A workingman with a fat wife, who puffed as shewalked at his side, turned to look and then began to scold. "I tell youwhat, old woman, I shouldn't have married and had kids, " he grumbled. "Lookat me, then look at that fellow. He goes along there thinking big thoughtsthat will make him richer and richer. I have to work for two dollars a day, and pretty soon I'll be old and thrown on the scrap-heap. I might have beena rich inventor like him had I given myself a chance. "

The workman went on his way, grumbling at his wife who paid no attentionto his words. Her breath was needed for the labor of walking, and as forthe matter of marriage, that had been attended to. She saw no reason forwasting words over the matter. Hugh went to the shop and stood leaningagainst the door frame. Two or three workmen were busy near the back doorand had lighted gas lamps that hung over the work benches. They did not seeHugh, and their voices ran through the empty building. One of them, an oldman with a bald head, entertained his fellows by giving an imitation ofSteve Hunter. He lighted a cigar and putting on his hat tipped it a littleto one side. Puffing out his chest he marched up and down talking of money. "Here's a ten-dollar cigar, " he said, handing a long stogie to one of theother workmen. "I buy them by the thousands to give away. I'm interested inuplifting the lives of workmen in my home town. That's what takes all myattention. "

The other workmen laughed and the little man continued to prance upand down and talk, but Hugh did not hear him. He stared moodily at thepeople going along the road toward town. Darkness was coming but he couldstill see dim figures striding along. Over at the foundry back of thecorn-cutting machine plant the night shift was pouring off, and a suddenglare of light played across the heavy smoke cloud that lay over the town. The bells of the churches began to call people to the Wednesday eveningprayer-meetings. Some enterprising citizen had begun to build workmen'shouses in a field beyond Hugh's shop and these were occupied by Italianlaborers. A crowd of them came past. What would some day be a tenementdistrict was growing in a field beside a cabbage patch belonging to EzraFrench who had said God would not permit men to change the field of theirlabors. 

An Italian passed under a lamp near the Wheeling station. He wore a brightred handkerchief about his neck and was clad in a brightly colored shirt. Like the other people of Bidwell, Hugh did not like to see foreignersabout. He did not understand them and when he saw them going about thestreets in groups, was a little afraid. It was a man's duty, he thought, tolook as much as possible like all his fellow men, to lose himself in thecrowds, and these fellows did not look like other men. They loved color, and as they talked they made rapid gestures with their hands. The Italianin the road was with a woman of his own race, and in the growing darknessput his arm about her shoulder. Hugh's heart began to beat rapidly and heforgot his American prejudices. He wished he were a workman and that Clarawere a workman's daughter. Then, he thought, he might find courage to go toher. His imagination, quickened by the flame of desire and running in newchannels, made it possible for him, at the moment to see himself in theyoung Italian's place, walking in the road with Clara. She was clad ina calico dress and her soft brown eyes looked at him full of love andunderstanding. 

The three workingmen had completed the job for which they had come back towork after the evening meal, and now turned out the lights and came towardthe front of the shop. Hugh drew back from the door and concealed himselfby standing in the heavy shadows by the wall. So realistic were histhoughts of Clara that he did not want them intruded upon. 

The workmen went out of the shop door and stood talking. The bald-headedman was telling a tale to which the others listened eagerly. "It's all overtown, " he said. "From what I hear every one say it isn't the first timeshe's been in such a mess. Old Tom Butterworth claimed he sent her away toschool three years ago, but now they say that isn't the truth. What theysay is that she was in the family way to one of her father's farm hands andhad to get out of town. " The man laughed. "Lord, if Clara Butterworth wasmy daughter she'd be in a nice fix, wouldn't she, eh?" he said, laughing. "As it is, she's all right. She's gone now and got herself mixed up withthis swindler Buckley, but her father's money will make it all right. Ifshe's going to have a kid, no one'll know. Maybe she's already had the kid. They say she's a regular one for the men. "

As the man talked Hugh came to the door and stood in the darknesslistening. For a time the words would not penetrate his consciousness, andthen he remembered what Clara had said. She had said something about AlfredBuckley and that there would be a story connecting her name with his. Shehad been hot and angry and had declared the story a lie. Hugh did not knowwhat the story was about, but it was evident there was a story abroad, ascandalous story concerning her and Alfred Buckley. A hot, impersonal angertook possession of him. "She's in trouble--here's my chance, " he thought. His tall figure straightened and as he stepped through the shop door hishead struck sharply against the door frame, but he did not feel the blowthat at another time might have knocked him down. During his whole life hehad never struck any one with his fists, and had never felt a desire todo so, but now hunger to strike and even to kill took complete possessionof him. With a cry of rage his fist shot out and the old man who had donethe talking was knocked senseless into a clump of weeds that grew nearthe door. Hugh whirled and struck a second man who fell through the opendoorway into the shop. The third man ran away into the darkness alongTurner's Pike. 

Hugh walked rapidly to town and through Main Street. He saw Tom Butterworthwalking in the street with Steve Hunter, but turned a corner to avoid ameeting. "My chance has come, " he kept saying to himself as he hurriedalong Medina Road. "Clara's in some kind of trouble. My chance has come. "

By the time he got to the door of the Butterworth house, Hugh's new-foundcourage had almost left him, but before it had quite gone he raised hishand and knocked on the door. By good fortune Clara came to open it. Hughtook off his hat and turned it awkwardly in his hands. "I came out here toask you to marry me, " he said. "I want you to be my wife. Will you do it?"

Clara stepped out of the house and closed the door. A whirl of thoughts ranthrough her brain. For a moment she felt like laughing, and then what therewas in her of her father's shrewdness came to her rescue. "Why shouldn't Ido it?" she thought. "Here's my chance. This man is excited and upset now, but he is a man I can respect. It's the best marriage I'll ever have achance to make. I do not love him, but perhaps that will come. This may bethe way marriages are made. "

Clara put out her hand and laid it on Hugh's arm. "Well, " she said, hesitatingly, "you wait here a moment. "

She went into the house and left Hugh standing in the darkness. He wasterribly afraid. It seemed to him that every secret desire of his life hadgot itself suddenly and bluntly expressed. He felt naked and ashamed. "Ifshe comes out and says she'll marry me, what will I do? What'll I do then?"he asked himself. 

When she did come out Clara wore her hat and a long coat. "Come, " she said, and led him around the house and through the barnyard to one of the barns. She went into a dark stall and led forth a horse and with Hugh's helppulled a buggy out of a shed into the barnyard. "If we're going to do itthere's no use putting it off, " she said with a trembling voice. "We mightas well go to the county seat and do it at once. "

The horse was hitched and Clara got into the buggy. Hugh climbed in and satbeside her. She had started to drive out of the barnyard when Jim Prieststepped suddenly out of the darkness and took hold of the horse's head. Clara held the buggy whip in her hand and raised it to hit the horse. Adesperate determination that nothing should interfere with her marriagewith Hugh had taken possession of her. "If necessary I'll ride the mandown, " she thought. Jim came to stand beside the buggy. He looked pastClara at Hugh. "I thought maybe it was that Buckley, " he said. He put ahand on the buggy dash and laid the other on Clara's arm. "You're a womannow, Clara, and I guess you know what you're doing. I guess you know I'myour friend, " he said slowly. "You been in trouble, I know. I couldn't helphearing what your father said to you about Buckley, he talked so loud. Clara, I don't want to see you get into trouble. "

The farm hand stepped away from the buggy and then came back and again puthis hand on Clara's arm. The silence that lay over the barnyard lasteduntil the woman felt she could speak without a break in her voice. 

"I'm not going very far, Jim, " she said, laughing nervously. "This is Mr. Hugh McVey and we're going over to the county seat to get married. We'll beback home before midnight. You put a candle in the window for us. "

Hitting the horse a sharp blow, Clara drove quickly past the house and intothe road. She turned south into the hill country through which lay the roadto the county seat. As the horse trotted quickly along, the voice of JimPriest called to her out of the darkness of the barnyard, but she did notstop. The afternoon and evening had been cloudy and the night was dark. Shewas glad of that. As the horse went swiftly along she turned to look atHugh who sat up very stiffly on the buggy seat and stared straight ahead. The long horse-like face of the Missourian with its huge nose and deeplyfurrowed cheeks was ennobled by the soft darkness, and a tender feelingcrept over her. When he had asked her to become his wife, Clara had pouncedlike a wild animal abroad seeking prey and the thing in her that was likeher father, hard, shrewd and quick-witted, had led her to decide to see thething through at once. Now she became ashamed, and her tender mood took thehardness and shrewdness away. "This man and I have a thousand things weshould say to each other before we rush into marriage, " she thought, andwas half inclined to turn the horse and drive back. She wondered if Hughhad also heard the stories connecting her name with that of Buckley, thestories she was sure were now running from lip to lip through the streetsof Bidwell, and what version of the tale had been carried to him. "Perhapshe came to propose marriage in order to protect me, " she thought, anddecided that if he had come for that reason she was taking an unfairadvantage. "It is what Kate Chanceller would call 'doing the man a dirty, low-down trick, '" she told herself; but even as the thought came she leanedforward and touching the horse with the whip urged him even more swiftlyalong the road. 

A mile south of the Butterworth farmhouse the road to the county seatcrossed the crest of a hill, the highest point in the county, and from theroad there was a magnificent view of the country lying to the south. Thesky had begun to clear, and as they reached the point known as LookoutHill, the moon broke through a tangle of clouds. Clara stopped the horseand turned to look down the hillside. Below lay the lights of her father'sfarmhouse--where he had come as a young man and to which long ago he hadbrought his bride. Far below the farmhouse a clustered mass of lightsoutlined the swiftly growing town. The determination that had carried Clarathus far wavered again and a lump came into her throat. 

Hugh also turned to look but did not see the dark beauty of the countrywearing its night jewels of lights. The woman he wanted so passionatelyand of whom he was so afraid had her face turned from him, and he dared tolook at her. He saw the sharp curve of her breasts and in the dim lighther cheeks seemed to glow with beauty. An odd notion came to him. In theuncertain light her face seemed to move independent of her body. It drewnear him and then drew away. Once he thought the dimly seen white cheekwould touch his own. He waited breathless. A flame of desire ran throughhis body. 

Hugh's mind flew back through the years to his boyhood and young manhood. In the river town when he was a boy the raftsmen and hangers-on of thetown's saloons, who had sometimes come to spend an afternoon on the riverbanks with his father John McVey, often spoke of women and marriage. Asthey lay on the burned grass in the warm sunlight they talked and the boywho lay half asleep nearby listened. The voices came to him as though outof the clouds or up out of the lazy waters of the great river and the talkof women awoke his boyhood lusts. One of the men, a tall young fellow witha mustache and with dark rings under his eyes, told in a lazy, drawlingvoice the tale of an adventure had with a woman one night when a raft onwhich he was employed had tied up near the city of St. Louis, and Hughlistened enviously. As he told the tale the young man a little awoke fromhis stupor, and when he laughed the other men lying about laughed with him. "I got the best of her after all, " he boasted. "After it was all over wewent into a little room at the back of a saloon. I watched my chance andwhen she went to sleep sitting in a chair I took eight dollars out of herstocking. "

That night in the buggy beside Clara, Hugh thought of himself lying by theriver bank on the summer days. Dreams had come to him there, sometimesgigantic dreams; but there had also come ugly thoughts and desires. By hisfather's shack there was always the sharp rancid smell of decaying fish andswarms of flies filled the air. Out in the clean Ohio country, in the hillssouth of Bidwell, it seemed to him that the smell of decaying fish cameback, that it was in his clothes, that it had in some way worked its wayinto his nature. He put up his hand and swept it across his face, anunconscious return of the perpetual movement of brushing flies away fromhis face as he lay half asleep by the river. 

Little lustful thoughts kept coming to Hugh and made him ashamed. He movedrestlessly in the buggy seat and a lump came into his throat. Again helooked at Clara. "I'm a poor white, " he thought. "It isn't fitten I shouldmarry this woman. "

From the high spot in the road Clara looked down at her father's house andbelow at the lights of the town, that had already spread so far over thecountryside, and up through the hills toward the farm where she had spenther girlhood and where, as Jim Priest had said, "the sap had begun to runup the tree. " She began to love the man who was to be her husband, but likethe dreamers of the town, saw him as something a little inhuman, as a manalmost gigantic in his bigness. Many things Kate Chanceller had said as thetwo developing women walked and talked in the streets of Columbus came backto her mind. When they had started again along the road she continuallyworried the horse by tapping him with the whip. Like Kate, Clara wanted tobe fair and square. "A woman should be fair and square, even with a man, "Kate had said. "The man I'm going to have as a husband is simple andhonest, " she thought. "If there are things down there in town that are notsquare and fair, he had nothing to do with them. " Realizing a little Hugh'sdifficulty in expressing what he must feel, she wanted to help him, butwhen she turned and saw how he did not look at her but continually staredinto the darkness, pride kept her silent. "I'll have to wait until he'sready. Already I've taken things too much into my own hands. I'll putthrough this marriage, but when it comes to anything else he'll have tobegin, " she told herself, and a lump came into her throat and tears to hereyes. 

CHAPTER XVI

As he stood alone in the barnyard, excited at the thought of the adventureon which Clara and Hugh had set out, Jim Priest remembered Tom Butterworth. For more than thirty years Jim had worked for Tom and they had one strongimpulse that bound them together--their common love of fine horses. Morethan once the two men had spent an afternoon together in the grand stand atthe fall trotting meeting at Cleveland. In the late morning of such a dayTom found Jim wandering from stall to stall, looking at the horses beingrubbed down and prepared for the afternoon's races. In a generous mood hebought his employee's lunch and took him to a seat in the grand stand. All afternoon the two men watched the races, smoked and quarreled. Tomcontended that Bud Doble, the debonair, the dramatic, the handsome, was the greatest of all race horse drivers, and Jim Priest held BudDoble in contempt. For him there was but one man of all the drivers hewhole-heartedly admired, Pop Geers, the shrewd and silent. "That Geersof yours doesn't drive at all. He just sits up there like a stick, " Tomgrumbled. "If a horse can win all right, he'll ride behind him all right. What I like to see is a driver. Now you look at that Doble. You watch himbring a horse through the stretch. "

Jim looked at his employer with something like pity in his eyes. "Huh, " heexclaimed. "If you haven't got eyes you can't see. "

The farm hand had two strong loves in his life, his employer's daughter andthe race horse driver, Geers. "Geers, " he declared, "was a man born oldand wise. " Often he had seen Geers at the tracks on a morning before someimportant race. The driver sat on an upturned box in the sun before one ofthe horse stalls. All about him there was the bantering talk of horsemenand grooms. Bets were made and challenges given. On the tracks nearbyhorses, not entered in the races for that day, were being exercised. Theirhoofbeats made a kind of music that made Jim's blood tingle. Negroeslaughed and horses put their heads out at stall doors. The stallionsneighed loudly and the heels of some impatient steed rattled against thesides of a stall. 

Every one about the stalls talked of the events of the afternoon and Jimleaned against the front of one of the stalls and listened, filled withhappiness. He wished the fates had made him a racing man. Then he looked atPop Geers, the silent one, who sat for hours dumb and uncommunicative on afeed box, tapping lightly on the ground with his racing whip and chewingstraw. Jim's imagination was aroused. He had once seen that other silentAmerican, General Grant, and had been filled with admiration for him. 

That was on a great day in Jim's life, the day on which he had seen Grantgoing to receive Lee's surrender at Appomattox. There had been a battlewith the Union men pursuing the fleeing Rebs out of Richmond, and Jim, having secured a bottle of whisky, and having a chronic dislike of battles, had managed to creep away into a wood. In the distance he heard shouts andpresently saw several men riding furiously down a road. It was Grant withhis aides going to the place where Lee waited. They rode to the place nearwhere Jim sat with his back against a tree and the bottle between his legs;then stopped. Then Grant decided not to take part in the ceremony. Hisclothes were covered with mud and his beard was ragged. He knew Lee andknew he would be dressed for the occasion. He was that kind of a man;he was one fitted for historic pictures and occasions. Grant wasn't. Hetold his aides to go on to the spot where Lee waited, told them whatarrangements were to be made, then jumped his horse over a ditch and rodealong a path under the trees toward the spot where Jim lay. 

That was an event Jim never forgot. He was fascinated at the thought ofwhat the day meant to Grant and by his apparent indifference. He satsilently by the tree and when Grant got off his horse and came near, walking now in the path where the sunlight sifted down through the trees, he closed his eyes. Grant came to where he sat and stopped, apparentlythinking him dead. His hand reached down and took the bottle of whisky. For a moment they had something between them, Grant and Jim. They bothunderstood that bottle of whisky. Jim thought Grant was about to drink, and opened his eyes a little. Then he closed them. The cork was out of thebottle and Grant clutched it in his hand tightly. From the distance therecame a vast shout that was picked up and carried by voices far away. Thewood seemed to rock with it. "It's done. The war's over, " Jim thought. ThenGrant reached over and smashed the bottle against the trunk of the treeabove Jim's head. A piece of the flying glass cut his cheek and blood came. He opened his eyes and looked directly into Grant's eyes. For a moment thetwo men stared at each other and the great shout again rolled over thecountry. Grant went hurriedly along the path to where he had left hishorse, and mounting, rode away. 

Standing in the race track looking at Geers, Jim thought of Grant. Then hismind came back to this other hero. "What a man!" he thought. "Here he goesfrom town to town and from race track to race track all through the spring, summer and fall, and he never loses his head, never gets excited. To winhorse races is the same as winning battles. When I'm at home plowing cornon summer afternoons, this Geers is away somewhere at some track with allthe people gathered about and waiting. To me it would be like being drunkall the time, but you see he isn't drunk. Whisky could make him stupid. Itcouldn't make him drunk. There he sits hunched up like a sleeping dog. Helooks as though he cared about nothing on earth, and he'll sit like thatthrough three-quarters of the hardest race, waiting, taking advantage ofevery little stretch of firm hard ground on the track, saving his horse, watching, watching his horse too, waiting. What a man! He works the horseinto fourth place, into third, into second. The crowd in the grand stand, such fellows as Tom Butterworth, have not seen what he's doing. He sitsstill. By God, what a man! He waits. He looks half asleep. If he doesn'thave to do it, he makes no effort. If the horse has it in him to winwithout help he sits still. The people are shouting and jumping up out oftheir seats in the grand stand, and if that Bud Doble has a horse in therace he's leaning forward in the sulky, shouting at his horse and making aholy show of himself. 

"Ha, that Geers! He waits. He doesn't think of the people but of the horsehe's driving. When the time comes, just the right time, that Geers, he letsthe horse know. They are one at that moment, like Grant and I were overthat bottle of whisky. Something happens between them. Something inside theman says, 'now, ' and the message runs along the reins to the horse's brain. It flies down into his legs. There is a rush. The head of the horse hasjust worked its way out in front by inches--not too soon, nothing wasted. Ha, that Geers! Bud Doble, huh!"

On the night of Clara's marriage after she and Hugh had disappeared downthe county seat road, Jim hurried into the barn and, bringing out a horse, sprang on his back. He was sixty-three but could mount a horse like a youngman. As he rode furiously toward Bidwell he thought, not of Clara and heradventure, but of her father. To both men the right kind of marriage meantsuccess in life for a woman. Nothing else really mattered much if that wereaccomplished. He thought of Tom Butterworth, who, he told himself, hadfussed with Clara just as Bud Doble often fussed with a horse in a race. Hehad himself been like Pop Geers. All along he had known and understood themare colt, Clara. Now she had come through; she had won the race of life. 

"Ha, that old fool!" Jim whispered to himself as he rode swiftly down thedark road. When the horse ran clattering over a small wooden bridge andcame to the first of the houses of the town, he felt like one coming toannounce a victory, and half expected a vast shout to come out of thedarkness, as it had come in the moment of Grant's victory over Lee. 

Jim could not find his employer at the hotel or in Main Street, butremembered a tale he had heard whispered. Fanny Twist the milliner livedin a little frame house in Garfield Street, far out at the eastern edgeof town, and he went there. He banged boldly on the door and the womanappeared. "I've got to see Tom Butterworth, " he said. "It's important. It'sabout his daughter. Something has happened to her. "

The door closed and presently Tom came around the corner of the house. Hewas furious. Jim's horse stood in the road, and he went straight to him andtook hold of the bit. "What do you mean by coming here?" he asked sharply. "Who told you I was here? What business you got coming here and making ashow of yourself? What's the matter of you? Are you drunk or out of yourhead?"

Jim got off the horse and told Tom the news. For a moment the two stoodlooking at each other. "Hugh McVey--Hugh McVey, by crackies, are you right, Jim?" Tom exclaimed. "No missfire, eh? She's really gone and done it? HughMcVey, eh? By crackies!"

"They're on the way to the county seat now, " Jim said softly. "Missfire!Not on your life. " His voice lost the cool, quiet tone he had so oftendreamed of maintaining in great emergencies. "I figure they'll be back bytwelve or one, " he said eagerly. "We got to blow 'em out, Tom. We got togive that girl and her husband the biggest blowout ever seen in thiscounty, and we got just about three hours to get ready for it. "

"Get off that horse and give me a boost, " Tom commanded. With a gruntof satisfaction he sprang to the horse's back. The belated impulse tophilander that an hour before sent him creeping through back streets andalleyways to the door of Fanny Twist's house was all gone, and in its placehad come the spirit of the man of affairs, the man who, as he himself oftenboasted, made things move and kept them on the move. "Now look here, Jim, "he said sharply, "there are three livery stables in this town. You engageevery horse they've got for the night. Have the horses hitched to any kindof rigs you can find, buggies, surreys, spring wagons, anything. Have themget drivers off the streets, anywhere. Then have them all brought aroundin front of the Bidwell House and held for me. When you've done that, yougo to Henry Heller's house. I guess you can find it. You found this housewhere I was fast enough. He lives on Campus Street just beyond the newBaptist Church. If he's gone to bed you get him up. Tell him to get hisorchestra together and have him bring all the lively music he's got. Tellhim to bring his men to the Bidwell House as fast as he can get themthere. "

Tom rode off along the street followed by Jim Priest, running at thehorse's heels. When he had gone a little way he stopped. "Don't let any onefuss with you about prices to-night, Jim, " he called. "Tell every one it'sfor me. Tell 'em Tom Butterworth'll pay what they ask. The sky's the limitto-night, Jim. That's the word, the sky's the limit. "

To the older citizens of Bidwell, those who lived there when everycitizen's affairs were the affair of the town, that evening will be longremembered. The new men, the Italians, Greeks, Poles, Rumanians, and manyother strange-talking, dark-skinned men who had come with the coming ofthe factories, went on with their lives on that evening as on all others. They worked in the night shift at the Corn-Cutting Machine Plant, at thefoundry, the bicycle factory or at the big new Tool Machine Factory thathad just moved to Bidwell from Cleveland. Those who were not at worklounged in the streets or wandered aimlessly in and out of saloons. Theirwives and children were housed in the hundreds of new frame houses in thestreets that now crept out in all directions. In those days in Bidwell newhouses seemed to spring out of the ground like mushrooms. In the morningthere was a field or an orchard on Turner Pike or on any one of a dozenroads leading out of town. On the trees in the orchard green apples hungdown waiting, ready to ripen. Grasshoppers sang in the long grass beneaththe trees. 

Then appeared Ben Peeler with a swarm of men. The trees were cut and thesong of the grasshopper choked beneath piles of boards. There was a greatshouting and rattling of hammers. A whole street of houses, all alike, universally ugly, had been added to the vast number of new houses alreadybuilt by that energetic carpenter and his partner Gordon Hart. 

To the people who lived in these houses, the excitement of Tom Butterworthand Jim Priest meant nothing. Half sullenly they worked, striving to makemoney enough to take them back to their native lands. In the new place theyhad not, as they had hoped, been received as brothers. A marriage or adeath there meant nothing to them. 

To the old townsmen however, those who remembered Tom when he was a simplefarmer and when Steve Hunter was looked upon with contempt as a boastingyoung squirt, the night rocked with excitement. Men ran through thestreets. Drivers lashed their horses along roads. Tom was everywhere. Hewas like a general in charge of the defenses of a besieged town. The cooksat all three of the town's hotels were sent back into their kitchens, waiters were found and hurried out to the Butterworth house, and HenryHeller's orchestra was instructed to get out there at once and to startplaying the liveliest possible music. 

Tom asked every man and woman he saw to the wedding party. The hotel keeperwas invited with his wife and daughter and two or three keepers of storeswho came to the hotel to bring supplies were asked, commanded to come. Thenthere were the men of the factories, the office men and superintendents, new men who had never seen Clara. They also, with the town bankers andother solid fellows with money in the banks, who were investors in Tom'senterprises, were invited. "Put on the best clothes you've got in the worldand have your women folks do the same, " he said laughing. "Then you get outto my house as soon as you can. If you haven't any way to get there, cometo the Bidwell House. I'll get you out. "

Tom did not forget that in order to have his wedding party go as he wished, he would need to serve drinks. Jim Priest went from bar to bar. "What wineyou got--good wine? How much you got?" he asked at each place. Steve Hunterhad in the cellar of his house six cases of champagne kept there against atime when some important guest, the Governor of the State or a Congressman, might come to town. He felt that on such occasions it was up to him to seethat the town, as he said, "did itself proud. " When he heard what was goingon he hurried to the Bidwell House and offered to send his entire stock ofwine out to Tom's house, and his offer was accepted. 

 * * * * *

Jim Priest had an idea. When the guests were all assembled and when thefarm kitchen was filled with cooks and waiters who stumbled over eachother, he took his idea to Tom. There was, he explained, a short-cutthrough fields and along lanes to a point on the county seat road, threemiles from the house. "I'll go there and hide myself, " he said. "When theycome along, suspecting nothing, I'll cut out on horseback and get here ahalf hour before them. You make every one in the house hide and keep stillwhen they drive into the yard. We'll put out all the lights. We'll givethat pair the surprise of their lives. "

Jim had concealed a quart bottle of wine in his pocket and, as he rode awayon his mission, stopped from time to time to take a hearty drink. As hishorse trotted along lanes and through fields, the horse that was bringingClara and Hugh home from their adventure cocked his ears and rememberedthe comfortable stall filled with hay in the Butterworth barn. The horsetrotted swiftly along and Hugh in the buggy beside Clara was lost in thesame dense silence that all the evening had lain over him like a cloak. Ina dim way he was resentful and felt that time was running too fast. Thehours and the passing events were like the waters of a river in flood time, and he was like a man in a boat without oars, being carried helplesslyforward. Occasionally he thought courage had come to him and he half turnedtoward Clara and opened his mouth, hoping words would come to his lips, butthe silence that had taken hold of him was like a disease whose grip onits victim could not be broken. He closed his mouth and wet his lips withhis tongue. Clara saw him do the thing several times. He began to seemanimal-like and ugly to her. "It's not true that I thought of her and askedher to be my wife only because I wanted a woman, " Hugh reassured himself. "I've been lonely, all my life I've been lonely. I want to find my way intosome one's heart, and she is the one. "

Clara also remained silent. She was angry. "If he didn't want to marry me, why did he ask me? Why did he come?" she asked herself. "Well, I'm married. I've done the thing we women are always thinking about, " she told herself, her mind taking another turn. The thought frightened her and a shiver ofdread ran over her body. Then her mind went to the defense of Hugh. "Itisn't his fault. I shouldn't have rushed things as I have. Perhaps I'm notmeant for marriage at all, " she thought. 

The ride homeward dragged on indefinitely. The clouds were blown out ofthe sky, the moon came out and the stars looked down on the two perplexedpeople. To relieve the feeling of tenseness that had taken hold of herClara's mind resorted to a trick. Her eyes sought out a tree or the lightsof a farmhouse far ahead and she tried to count the hoof beats of the horseuntil they had come to it. She wanted to hurry homeward and at the sametime looked forward with dread to the night alone in the dark farmhousewith Hugh. Not once during the homeward drive did she take the whip out ofits socket or speak to the horse. 

When at last the horse trotted eagerly across the crest of the hill, fromwhich there was such a magnificent view of the country below, neither Claranor Hugh turned to look. With bowed heads they rode, each trying to findcourage to face the possibilities of the night. 

 * * * * *

In the farmhouse Tom and his guests waited in winelit suspense, and atlast Jim Priest rode shouting out of a lane to the door. "They're coming--they're coming, " he shouted, and ten minutes later and after Tom had twicelost his temper and cursed the girl waitresses from the town hotels whowere inclined to giggle, all was silent and dark about the house and thebarnyard. When all was quiet Jim Priest crept into the kitchen, andstumbling over the legs of the guests, made his way to a front window wherehe placed a lighted candle. Then he went out of the house to lie on hisback beneath a bush in the yard. In the house he had secured for himself asecond bottle of wine, and as Clara with her husband turned in at the gateand drove into the barnyard, the only sound that broke the intense silencecame from the soft gurgle of the wine finding its way down his throat. 

CHAPTER XVII

As in most older American homes, the kitchen at the rear of the Butterworthfarmhouse was large and comfortable. Much of the life of the house had beenled there. Clara sat in a deep window that looked out across a little gullywhere in the spring a small stream ran down along the edge of the barnyard. She was then a quiet child and loved to sit for hours unobserved andundisturbed. At her back was the kitchen with the warm, rich smells and thesoft, quick, persistent footsteps of her mother. Her eyes closed and sheslept. Then she awoke. Before her lay a world into which her fancy couldcreep out. Across the stream before her eyes went a small, wooden bridgeand over this in the spring horses went away to the fields or to shedswhere they were hitched to milk or ice wagons. The sound of the hoofs ofthe horses pounding on the bridge was like thunder, harnesses rattled, voices shouted. Beyond the bridge was a path leading off to the left andalong the path were three small houses where hams were smoked. Men camefrom the wagon sheds bearing the meat on their shoulders and went into thelittle houses. Fires were lighted and smoke crawled lazily up through theroofs. In a field that lay beyond the smoke houses a man came to plow. Thechild, curled into a little, warm ball in the window seat, was happy. Whenshe closed her eyes fancies came like flocks of white sheep running out ofa green wood. Although she was later to become a tomboy and run wild overthe farm and through the barns, and although all her life she loved thesoil and the sense of things growing and of food for hungry mouths beingprepared, there was in her, even as a child, a hunger for the life of thespirit. In her dreams women, beautifully gowned and with rings on theirhands, came to brush the wet, matted hair back from her forehead. Acrossthe little wooden bridge before her eyes came wonderful men, women, andchildren. The children ran forward. They cried out to her. She thought ofthem as brothers and sisters who were to come to live in the farmhouse andwho were to make the old house ring with laughter. The children ran towardher with outstretched hands, but never arrived at the house. The bridgeextended itself. It stretched out under their feet so that they ran forwardforever on the bridge. 

And behind the children came men and women, sometimes together, sometimeswalking alone. They did not seem like the children to belong to her. Likethe women who came to touch her hot forehead, they were beautifully gownedand walked with stately dignity. 

The child climbed out of the window and stood on the kitchen floor. Hermother hurried about. She was feverishly active and often did not hear whenthe child spoke. "I want to know about my brothers and sisters: where arethey, why don't they come here?" she asked, but the mother did not hear, and if she did, had nothing to say. Sometimes she stopped to kiss the childand tears came to her eyes. Then something cooking on the kitchen stovedemanded attention. "You run outside, " she said hurriedly, and turned againto her work. 

 * * * * *

From the chair where Clara sat at the wedding feast provided by the energyof her father and the enthusiasm of Jim Priest, she could see over herfather's shoulder into the farm house kitchen. As when she was a child, sheclosed her eyes and dreamed of another kind of feast. With a growing senseof bitterness she realized that all her life, all through her girlhood andyoung womanhood, she had been waiting for this, her wedding night, andthat now, having come, the occasion for which she had waited so long andconcerning which she had dreamed so many dreams, had aborted into anoccasion for the display of ugliness and vulgarity. Her father, the onlyother person in the room in any way related to her, sat at the other endof the long table. Her aunt had gone away on a visit, and in the crowded, noisy room there was no woman to whom she could turn for understanding. She looked past her father's shoulder and directly into the wide windowseat where she had spent so many hours of her childhood. Again she wantedbrothers and sisters. "The beautiful men and women of the dreams were meantto come at this time, that's what the dreams were about; but, like theunborn children that ran with outstretched hands, they cannot get over thebridge and into the house, " she thought vaguely. "I wish Mother had lived, or that Kate Chanceller were here, " she whispered to herself as, raisingher eyes, she looked at her father. 

Clara felt like an animal driven into a corner and surrounded by foes. Her father sat at the feast between two women, Mrs. Steve Hunter who wasinclined to corpulency, and a thin woman named Bowles, the wife of anundertaker of Bidwell. They continually whispered, smiled, and nodded theirheads. Hugh sat on the opposite side of the same table, and when he raisedhis eyes from the plate of food before him, could see past the head of alarge, masculine-looking woman into the farmhouse parlor where there wasanother table, also filled with guests. Clara turned from looking at herfather to look at her husband. He was merely a tall man with a long face, who could not raise his eyes. His long neck stuck itself out of a stiffwhite collar. To Clara he was, at the moment, a being without personality, one that the crowd at the table had swallowed up as it so busily swallowedfood and wine. When she looked at him he seemed to be drinking a good deal. His glass was always being filled and emptied. At the suggestion of thewoman who sat beside him, he performed the task of emptying it, withoutraising his eyes, and Steve Hunter, who sat on the other side of the table, leaned over and filled it again. Steve like her father whispered andwinked. "On the night of my wedding I was piped, you bet, as piped as ahatter. It's a good thing. It gives a man nerve, " he explained to themasculine-looking woman to whom he was telling, with a good deal ofattention to details, the tale of his own marriage night. 

Clara did not look at Hugh again. What he did seemed no concern of hers. Bowles the Bidwell undertaker had surrendered to the influence of the winethat had been flowing freely since the guests arrived and now got to hisfeet and began to talk. His wife tugged at his coat and tried to force himback into his seat, but Tom Butterworth jerked her arm away. "Ah, let himalone. He's got a story to tell, " he said to the woman, who blushed andput her handkerchief over her face. "Well, it's a fact, that's how ithappened, " the undertaker declared in a loud voice. "You see the sleevesof her nightgown were tied in hard knots by her rascally brothers. When Itried to unfasten them with my teeth I bit big holes in the sleeves. "

Clara gripped the arm of her chair. "If I can let the night pass withoutshowing these people how much I hate them I'll do well enough, " she thoughtgrimly. She looked at the dishes laden with food and wished she could breakthem one by one over the heads of her father's guests. As a relief to hermind, she again looked past her father's head and through a doorway intothe kitchen. 

In the big room three or four cooks were busily engaged in the preparationof food, and waitresses continually brought steaming dishes and put them onthe tables. She thought of her mother's life, the life led in that room, married to the man who was her own father and who no doubt, but for thefact that circumstances had made him a man of wealth, would have beensatisfied to see his daughter led into just such another life. 

"Kate was right about men. They want something from women, but what do theycare what kind of lives we lead after they get what they want?" she thoughtgrimly. 

The more to separate herself from the feasting, laughing crowd, Claratried to think out the details of her mother's life. "It was the life ofa beast, " she thought. Like herself, her mother had come to the housewith her husband on the night of her marriage. There was just suchanother feast. The country was new then and the people for the most partdesperately poor. Still there was drinking. She had heard her father andJim Priest speak of the drinking bouts of their youth. The men came as theyhad come now, and with them came women, women who had been coarsened by thelife they led. Pigs were killed and game brought from the forests. The mendrank, shouted, fought, and played practical jokes. Clara wondered if anyof the men and women in the room would dare go upstairs into her sleepingroom and tie knots in her night clothes. They had done that when her mothercame to the house as a bride. Then they had all gone away and her fatherhad taken his bride upstairs. He was drunk, and her own husband Hugh wasnow getting drunk. Her mother had submitted. Her life had been a story ofsubmission. Kate Chanceller had said it was so married women lived, andher mother's life had proven the truth of the statement. In the farmhousekitchen, where now three or four cooks worked so busily, she had worked herlife out alone. From the kitchen she had gone directly upstairs and to bedwith her husband. Once a week on Saturday afternoons she went into town andstayed long enough to buy supplies for another week of cooking. "She musthave been kept going until she dropped down dead, " Clara thought, and hermind taking another turn, added, "and many others, both men and women, musthave been forced by circumstances to serve my father in the same blind way. It was all done in order that prosperity and money with which to do vulgarthings might be his. "

Clara's mother had brought but one child into the world. She wondered why. Then she wondered if she would become the mother of a child. Her hands nolonger gripped the arms of her chair, but lay on the table before her. Shelooked at them and they were strong. She was herself a strong woman. Afterthe feast was over and the guests had gone away, Hugh, given courage by thedrinks he continued to consume, would come upstairs to her. Some twist ofher mind made her forget her husband, and in fancy she felt herself aboutto be attacked by a strange man on a dark road at the edge of a forest. Theman had tried to take her into his arms and kiss her and she had managed toget her hands on his throat. Her hands lying on the table twitchedconvulsively. 

In the big farmhouse dining-room and in the parlor where the second tableof guests sat, the wedding feast went on. Afterward when she thought of it, Clara always remembered her wedding feast as a horsey affair. Somethingin the natures of Tom Butterworth and Jim Priest, she thought, expresseditself that night. The jokes that went up and down the table were horsey, and Clara thought the women who sat at the tables heavy and mare-like. 

Jim did not come to the table to sit with the others, was in fact notinvited, but all evening he kept appearing and reappearing and had the airof a master of ceremonies. Coming into the dining room he stood by thedoor, scratching his head. Then he went out. It was as though he hadsaid to himself, "Well, it's all right, everything is going all right, everything is lively, you see. " All his life Jim had been a drinker ofwhisky and knew his limitations. His system as a drinking man had alwaysbeen quite simple. On Saturday afternoons, when the work about the barnswas done for the day and the other employees had gone away, he went to siton the steps of a corncrib with the bottle in his hand. In the winter hewent to sit by the kitchen fire in a little house below the apple orchardwhere he and the other employees slept. He took a long drink from thebottle and then holding it in his hand sat for a time thinking of theevents of his life. Whisky made him somewhat sentimental. After one longdrink he thought of his youth in a town in Pennsylvania. He had been oneof six children, all boys, and at an early age his mother had died. Jimthought of her and then of his father. When he had himself come west intoOhio, and later when he was a soldier in the Civil War, he despised hisfather and reverenced the memory of his mother. In the war he had foundhimself physically unable to stand up before the enemy during a battle. When the report of guns was heard and the other men of his company gotgrimly into line and went forward, something happened to his legs and hewanted to run away. So great was the desire in him that craftiness grew inhis brain. Watching his chance, he pretended to have been shot and fell tothe ground, and when the others had gone on crept away and hid himself. Hefound it was not impossible to disappear altogether and reappear in anotherplace. The draft went into effect and many men not liking the notion of warwere willing to pay large sums to the men who would go in their places. Jim went into the business of enlisting and deserting. All about him weremen talking of the necessity of saving the country, and for four years hethought only of saving his own hide. Then suddenly the war was over and hebecame a farm hand. As he worked all week in the fields, and in the eveningsometimes, as he lay in his bed and the moon came up, he thought of hismother and of the nobility and sacrifice of her life. He wished to be suchanother. After having two or three drinks out of the bottle, he admired hisfather, who in the Pennsylvania town had borne the reputation of being aliar and a rascal. After his mother's death his father had managed to marrya widow who owned a farm. "The old man was a slick one, " he said aloud, tipping up the bottle and taking another long drink. "If I had stayed athome until I got more understanding, the old man and I together might havedone something. " He finished the bottle and went away to sleep on the hay, or if it were winter, threw himself into one of the bunks in the bunkhouse. He dreamed of becoming one who went through life beating people outof money, living by his wits, getting the best of every one. 

Until the night of Clara's wedding Jim had never tasted wine, and as it didnot bring on a desire for sleep, he thought himself unaffected. "It's likesweetened water, " he said, going into the darkness of the barnyard andemptying another half bottle down his throat. "The stuff has no kick. Drinking it is like drinking sweet cider. "

Jim got into a frolicsome mood and went through the crowded kitchen andinto the dining room where the guests were assembled. At the moment therather riotous laughter and story telling had ceased and everything wasquiet. He was worried. "Things aren't going well. Clara's party is becominga frost, " he thought resentfully. He began to dance a heavy-footed jig ona little open place by the kitchen door and the guests stopped talkingto watch. They shouted and clapped their hands. A thunder of applausearose. The guests who were seated in the parlor and who could not see theperformance got up and crowded into the doorway that connected the tworooms. Jim became extraordinarily bold, and as one of the young women Tomhad hired as waitresses at that moment went past bearing a large dish offood, he swung himself quickly about and took her into his arms. The dishflew across the floor and broke against a table leg and the young womanscreamed. A farm dog that had found its way into the kitchen rushed intothe room and barked loudly. Henry Heller's orchestra, concealed under astairway that led to the upper part of the house, began to play furiously. A strange animal fervor swept over Jim. His legs flew rapidly about andhis heavy feet made a great clatter on the floor. The young woman in hisarms screamed and laughed. Jim closed his eyes and shouted. He felt thatthe wedding party had until that moment been a failure and that he wastransforming it into a success. Rising to their feet the men shouted, clapped their hands and beat with their fists on the table. When theorchestra came to the end of the dance, Jim stood flushed and triumphantbefore the guests, holding the woman in his arms. In spite of her struggleshe held her tightly against his breast and kissed her eyes, cheeks, andmouth. Then releasing her he winked and made a gesture for silence. "On awedding night some one's got to have the nerve to do a little love-making, "he said, looking pointedly toward the place where Hugh sat with head bentand with his eyes staring at a glass of wine that sat at his elbow. 

 * * * * *

It was past two o'clock when the feast came to an end. When the guestsbegan to depart, Clara stood for a moment alone and tried to get herselfin hand. Something inside her felt cold and old. If she had often thoughtshe wanted a man, and that life as a married woman would put an end toher problems, she did not think so at that moment. "What I want aboveeverything else is a woman, " she thought. All the evening her mind had beentrying to clutch and hold the almost forgotten figure of her mother, but itwas too vague and shadowy. With her mother she had never walked and talkedlate at night through streets of towns when the world was asleep and whenthoughts were born in herself. "After all, " she thought, "Mother may alsohave belonged to all this. " She looked at the people preparing to depart. Several men had gathered in a group by the door. One of them told a storyat which the others laughed loudly. The women standing about had flushedand, Clara thought, coarse faces. "They have gone into marriage likecattle, " she told herself. Her mind, running out of the room, began tocaress the memory of her one woman friend, Kate Chanceller. Often on latespring afternoons as she and Kate had walked together something very likelove-making had happened between them. They went along quietly and eveningcame on. Suddenly they stopped in the street and Kate had put her armsabout Clara's shoulders. For a moment they stood thus close together and astrange gentle and yet hungry look came into Kate's eyes. It only lasteda moment and when it happened both women were somewhat embarrassed. Katelaughed and taking hold of Clara's arm pulled her along the sidewalk. "Let's walk like the devil, " she said, "come on, let's get up some speed. "

Clara put her hands to her eyes as though to shut out the scene in theroom. "If I could have been with Kate this evening I could have come to aman believing in the possible sweetness of marriage, " she thought. 

CHAPTER XVIII

Jim Priest was very drunk, but insisted on hitching a team to theButterworth carriage and driving it loaded with guests to town. Every onelaughed at him, but he drove up to the farmhouse door and in a loud voicedeclared he knew what he was doing. Three men got into the carriage andbeating the horses furiously Jim sent them galloping away. 

When an opportunity offered, Clara went silently out of the hot dining-roomand through a door to a porch at the back of the house. The kitchen doorwas open and the waitresses and cooks from town were preparing to depart. One of the young women came out into the darkness accompanied by a man, evidently one of the guests. They had both been drinking and stood for amoment in the darkness with their bodies pressed together. "I wish it wereour wedding night, " the man's voice whispered, and the woman laughed. Aftera long kiss they went back into the kitchen. 

A farm dog appeared and going up to Clara licked her hand. She went aroundthe house and stood back of a bush in the darkness near where the carriageswere being loaded. Her father with Steve Hunter and his wife came and gotinto a carriage. Tom was in an expansive, generous mood. "You know, Steve, I told you and several others my Clara was engaged to Alfred Buckley, " hesaid. "Well, I was mistaken. The whole thing was a lie. The truth is I shotoff my mouth without talking to Clara. I had seen them together and now andthen Buckley used to come out here to the house in the evening, although henever came except when I was here. He told me Clara had promised to marryhim, and like a fool I took his word. I never even asked. That's the kindof a fool I was and I was a bigger fool to go telling the story. All thetime Clara and Hugh were engaged and I never suspected. They told me aboutit to-night. "

Clara stood by the bush until she thought the last of the guests had gone. The lie her father had told seemed only a part of the evening's vulgarity. Near the kitchen door the waitresses, cooks and musicians were being loadedinto the bus that had been driven out from the Bidwell House. She went intothe dining-room. Sadness had taken the place of the anger in her, but whenshe saw Hugh the anger came back. Piles of dishes filled with food lay allabout the room and the air was heavy with the smell of food. Hugh stood bya window looking out into the dark farmyard. He held his hat in his hand. "You might put your hat away, " she said sharply. "Have you forgotten you'remarried to me and that you now live here in this house?" She laughednervously and walked to the kitchen door. 

Her mind still clung to the past and to the days when she was a child andhad spent so many hours in the big, silent kitchen. Something was aboutto happen that would take her past away--destroy it, and the thoughtfrightened her. "I have not been very happy in this house but there havebeen certain moments, certain feelings I've had, " she thought. Steppingthrough the doorway she stood for a moment in the kitchen with her backto the wall and with her eyes closed. Through her mind went a troop offigures, the stout determined figure of Kate Chanceller who had knownhow to love in silence; the wavering, hurrying figure of her mother; herfather as a young man coming in after a long drive to warm his handsby the kitchen fire; a strong, hard-faced woman from town who had onceworked for Tom as cook and who was reported to have been the mother of twoillegitimate children; and the figures of her childhood fancy walking overthe bridge toward her, clad in beautiful raiment. 

Back of these figures were other figures, long forgotten but now sharplyremembered--farm girls who had come to work by the day; tramps who had beenfed at the kitchen door; young farm hands who suddenly disappeared from theroutine of the farm's life and were never seen again, a young man with ared bandana handkerchief about his neck who had thrown her a kiss as shestood with her face pressed against a window. 

Once a high school girl from town had come to spend the night with Clara. After the evening meal the two girls walked into the kitchen and stood by awindow, looking out. Something had happened within them. Moved by a commonimpulse they went outside and walked for a long way under the stars alongthe silent country roads. They came to a field where men were burningbrush. Where there had been a forest there was now only a stump field andthe figures of the men carrying armloads of the dry branches of trees andthrowing them on the fire. The fire made a great splash of color in thegathering darkness and for some obscure reason both girls were deeply movedby the sight, sound, and perfume of the night. The figures of the menseemed to dance back and forth in the light. Instinctively Clara turned herface upward and looked at the stars. She was conscious of them and of theirbeauty and the wide sweeping beauty of night as she had never been before. A wind began to sing in the trees of a distant forest, dimly seen far awayacross fields. The sound was soft and insistent and crept into her soul. Inthe grass at her feet insects sang an accompaniment to the soft, distantmusic. 

How vividly Clara now remembered that night! It came sharply back as shestood with closed eyes in the farm kitchen and waited for the consummationof the adventure on which she had set out. With it came other memories. "How many fleeting dreams and half visions of beauty I have had!" shethought. 

Everything in life that she had thought might in some way lead towardbeauty now seemed to Clara to lead to ugliness. "What a lot I've missed, "she muttered, and opening her eyes went back into the dining-room and spoketo Hugh, still standing and staring out into the darkness. 

"Come, " she said sharply, and led the way up a stairway. The two wentsilently up the stairs, leaving the lights burning brightly in the roomsbelow. They came to a door leading to a bedroom, and Clara opened it. "It'stime for a man and his wife to go to bed, " she said in a low, husky voice. Hugh followed her into the room. He walked to a chair by a window andsitting down, took off his shoes and sat holding them in his hand. He didnot look at Clara but into the darkness outside the window. Clara let downher hair and began to unfasten her dress. She took off an outer dress andthrew it over a chair. Then she went to a drawer and pulling it out lookedfor a night dress. She became angry and threw several garments on thefloor. "Damn!" she said explosively, and went out of the room. 

Hugh sprang to his feet. The wine he had drunk had not taken effect andSteve Hunter had been forced to go home disappointed. All the eveningsomething stronger than wine had been gripping him. Now he knew what itwas. All through the evening thoughts and desires had whirled through hisbrain. Now they were all gone. "I won't let her do it, " he muttered, andrunning quickly to the door closed it softly. With the shoes still heldin his hand he crawled through a window. He had expected to leap into thedarkness, but by chance his stocking feet alighted on the roof of the farmkitchen that extended out from the rear of the house. He ran quickly downthe roof and jumped, alighting in a clump of bushes that tore longscratches on his cheeks. 

For five minutes Hugh ran toward the town of Bidwell, then turned, andclimbing a fence, walked across a field. The shoes were still grippedtightly in his hand and the field was stony, but he did not notice and wasunconscious of pain from his bruised feet or from the torn places on hischeeks. Standing in the field he heard Jim Priest drive homeward along theroad. 

 "My bonny lies over the ocean, My bonny lies over the sea, My bonny lies over the ocean, O, bring back my bonny to me. "

sang the farm hand. 

Hugh walked across several fields, and when he came to a small stream, sat down on the bank and put on his shoes. "I've had my chance and missedit, " he thought bitterly. Several times he repeated the words. "I've hadmy chance and I've missed, " he said again as he stopped by a fence thatseparated the fields in which he had been walking. At the words he stoppedand put his hand to his throat. A half-stifled sob broke from him. "I'vehad my chance and missed, " he said again. 

CHAPTER XIX

On the day after the feast managed by Tom and Jim, it was Tom who broughtHugh back to live with his wife. The older man had come to the farmhouse onthe next morning bringing three women from town who were, as he explainedto Clara, to clear away the mess left by the guests. The daughter had beendeeply touched by what Hugh had done, and at the moment loved him deeply, but did not choose to let her father know how she felt. "I suppose you gothim drunk, you and your friends, " she said. "At any rate, he's not here. "

Tom said nothing, but when Clara had told the story of Hugh'sdisappearance, drove quickly away. "He'll come to the shop, " he thought andwent there, leaving his horse tied to a post in front. At two o'clock hisson-in-law came slowly over the Turner's Pike bridge and approached theshop. He was hatless and his clothes and hair were covered with dust, whilein his eyes was the look of a hunted animal. Tom met him with a smile andasked no questions. "Come, " he said, and taking Hugh by the arm led him tothe buggy. As he untied the horse he stopped to light a cigar. "I'm goingdown to one of my lower farms. Clara thought you would like to go with me, "he said blandly. 

Tom drove to the McCoy house and stopped. 

"You'd better clean up a little, " he said without looking at Hugh. "You goin and shave and change your clothes. I'm going up-town. I got to go to astore. "

Driving a short distance along the road, Tom stopped and shouted. "Youmight pack your grip and bring it along, " he called. "You'll be needingyour things. We won't be back here to-day. "

The two men stayed together all that day, and in the evening Tom took Hughto the farmhouse and stayed for the evening meal. "He was a little drunk, "he explained to Clara. "Don't be hard on him. He was a little drunk. "

For both Clara and Hugh that evening was the hardest of their lives. Afterthe servants had gone, Clara sat under a lamp in the dining-room andpretended to read a book and in desperation Hugh also tried to read. 

Again the time came to go upstairs to the bedroom, and again Clara led theway. She went to the door of the room from which Hugh had fled and openingit stepped aside. Then she put out her hand. "Good-night, " she said, andgoing down a hallway went into another room and closed the door. 

Hugh's experience with the school teacher was repeated on that second nightin the farmhouse. He took off his shoes and prepared for bed. Then he creptout into the hallway and went softly to the door of Clara's room. Severaltimes he made the journey along the carpeted hallway, and once his hand wason the knob of the door, but each time he lost heart and returned to hisown room. Although he did not know it Clara, like Rose McCoy on that otheroccasion, expected him to come to her, and knelt on the floor just insidethe door, waiting, hoping for, and fearing the coming of the man. 

Unlike the school teacher, Clara wanted to help Hugh. Marriage had perhapsgiven her that impulse, but she did not follow it, and when at last Hugh, shaken and ashamed, gave up the struggle with himself, she arose and wentto her bed where she threw herself down and wept, as Hugh had wept standingin the darkness of the fields on the night before. 

CHAPTER XX

It was a hot, dusty day, a week after Hugh's marriage to Clara, and Hughwas at work in his shop at Bidwell. How many days, weeks, and months hehad already worked there, thinking in iron--twisted, turned, tortured tofollow the twistings and turnings of his mind--standing all day by a benchbeside other workmen--before him always the little piles of wheels, stripsof unworked iron and steel, blocks of wood, the paraphernalia of theinventor's trade. Beside him, now that money had come to him, more and moreworkmen, men who had invented nothing, who were without distinction in thelife of the community, who had married no rich man's daughter. 

In the morning the other workmen, skillful fellows, who knew as Hugh hadnever known, the science of their iron craft, came straggling through theshop door into his presence. They were a little embarrassed before him. Thegreatness of his name rang in their minds. 

Many of the workmen were husbands, fathers of families. In the morning theyleft their houses gladly but nevertheless came somewhat reluctantly tothe shop. As they came along the street, past other houses, they smokeda morning pipe. Groups were formed. Many legs straggled along the street. At the door of the shop each man stopped. There was a sharp tapping sound. Pipe bowls were knocked out against the door sill. Before he came into theshop, each man looked out across the open country that stretched away tothe north. 

For a week Hugh had been married to a woman who had not yet become hiswife. She belonged, still belonged, to a world he had thought of as outsidethe possibilities of his life. Was she not young, strong, straight of body?Did she not array herself in what seemed unbelievably beautiful clothes?The clothes she wore were a symbol of herself. For him she wasunattainable. 

And yet she had consented to become his wife, had stood with him before aman who had said words about honor and obedience. 

Then there had come the two terrible evenings--when he had gone backto the farmhouse with her to find the wedding feast set in their honor, and that other evening when old Tom had brought him to the farmhouse adefeated, frightened man who hoped the woman would put out her hand, wouldreassure him. 

Hugh was sure he had missed the great opportunity of his life. He hadmarried, but his marriage was not a marriage. He had got himself into aposition from which there was no possibility of escaping. "I'm a coward, "he thought, looking at the other workmen in the shop. They, like himself, were married men and lived in a house with a woman. At night they wentboldly into the presence of the woman. He had not done that when theopportunity offered, and Clara could not come to him. He could understandthat. His hands had builded a wall and the passing days were huge stonesput on top of the wall. What he had not done became every day a more andmore impossible thing to do. 

Tom, having taken Hugh back to Clara, was still concerned over the outcomeof their adventure. Every day he came to the shop and in the evening cameto see them at the farmhouse. He hovered about, was like a mother birdwhose offspring had been prematurely pushed out of the nest. Every morninghe came into the shop to talk with Hugh. He made jokes about married life. Winking at a man standing nearby he put his hand familiarly on Hugh'sshoulder. "Well, how does married life go? It seems to me you're a littlepale, " he said laughing. 

In the evening he came to the farmhouse and sat talking of his affairs, ofthe progress and growth of the town and his part in it. Without hearing hiswords both Clara and Hugh sat in silence, pretending to listen, glad of hispresence. 

Hugh came to the shop at eight. On other mornings, all through that longweek of waiting, Clara had driven him to his work, the two riding insilence down Medina Road and through the crowded streets of the town; buton that morning he had walked. 

On Medina Road, near the bridge where he had once stood with Clara andwhere he had seen her hot with anger, something had happened, a trivialthing. A male bird pursued a female among the bushes beside the road. Thetwo feathered, living creatures, vividly colored, alive with life, pitchedand swooped through the air. They were like moving balls of light going inand out of the dark green of foliage. There was in them a madness, a riotof life. 

Hugh had been tricked into stopping by the roadside. A tangle of thingsthat had filled his mind, the wheels, cogs, levers, all the intricate partsof the hay-loading machine, the things that lived in his mind until hishand had made them into facts, were blown away like dust. For a moment hewatched the living riotous things and then, as though jerking himself backinto a path from which his feet had wandered, hurried onward to the shop, looking as he went not into the branches of trees, but downward at the dustof the road. 

In the shop Hugh tried all morning to refurnish the warehouse of his mind, to put back into it the things blown so recklessly away. At ten Tom camein, talked for a moment and then flitted away. "You are still there. Mydaughter still has you. You have not run away again, " he seemed to besaying to himself. 

The day grew warm and the sky, seen through the shop window by the benchwhere Hugh tried to work, was overcast with clouds. 

At noon the workmen went away, but Clara, who on other days had come todrive Hugh to the farmhouse for lunch, did not appear. When all was silentin the shop he stopped work, washed his hands and put on his coat. 

He went to the shop door and then came back to the bench. Before him layan iron wheel on which he had been at work. It was intended to drive someintricate part of the hay-loading machine. Hugh took it in his hand andcarried it to the back of the shop where there was an anvil. Withoutconsciousness and scarcely realizing what he did he laid it on the anviland taking a great sledge in his hand swung it over his head. 

The blow struck was terrific. Into it Hugh put all of his protest againstthe grotesque position into which he had been thrown by his marriage toClara. 

The blow accomplished nothing. The sledge descended and the comparativelydelicate metal wheel was twisted, knocked out of shape. It spurted fromunder the head of the sledge and shot past Hugh's head and out through awindow, breaking a pane of glass. Fragments of the broken glass fell with asharp little tinkling sound upon a heap of twisted pieces of iron and steellying beside the anvil. . . . 

Hugh did not eat lunch that day nor did he go to the farmhouse or return towork at the shop. He walked, but this time did not walk in country roadswhere male and female birds dart in and out of bushes. An intense desire toknow something intimate and personal concerning men and women and the livesthey led in their houses had taken possession of him. He walked in thedaylight up and down in the streets of Bidwell. 

To the right, over the bridge leading out of Turner's Road, the main streetof Bidwell ran along a river bank. In that direction the hills out of thecountry to the south came down to the river's edge and there was a highbluff. On the bluff and back of it on a sloping hillside many of the morepretentious new houses of the prosperous Bidwell citizens had been built. Facing the river were the largest houses, with grounds in which trees andshrubs had been planted and in the streets along the hill, less and lesspretentious as they receded from the river, were other houses built andbeing built, long rows of houses, long streets of houses, houses in brick, stone, and wood. 

Hugh went from the river front back into this maze of streets and houses. Some instinct led him there. It was where the men and women of Bidwell whohad prospered and had married went to live, to make themselves houses. Hisfather-in-law had offered to buy him a river front place and already thatmeant much in Bidwell. 

He wanted to see women who, like Clara, had got themselves husbands, whatthey were like. "I've seen enough of men, " he thought half resentfully ashe went along. 

All afternoon he walked in streets, going up and down before houses inwhich women lived with their men. A detached mood had possession of him. For an hour he stood under a tree idly watching workmen engaged in buildinganother house. When one of the workmen spoke to him he walked away and wentinto a street where men were laying a cement pavement before a completedhouse. 

In a furtive way he kept looking about for women, hungering to see theirfaces. "What are they up to? I'd like to find out, " his mind seemed to besaying. 

The women came out of the doors of the houses and passed him as he wentslowly along. Other women in carriages drove in the streets. They werewell-dressed women and seemed sure of themselves. "Things are all rightwith me. For me things are settled and arranged, " they seemed to say. Allthe streets in which he walked seemed to be telling the story of thingssettled and arranged. The houses spoke of the same things. "I am a house. I am not built until things are settled and arranged. I mean that, " theysaid. 

Hugh grew very tired. In the later afternoon a small bright-eyed woman--nodoubt she had been one of the guests at his wedding feast--stopped him. "Are you planning to buy or build up our way, Mr. McVey?" she asked. Heshook his head. "I'm looking around, " he said and hurried away. 

Anger took the place of perplexity in him. The women he saw in the streetsand in the doors of the houses were such women as his own woman Clara. Theyhad married men--"no better than myself, " he told himself, growing bold. 

They had married men and something had happened to them. Something wassettled. They could live in streets and in houses. Their marriages had beenreal marriages and he had a right to a real marriage. It was not too muchto expect out of life. 

"Clara has a right to that also, " he thought and his mind began to idealizethe marriages of men and women. "On every hand here I see them, the neat, well-dressed, handsome women like Clara. How happy they are!

"Their feathers have been ruffled though, " he thought angrily. "It was withthem as with that bird I saw being pursued through the trees. There hasbeen pursuit and a pretense of trying to escape. There has been an effortmade that was not an effort, but feathers have been ruffled here. "

When his thoughts had driven him into a half desperate mood Hugh wentout of the streets of bright, ugly, freshly built, freshly painted andfurnished houses, and down into the town. Several men homeward bound at theend of their day of work called to him. "I hope you are thinking of buyingor building up our way, " they said heartily. 

 * * * * *

It began to rain and darkness came, but Hugh did not go home to Clara. Itdid not seem to him that he could spend another night in the house withher, lying awake, hearing the little noises of the night, waiting--forcourage. He could not sit under the lamp through another evening pretendingto read. He could not go with Clara up the stairs only to leave her with acold "good-night" at the top of the stairs. 

Hugh went up the Medina Road almost to the house and then retraced hissteps and got into a field. There was a low swampy place in which thewater came up over his shoetops, and after he had crossed that there wasa field overgrown with a tangle of vines. The night became so dark thathe could see nothing and darkness reigned over his spirit. For hours hewalked blindly, but it did not occur to him that as he waited, hating thewaiting, Clara also waited; that for her also it was a time of trial anduncertainty. To him it seemed her course was simple and easy. She was awhite pure thing--waiting--for what? for courage to come in to him in orderthat an assault be made upon her whiteness and purity. 

That was the only answer to the question Hugh could find within himself. The destruction of what was white and pure was a necessary thing in life. It was a thing men must do in order that life go on. As for women, theymust be white and pure--and wait. 

 * * * * *

Filled with inward resentment Hugh at last did go to the farmhouse. Wetand with dragging, heavy feet he turned out of the Medina Road to find thehouse dark and apparently deserted. 

Then a new and puzzling situation arose. When he stepped over the thresholdand into the house he knew Clara was there. 

On that day she had not driven him to work in the morning or gone for himat noon hour because she did not want to look at him in the light of day, did not want again to see the puzzled, frightened look in his eyes. She hadwanted him in the darkness alone, had waited for darkness. Now it was darkin the house and she waited for him. 

How simple it was! Hugh came into the living-room, stumbled forward intothe darkness, and found the hat-rack against the wall near the stairwayleading to the bedrooms above. Again he had surrendered what he would nodoubt have called the manhood in himself, and hoped only to be able toescape the presence he felt in the room, to creep off upstairs to his bed, to lie awake listening to noises, waiting miserably for another day tocome. But when he had put his dripping hat on one of the pegs of the rackand had found the lower step with his foot thrust into darkness, a voicecalled to him. 

"Come here, Hugh, " Clara said softly and firmly, and like a boy caughtdoing a forbidden act he went toward her. "We have been very silly, Hugh, "he heard her voice saying softly. 

 * * * * *

Hugh went to where Clara sat in a chair by a window. From him there wasno protest and no attempt to escape the love-making that followed. For amoment he stood in silence and could see her white figure below him in thechair. It was like something still far away, but coming swiftly as a birdflies to him--upward to him. Her hand crept up and lay in his hand. Itseemed unbelievably large. It was not soft, but hard and firm. When herhand had rested in his for a moment she arose and stood beside him. Thenthe hand went out of his and touched, caressed his wet coat, his wet hair, his cheeks. "My flesh must be white and cold, " he thought, and then he didnot think any more. 

Gladness took hold of him, a gladness that came up out of the inner partsof himself as she had come up to him out of the chair. For days, weeks, hehad been thinking of his problem as a man's problem, his defeat had been aman's defeat. 

Now there was no defeat, no problem, no victory. In himself he did notexist. Within himself something new had been born or another something thathad always lived with him had stirred to life. It was not awkward. It wasnot afraid. It was a thing as swift and sure as the flight of the male birdthrough the branches of trees and it was in pursuit of something light andswift in her, something that would fly through light and darkness but flynot too swiftly, something of which he need not be afraid, something thatwithout the need of understanding he could understand as one understandsthe need of breath in a close place. 

With a laugh as soft and sure as her own Hugh took Clara into his arms. A few minutes later they went up stairs and twice Hugh stumbled on thestairway. It did not matter. His long awkward body was a thing outsidehimself. It might stumble and fall many times but the new thing he hadfound, the thing inside himself that responded to the thing inside theshell that was Clara his wife, did not stumble. It flew like a bird out ofdarkness into the light. At the moment he thought the sweeping flight oflife thus begun would run on forever. 

BOOK SIX

CHAPTER XXI

It was a summer night in Ohio and the wheat in the long, flat fields thatstretched away to the north from the town of Bidwell was ripe for thecutting. Between the wheat fields lay corn and cabbage fields. In the cornfields the green stalks stood up like young trees. Facing the fields laythe white roads, once the silent roads, hushed and empty through the nightsand often during many hours of the day, the night silence broken only atlong intervals by the clattering hoofs of homeward bound horses and thesilence of days by creaking wagons. Along the roads on a summer eveningwent the young farm hand in his buggy for which he had spent a summer'swage, a long summer of sweaty toil in hot fields. The hoofs of his horsebeat a soft tattoo on the roads. His sweetheart sat beside him and he wasin no hurry. All day he had been at work in the harvest and on the morrowhe would work again. It did not matter. For him the night would last untilthe cocks in isolated farmyards began to hail the dawn. He forgot the horseand did not care what turning he took. All roads led to happiness for him. 

Beside the long roads was an endless procession of fields broken now andthen by a strip of woodland, where the shadows of trees fell upon theroads and made pools of an inky blackness. In the long, dry grass in fencecorners insects sang; in the young cabbage fields rabbits ran, flittingaway like shadows in the moonlight. The cabbage fields were beautiful too. 

Who has written or sung of the beauties of corn fields in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, or of the vast Ohio cabbage fields? In the cabbage fieldsthe broad outer leaves fall down to make a background for the shifting, delicate colors of soils. The leaves are themselves riotous with color. As the season advances they change from light to dark greens, a thousandshades of purples, blues and reds appear and disappear. 

In silence the cabbage fields slept beside the roads in Ohio. Notyet had the motor cars come to tear along the roads, their flashinglights--beautiful too, when seen by one afoot on the roads on a summernight--had not yet made the roads an extension of the cities. Akron, theterrible town, had not yet begun to roll forth its countless millions ofrubber hoops, filled each with its portion of God's air compressed and inprison at last like the farm hands who have gone to the cities. Detroit andToledo had not begun to send forth their hundreds of thousands of motorcars to shriek and scream the nights away on country roads. Willis wasstill a mechanic in an Indiana town, and Ford still worked in a bicyclerepair shop in Detroit. 

It was a summer night in the Ohio country and the moon shone. A countrydoctor's horse went at a humdrum pace along the roads. Softly and at longintervals men afoot stumbled along. A farm hand whose horse was lame walkedtoward town. An umbrella mender, benighted on the roads, hurried toward thelights of the distant town. In Bidwell, the place that had been on othersummer nights a sleepy town filled with gossiping berry pickers, thingswere astir. 

Change, and the thing men call growth, was in the air. Perhaps in its ownway revolution was in the air, the silent, the real revolution that grewwith the growth of the towns. In the stirring, bustling town of Bidwellthat quiet summer night something happened that startled men. Somethinghappened, and then in a few minutes it happened again. Heads wagged, special editions of daily newspapers were printed, the great hive of menwas disturbed, under the invisible roof of the town that had so suddenlybecome a city, the seeds of self-consciousness were planted in new soil, inAmerican soil. 

Before all this began, however, something else happened. The first motorcar ran through the streets of Bidwell and out upon the moonlit roads. Themotor car was driven by Tom Butterworth and in it sat his daughter Clarawith her husband Hugh McVey. During the week before, Tom had brought thecar from Cleveland, and the mechanic who rode with him had taught him theart of driving. Now he drove alone and boldly. Early in the evening he hadrun out to the farmhouse to take his daughter and son-in-law for theirfirst ride. Hugh sat in the seat beside him and after they had started andwere clear of the town, Tom turned to him. "Now watch me step on her tail, "he said proudly, using for the first time the motor slang he had picked upfrom the Cleveland mechanic. 

As Tom sent the car hurling over the roads, Clara sat alone in the backseat unimpressed by her father's new acquisition. For three years shehad been married and she felt that she did not yet know the man she hadmarried. Always the story had been the same, moments of light and thendarkness again. A new machine that went along roads at a startlinglyincreased rate of speed might change the whole face of the world, as herfather declared it would, but it did not change certain facts of her life. "Am I a failure as a wife, or is Hugh impossible as a husband?" she askedherself for perhaps the thousandth time as the car, having got into a longstretch of clear, straight road, seemed to leap and sail through the airlike a bird. "At any rate I have married me a husband and yet I have nohusband, I have been in a man's arms but I have no lover, I have taken holdof life, but life has slipped through my fingers. "

Like her father, Hugh seemed to Clara absorbed in only the things outsidehimself, the outer crust of life. He was like and yet unlike her father. She was baffled by him. There was something in the man she wanted and couldnot find. "The fault must be in me, " she told herself. "He's all right, butwhat's the matter with me?"

After that night when he ran away from her bridal bed, Clara had more thanonce thought the miracle had happened. It did sometimes. On that night whenhe came to her out of the rain it had happened. There was a wall a blowcould shatter, and she raised her hand to strike the blow. The wall wasshattered and then builded itself again. Even as she lay at night in herhusband's arms the wall reared itself up in the darkness of the sleepingroom. 

Over the farmhouse on such nights dense silence brooded and she and Hugh, as had become their habit together, were silent. In the darkness she put upher hand to touch her husband's face and hair. He lay still and she had theimpression of some great force holding him back, holding her back. A sharpsense of struggle filled the room. The air was heavy with it. 

When words came they did not break the silence. The wall remained. 

The words that came were empty, meaningless words. Hugh suddenly brokeforth into speech. He spoke of his work at the shop and of his progresstoward the solution of some difficult, mechanical problem. If it wereevening when the thing happened the two people got out of the lighted housewhere they had been sitting together, each feeling darkness would help theeffort they were both making to tear away the wall. They walked along alane, past the barns and over the little wooden bridge across the streamthat ran down through the barnyard. Hugh did not want to talk of the workat the shop, but could find words for no other talk. They came to a fencewhere the lane turned and from where they could look down the hillside andinto the town. He did not look at Clara but stared down the hillside andthe words, in regard to the mechanical difficulties that had occupied hismind all day, ran on and on. When later they went back to the house he felta little relieved. "I've said words. There is something achieved, " hethought. 

 * * * * *

And now after the three years as a married woman Clara sat in the motorwith her father and husband and with them was sent whirling swiftly throughthe summer night. The car ran down the hill road from the Butterworth farm, through a dozen residence streets in town and then out upon the long, straight roads in the rich, flat country to the north. It had skirtedthe town as a hungry wolf might have encircled silently and swiftly thefire-lit camp of a hunter. To Clara the machine seemed like a wolf, boldand cunning and yet afraid. Its great nose pushed through the troubledair of the quiet roads, frightening horses, breaking the silence with itspersistent purring, drowning the song of insects. The headlights alsodisturbed the slumbers of the night. They flashed into barnyards wherefowls slept on the lower branches of trees, played on the sides of barnssent the cattle in fields galloping away into darkness, and frightenedhorribly the wild things, the red squirrels and chipmunks that live inwayside fences in the Ohio country. Clara hated the machine and began tohate all machines. Thinking of machinery and the making of machines had, she decided, been at the bottom of her husband's inability to talk withher. Revolt against the whole mechanical impulse of her generation began totake possession of her. 

And as she rode another and more terrible kind of revolt against themachine began in the town of Bidwell. It began in fact before Tom with hisnew motor left the Butterworth farm, it began before the summer moon cameup, before the gray mantle of night had been laid over the shoulders of thehills south of the farmhouse. 

Jim Gibson, the journeyman harness maker who worked in Joe Wainsworth'sshop, was beside himself on that night. He had just won a great victoryover his employer and felt like celebrating. For several days he had beentelling the story of his anticipated victory in the saloons and store, andnow it had happened. After dining at his boarding-house he went to a saloonand had a drink. Then he went to other saloons and had other drinks, afterwhich he swaggered through the streets to the door of the shop. Althoughhe was in his nature a spiritual bully, Jim did not lack energy, and hisemployer's shop was filled with work demanding attention. For a week bothhe and Joe had been returning to their work benches every evening. Jimwanted to come because some driving influence within made him love thethought of keeping the work always on the move, and Joe because Jim madehim come. 

Many things were on the move in the striving, hustling town on thatevening. The system of checking on piece work, introduced by thesuperintendent Ed Hall in the corn-cutting machine plant, had broughton Bidwell's first industrial strike. The discontented workmen were notorganized, and the strike was foredoomed to failure, but it had stirredthe town deeply. One day, a week before, quite suddenly some fifty orsixty men had decided to quit. "We won't work for a fellow like Ed Hall, "they declared. "He sets a scale of prices and then, when we have drivenourselves to the limit to make a decent day's pay, he cuts the scale. "Leaving the shop the men went in a body to Main Street and two or three ofthem, developing unexpected eloquence, began delivering speeches on streetcorners. On the next day the strike spread and for several days the shophad been closed. Then a labor organizer came from Cleveland and on the dayof his arrival the story ran through the street that strike breakers wereto be brought in. 

And on that evening of many adventures another element was introduced intothe already disturbed life of the community. At the corner of Main andMcKinley Streets and just beyond the place where three old buildings werebeing torn down to make room for the building of a new hotel, appeared aman who climbed upon a box and attacked, not the piece work prices at thecorn-cutting machine plant, but the whole system that built and maintainedfactories where the wage scale of the workmen could be fixed by the whim ornecessity of one man or a group of men. As the man on the box talked, theworkmen in the crowd who were of American birth began to shake their heads. They went to one side and gathering in groups discussed the stranger'swords. "I tell you what, " said a little old workman, pulling nervously athis graying mustache, "I'm on strike and I'm for sticking out until SteveHunter and Tom Butterworth fire Ed Hall, but I don't like this kind oftalk. I'll tell you what that man's doing. He's attacking our Government, that's what he's doing. " The workmen went off to their homes grumbling. TheGovernment was to them a sacred thing, and they did not fancy having theirdemands for a better wage scale confused by the talk of anarchists andsocialists. Many of the laborers of Bidwell were sons and grandsons ofpioneers who had opened up the country where the great sprawling towns werenow growing into cities. They or their fathers had fought in the greatCivil War. During boyhood they had breathed a reverence for governmentout of the very air of the towns. The great men of whom the school-bookstalked had all been connected with the Government. In Ohio there had beenGarfield, Sherman, McPherson the fighter and others. From Illinois had comeLincoln and Grant. For a time the very ground of the mid-American countryhad seemed to spurt forth great men as now it was spurting forth gas andoil. Government had justified itself in the men it had produced. 

And now there had come among them men who had no reverence for government. What a speaker for the first time dared say openly on the streets ofBidwell, had already been talked in the shops. The new men, the foreignerscoming from many lands, had brought with them strange doctrines. Theybegan to make acquaintances among the American workmen. "Well, " they said, "you've had great men here; no doubt you have; but you're getting a newkind of great men now. These new men are not born out of people. They'rebeing born out of capital. What is a great man? He's one who has thepower. Isn't that a fact? Well, you fellows here have got to find out thatnowadays power comes with the possession of money. Who are the big men ofthis town?--not some lawyer or politician who can make a good speech, butthe men who own the factories where you have to work. Your Steve Hunter andTom Butterworth are the great men of this town. "

The socialist, who had come to speak on the streets of Bidwell, was aSwede, and his wife had come with him. As he talked his wife made figureson a blackboard. The old story of the trick by which the citizens of thetown had lost their money in the plant-setting machine company was revivedand told over and over. The Swede, a big man with heavy fists, spoke of theprominent citizens of the town as thieves who by a trick had robbed theirfellows. As he stood on the box beside his wife, and raising his fistsshouted crude sentences condemning the capitalist class, men who had goneaway angry came back to listen. The speaker declared himself a workman likethemselves and, unlike the religious salvationists who occasionally spokeon the streets, did not beg for money. "I'm a workman like yourselves, " heshouted. "Both my wife and myself work until we've saved a little money. Then we come out to some town like this and fight capital until we'rebusted. We've been fighting for years now and we'll keep on fighting aslong as we live. "

As the orator shouted out his sentences he raised his fist as though tostrike, and looked not unlike one of his ancestors, the Norsemen, whoin old times had sailed far and wide over unknown seas in search of thefighting they loved. The men of Bidwell began to respect him. "After all, what he says sounds like mighty good sense, " they declared, shaking theirheads. "Maybe Ed Hall isn't any worse than any one else. We got to breakup the system. That's a fact. Some of these days we got to break up thesystem. "

 * * * * *

Jim Gibson got to the door of Joe's shop at half-past seven o'clock. Several men stood on the sidewalk and he stopped and stood before them, intending to tell again the story of his triumph over his employer. Insidethe shop Joe was already at his bench and at work. The men, two of themstrikers from the corn-cutting machine plant, complained bitterly of thedifficulty of supporting their families, and a third man, a fellow with abig black mustache who smoked a pipe, began to repeat some of the axiomsin regard to industrialism and the class war he had picked up from thesocialist orator. Jim listened for a moment and then, turning, put histhumb on his buttocks and wriggled his fingers. "Oh, hell, " he sneered, "what are you fools talking about? You're going to get up a union or getinto the socialist party. What're you talking about? A union or a partycan't help a man who can't look out for himself. "

The blustering and half intoxicated harness maker stood in the open shopdoor and told again and in detail the story of his triumph over hisemployer. Then another thought came and he spoke of the twelve hundreddollars Joe had lost in the stock, of the plant-setting machine company. "He lost his money and you fellows are going to get licked in this fight, "he declared. "You're all wrong, you fellows, when you talk about unions orjoining the socialist party. What counts is what a man can do for himself. Character counts. Yes, sir, character makes a man what he is. "

Jim pounded on his chest and glared about him. 

"Look at me, " he said. "I was a drunkard and down and out when I came tothis town; a drunkard, that's what I was and that's what I am. I came hereto this shop to work, and now, if you want to know, ask any one in town whoruns this place. The socialist says money is power. Well, there's a maninside here who has the money, but you bet I've got the power. "

Slapping his knees with his hands Jim laughed heartily. A week before, atraveling man had come to the shop to sell machine-made harness. Joe hadordered the man out and Jim had called him back. He had placed an order foreighteen sets of the harness and had made Joe sign the order. The harnesshad arrived that afternoon and was now hung in the shop. "It's hanging inthe shop now, " Jim cried. "Go see for yourself. "

Triumphantly Jim walked up and down before the men on the sidewalk, andhis voice rang through the shop where Joe sat on his harness-maker's horseunder a swinging lamp hard at work. "I tell you, character's the thingthat counts, " the roaring voice cried. "You see I'm a workingman like youfellows, but I don't join a union or a socialist party. I get my way. Myboss Joe in there's a sentimental old fool, that's what he is. All his lifehe's made harnesses by hand and he thinks that's the only way. He claims hehas pride in his work, that's what he claims. "

Jim laughed again. "Do you know what he did the other day when thattraveler had gone out of the shop and after I had made him sign thatorder?" he asked. "Cried, that's what he did. By God, he did, --sat thereand cried. "

Again Jim laughed, but the workmen on the sidewalk did not join in hismerriment. Going to one of them, the one who had declared his intention ofjoining the union, Jim began to berate him. "You think you can lick Ed Hallwith Steve Hunter and Tom Butterworth back of him, eh?" he asked sharply. "Well, I'll tell you what--you can't. All the unions in the world won'thelp you. You'll get licked--for why?

"For why? Because Ed Hall is like me, that's for why. He's got character, that's what he's got. "

Growing weary of his boasting and the silence of his audience, Jim startedto walk in at the door, but when one of the workmen, a pale man of fiftywith a graying mustache, spoke, he turned to listen. "You're a suck, a suckand a lickspittle, that's what you are, " said the pale man, his voicetrembling with passion. 

Jim ran through the crowd of men and knocked the speaker to the sidewalkwith a blow of his fist. Two of the other workmen seemed about to take upthe cause of their fallen brother, but when in spite of their threats Jimstood his ground, they hesitated. They went to help the pale workman to hisfeet, and Jim went into the shop and closed the door. Climbing onto hishorse he went to work, and the men went off along the sidewalk, stillthreatening to do what they had not done when the opportunity offered. 

Joe worked in silence beside his employee and night began to settle downover the disturbed town. Above the clatter of many voices in the streetoutside could be heard the loud voice of the socialist orator who had takenup his stand for the evening at a nearby corner. When it had become quitedark outside, the old harness maker climbed down from his horse and goingto the front door opened it softly and looked up and down the street. Thenhe closed it again and walked toward the rear of the shop. In his handhe held his harness-maker's knife, shaped like a half moon and with anextraordinarily sharp circular edge. The harness maker's wife had diedduring the year before and since that time he had not slept well at night. Often for a week at a time he did not sleep at all, but lay all night withwide-open eyes, thinking strange, new thoughts. In the daytime and when Jimwas not about, he sometimes spent hours sharpening the moon-shaped knife ona piece of leather; and on the day after the incident of the placing of theorder for the factory-made harness he had gone into a hardware store andbought a cheap revolver. He had been sharpening the knife as Jim talked tothe workmen outside. When Jim began to tell the story of his humiliation hehad stopped sewing at the broken harness in his vise and, getting up, hadtaken the knife from its hiding-place under a pile of leather on a bench togive its edge a few last caressing strokes. 

Holding the knife in his hand Joe went with shambling steps toward theplace where Jim sat absorbed in his work. A brooding silence seemed to lieover the shop and even outside in the street all noises suddenly ceased. Old Joe's gait changed. As he passed behind the horse on which Jim sat, life came into his figure and he walked with a soft, cat-like tread. Joyshone in his eyes. As though warned of something impending, Jim turned andopened his mouth to growl at his employer, but his words never found theirway to his lips. The old man made a peculiar half step, half leap past thehorse, and the knife whipped through the air. At one stroke he hadsucceeded in practically severing Jim Gibson's head from his body. 

There was no sound in the shop. Joe threw the knife into a corner and ranquickly past the horse where the body of Jim Gibson sat upright. Then thebody fell to the floor with a thump and there was the sharp rattle ofheels on the board floor. The old man locked the front door and listenedimpatiently. When all was again quiet he went to search for the knife hehad thrown away, but could not find it. Taking Jim's knife from a benchunder the hanging lamp, he stepped over the body and climbed upon his horseto turn out the lights. 

For an hour Joe stayed in the shop with the dead man. The eighteen sets ofharness shipped from a Cleveland factory had been received that morning, and Jim had insisted they be unpacked and hung on hooks along the shopwalls. He had bullied Joe into helping hang the harnesses, and now Joe tookthem down alone. One by one they were laid on the floor and with Jim'sknife the old man cut each strap into little pieces that made a pile oflitter on the floor reaching to his waist. When that was done he went againto the rear of the shop, again stepping almost carelessly over the deadman, and took the revolver out of the pocket of an overcoat that hung bythe door. 

Joe went out of the shop by the back door, and having locked it carefully, crept through an alleyway and into the lighted street where people walkedup and down. The next place to his own was a barber shop, and as he hurriedalong the sidewalk, two young men came out and called to him. "Hey, " theycalled, "do you believe in factory-made harness now-days, Joe Wainsworth?Hey, what do you say? Do you sell factory-made harness?"

Joe did not answer, but stepping off the sidewalk, walked in the road. Agroup of Italian laborers passed, talking rapidly and making gestures withtheir hands. As he went more deeply into the heart of the growing city, past the socialist orator and a labor organizer who was addressing a crowdof men on another corner, his step became cat-like as it had been in themoment before the knife flashed at the throat of Jim Gibson. The crowds ofpeople frightened him. He imagined himself set upon by a crowd and hangedto a lamp-post. The voice of the labor orator arose above the murmur ofvoices in the street. "We've got to take power into our hands. We've got tocarry on our own battle for power, " the voice declared. 

The harness maker turned a corner into a quiet street, his hand caressingaffectionately the revolver in the side pocket of his coat. He intended tokill himself, but had not wanted to die in the same room with Jim Gibson. In his own way he had always been a very sensitive man and his only fearwas that rough hands fall upon him before he had completed the evening'swork. He was quite sure that had his wife been alive she would haveunderstood what had happened. She had always understood everything he didor said. He remembered his courtship. His wife had been a country girl andon Sundays, after their marriage, they had gone together to spend the dayin the wood. After Joe had brought his wife to Bidwell they continued thepractice. One of his customers, a well-to-do farmer, lived five miles northof town, and on his farm there was a grove of beech trees. Almost everySunday for several years he got a horse from the livery stable and took hiswife there. After dinner at the farmhouse, he and the farmer gossiped foran hour, while the women washed the dishes, and then he took his wife andwent into the beech forest. No underbrush grew under the spreading branchesof the trees, and when the two people had remained silent for a time, hundreds of squirrels and chipmunks came to chatter and play about them. Joe had brought nuts in his pocket and threw them about. The quiveringlittle animals drew near and then with a flip of their tails scamperedaway. One day a boy from a neighboring farm came to the wood and shotone of the squirrels. It happened just as Joe and his wife came from thefarmhouse and he saw the wounded squirrel hang from the branch of a tree, and then fall. It lay at his feet and his wife grew ill and leaned againsthim for support. He said nothing, but stared at the quivering thing on theground. When it lay still the boy came and picked it up. Still Joe saidnothing. Taking his wife's arm he walked to where they were in the habit ofsitting, and reached in his pocket for the nuts to scatter on the ground. The farm boy, who had felt the reproach in the eyes of the man and woman, had gone out of the wood. Suddenly Joe began to cry. He was ashamed and didnot want his wife to see, and she pretended she had not seen. 

On the night when he had killed Jim, Joe decided he would walk to the farmand the beech forest and there kill himself. He hurried past a long row ofdark stores and warehouses in the newly built section of town and came toa residence street. He saw a man coming toward him and stepped into thestairway of a store building. The man stopped under a street lamp to lighta cigar, and the harness maker recognized him. It was Steve Hunter, whohad induced him to invest the twelve hundred dollars in the stock of theplant-setting machine company, the man who had brought the new timesto Bidwell, the man who was at the bottom of all such innovations asmachine-made harnesses. Joe had killed his employee, Jim Gibson, in coldanger, but now a new kind of anger took possession of him. Something dancedbefore his eyes and his hands trembled so that he was afraid the gun he hadtaken out of his pocket would fall to the sidewalk. It wavered as he raisedit and fired, but chance came to his assistance. Steve Hunter pitchedforward to the sidewalk. 

Without stopping to pick up the revolver that had fallen out of his hand, Joe now ran up a stairway and got into a dark, empty hall. He felt hisway along a wall and came presently to another stairway, leading down. It brought him into an alleyway, and going along this he came out nearthe bridge that led over the river and into what in the old days had beenTurner's Pike, the road out which he had driven with his wife to the farmand the beech forest. 

But one thing now puzzled Joe Wainsworth. He had lost his revolver and didnot know how he was to manage his own death. "I must do it some way, " hethought, when at last, after nearly three hours steady plodding and hidingin fields to avoid the teams going along the road he got to the beechforest. He went to sit under a tree near the place where he had so oftensat through quiet Sunday afternoons with his wife beside him. "I'll rest alittle and then I'll think how I can do it, " he thought wearily, holdinghis head in his hands. "I mustn't go to sleep. If they find me they'll hurtme. They'll hurt me before I have a chance to kill myself. They'll hurt mebefore I have a chance to kill myself, " he repeated, over and over, holdinghis head in his hands and rocking gently back and forth. 

CHAPTER XXII

The car driven by Tom Butterworth stopped at a town, and Tom got out tofill his pockets with cigars and incidentally to enjoy the wonder andadmiration of the citizens. He was in an exalted mood and words flowed fromhim. As the motor under its hood purred, so the brain under the graying oldhead purred and threw forth words. He talked to the idlers before the drugstores in the towns and, when the car started again and they were out inthe open country, his voice, pitched in a high key to make itself heardabove the purring engine, became shrill. Having struck the shrill tone ofthe new age the voice went on and on. 

But the voice and the swift-moving car did not stir Clara. She tried notto hear the voice, and fixing her eyes on the soft landscape flowing pastunder the moon, tried to think of other times and places. She thought ofnights when she had walked with Kate Chanceller through the streets ofColumbus, and of the silent ride she had taken with Hugh that night theywere married. Her mind went back into her childhood and she remembered thelong days she had spent riding with her father in this same valley, goingfrom farm to farm to haggle and dicker for the purchase of calves and pigs. Her father had not talked then but sometimes, when they had driven far andwere homeward bound in the failing light of evening, words did come to him. She remembered one evening in the summer after her mother died and whenher father often took her with him on his drives. They had stopped for theevening meal at the house of a farmer and when they got on the road again, the moon came out. Something present in the spirit of the night stirredTom, and he spoke of his life as a boy in the new country and of hisfathers and brothers. "We worked hard, Clara, " he said. "The whole countrywas new and every acre we planted had to be cleared. " The mind of theprosperous farmer fell into a reminiscent mood and he spoke of littlethings concerning his life as a boy and young man; the days of cutting woodalone in the silent, white forest when winter came and it was time forgetting out firewood and logs for new farm buildings, the log rollings towhich neighboring farmers came, when great piles of logs were made and setafire that space might be cleared for planting. In the winter the boy wentto school in the village of Bidwell and as he was even then an energetic, pushing youth, already intent on getting on in the world, he set traps inthe forest and on the banks of streams and walked the trap line on his wayto and from school. In the spring he sent his pelts to the growing town ofCleveland where they were sold. He spoke of the money he got and of how hehad finally saved enough to buy a horse of his own. 

Tom had talked of many other things on that night, of the spelling-downs atthe schoolhouse in town, of huskings and dances held in the barns and ofthe evening when he went skating on the river and first met his wife. "Wetook to each other at once, " he said softly. "There was a fire built on thebank of the river and after I had skated with her we went and sat down towarm ourselves. 

"We wanted to get married to each other right away, " he told Clara. "Iwalked home with her after we got tired of skating, and after that Ithought of nothing but how to get my own farm and have a home of my own. "

As the daughter sat in the motor listening to the shrill voice of thefather, who now talked only of the making of machines and money, that otherman talking softly in the moonlight as the horse jogged slowly alongthe dark road seemed very far away. All such men seemed very far away. "Everything worth while is very far away, " she thought bitterly. "Themachines men are so intent on making have carried them very far from theold sweet things. "

The motor flew along the roads and Tom thought of his old longing to ownand drive fast racing horses. "I used to be half crazy to own fast horses, "he shouted to his son-in-law. "I didn't do it, because owning fast horsesmeant a waste of money, but it was in my mind all the time. I wanted to gofast: faster than any one else. " In a kind of ecstasy he gave the motormore gas and shot the speed up to fifty miles an hour. The hot, summer air, fanned into a violent wind, whistled past his head. "Where would the damnedrace horses be now, " he called, "where would your Maud S. Or your J. I. C. Be, trying to catch up with me in this car?"

Yellow wheat fields and fields of young corn, tall now and in the lightbreeze that was blowing whispering in the moonlight, flashed past, lookinglike squares on a checker board made for the amusement of the child of somegiant. The car ran through miles of the low farming country, through themain streets of towns, where the people ran out of the stores to standon the sidewalks and look at the new wonder, through sleeping bits ofwoodlands--remnants of the great forests in which Tom had worked as aboy--and across wooden bridges over small streams, beside which grewtangled masses of elderberries, now yellow and fragrant with blossoms. 

At eleven o'clock having already achieved some ninety miles Tom turned thecar back. Running more sedately he again talked of the mechanical triumphsof the age in which he had lived. "I've brought you whizzing along, you andClara, " he said proudly. "I tell you what, Hugh, Steve Hunter and I havebrought you along fast in more ways that one. You've got to give Stevecredit for seeing something in you, and you've got to give me credit forputting my money back of your brains. I don't want to take no credit fromSteve. There's credit enough for all. All I got to say for myself is that Isaw the hole in the doughnut. Yes, sir, I wasn't so blind. I saw the holein the doughnut. "

Tom stopped to light a cigar and then drove on again. "I'll tell you what, Hugh, " he said, "I wouldn't say so to any one not of my family, but thetruth is, I'm the man that's been putting over the big things there inBidwell. The town is going to be a city now and a mighty big city. Townsin this State like Columbus, Toledo and Dayton, had better look out forthemselves. I'm the man has always kept Steve Hunter steady and goingstraight ahead down the track, as this car goes with my hand at thesteering wheel. 

"You don't know anything about it, and I don't want you should talk, butthere are new things coming to Bidwell, " he added. "When I was in Chicagolast month I met a man who has been making rubber buggy and bicycletires. I'm going in with him and we're going to start a plant for makingautomobile-tires right in Bidwell. The tire business is bound to be oneof the greatest on earth and they ain't no reason why Bidwell shouldn'tbe the biggest tire center ever known in the world. " Although the carnow ran quietly, Tom's voice again became shrill. "There'll be hundredsof thousands of cars like this tearing over every road in America, " hedeclared. "Yes, sir, they will; and if I calculate right Bidwell'll be thegreat tire town of the world. "

For a long time Tom drove in silence, and when he again began to talk itwas a new mood. He told a tale of life in Bidwell that stirred both Hughand Clara deeply. He was angry and had Clara not been in the car would havebecome violently profane. 

"I'd like to hang the men who are making trouble in the shops in town, " hebroke forth. "You know who I mean, I mean the labor men who are trying tomake trouble for Steve Hunter and me. There's a socialist talking everynight on the street over there. I'll tell you, Hugh, the laws of thiscountry are wrong. " For ten minutes he talked of the labor difficulties inthe shops. 

"They better look out, " he declared, and was so angry that his voice roseto something like a suppressed scream. "We're inventing new machines prettyfast now-days, " he cried. "Pretty soon we'll do all the work by machines. Then what'll we do? We'll kick all the workers out and let 'em strike tillthey're sick, that's what we'll do. They can talk their fool socialism allthey want, but we'll show 'em, the fools. "

His angry mood passed, and as the car turned into the last fifteen-milestretch of road that led to Bidwell, he told the tale that so deeplystirred his passengers. Chuckling softly he told of the struggle of theBidwell harness maker, Joe Wainsworth, to prevent the sale of machine-madeharness in the community, and of his experience with his employee, JimGibson. Tom had heard the tale in the bar-room of the Bidwell House andit had made a profound impression on his mind. "I'll tell you what, " hedeclared, "I'm going to get in touch with Jim Gibson. That's the kind ofman to handle workers. I only heard about him to-night, but I'm going tosee him to-morrow. "

Leaning back in his seat Tom laughed heartily as he told of the travelingman who had visited Joe Wainsworth's shop and the placing of the order forthe factory-made harness. In some intangible way he felt that when JimGibson laid the order for the harness on the bench in the shop and by theforce of his personality compelled Joe Wainsworth to sign, he justifiedall such men as himself. In imagination he lived in that moment with Jim, and like Jim the incident aroused his inclination to boast. "Why, a lotof cheap laboring skates can't down such men as myself any more than JoeWainsworth could down that Jim Gibson, " he declared. "They ain't got thecharacter, you see, that's what the matter, they ain't got the character. "Tom touched some mechanism connected with the engine of the car and it shotsuddenly forward. "Suppose one of them labor leaders were standing in theroad there, " he cried. Instinctively Hugh leaned forward and peered intothe darkness through which the lights of the car cut like a great scythe, and on the back seat Clara half rose to her feet. Tom shouted with delightand as the car plunged along the road his voice rose in triumph. "The damnfools!" he cried. "They think they can stop the machines. Let 'em try. Theywant to go on in their old hand-made way. Let 'em look out. Let 'em lookout for such men as Jim Gibson and me. "

Down a slight incline in the road shot the car and swept around a widecurve, and then the jumping, dancing light, running far ahead, revealed asight that made Tom thrust out his foot and jam on the brakes. 

In the road and in the very center of the circle of light, as thoughperforming a scene on the stage, three men were struggling. As the carcame to a stop, so sudden that it pitched both Clara and Hugh out of theirseats, the struggle came to an end. One of the struggling figures, a smallman without coat or hat, had jerked himself away from the others andstarted to run toward the fence at the side of the road and separating itfrom a grove of trees. A large, broad-shouldered man sprang forward andcatching the tail of the fleeing man's coat pulled him back into the circleof light. His fist shot out and caught the small man directly on the mouth. He fell like a dead thing, face downward in the dust of the road. 

Tom ran the car slowly forward and its headlight continued to play over thethree figures. From a little pocket at the side of his driver's seat hetook a revolver. He ran the car quickly to a position near the group in theroad and stopped. 

"What's up?" he asked sharply. 

Ed Hall the factory superintendent, the man who had struck the blow thathad felled the little man, stepped forward and explained the tragichappenings of the evening in town. The factory superintendent hadremembered that as a boy he had once worked for a few weeks on the farm ofwhich the wood beside the road was a part, and that on Sunday afternoonsthe harness maker had come to the farm with his wife and the two people hadgone to walk in the very place where he had just been found. "I had a hunchhe would be out here, " he boasted. "I figured it out. Crowds started out oftown in all directions, but I cut out alone. Then I happened to see thisfellow and just for company I brought him along. " He put up his hand and, looking at Tom, tapped his forehead. "Cracked, " he declared, "he alwayswas. A fellow I knew saw him once in that woods, " he said pointing. "Somebody had shot a squirrel and he took on about it as though he had losta child. I said then he was crazy, and he has sure proved I was right. "

At a word from her father Clara went to sit on the front seat on Hugh'sknees. Her body trembled and she was cold with fear. As her father hadtold the story of Jim Gibson's triumph over Joe Wainsworth she had wantedpassionately to kill that blustering fellow. Now the thing was done. Inher mind the harness maker had come to stand for all the men and women inthe world who were in secret revolt against the absorption of the age inmachines and the products of machines. He had stood as a protesting figureagainst what her father had become and what she thought her husband hadbecome. She had wanted Jim Gibson killed and it had been done. As a childshe had gone often to Wainsworth's shop with her father or some farm hand, and she now remembered sharply the peace and quiet of the place. At thethought of the same place, now become the scene of a desperate killing, herbody shook so that she clutched at Hugh's arms, striving to steady herself. 

Ed Hall took the senseless figure of the old man in the road into his armsand half threw it into the back seat of the car. To Clara it was as thoughhis rough, misunderstanding hands were on her own body. The car startedswiftly along the road and Ed told again the story of the night'shappenings. "I tell you, Mr. Hunter is in mighty bad shape, he may die, "he said. Clara turned to look at her husband and thought him totallyunaffected by what had happened. His face was quiet like her father's face. The factory superintendent's voice went on explaining his part in theadventures of the evening. Ignoring the pale workman who sat lost in theshadows in a corner of the rear seat, he spoke as though he had undertakenand accomplished the capture of the murderer single-handed. As heafterwards explained to his wife, Ed felt he had been a fool not to comealone. "I knew I could handle him all right, " he explained. "I wasn'tafraid, but I had figured it all out he was crazy. That made me feel shaky. When they were getting up a crowd to go out on the hunt, I says to myself, I'll go alone. I says to myself, I'll bet he's gone out to that woods onthe Riggly farm where he and his wife used to go on Sundays. I started andthen I saw this other man standing on a corner and I made him come with me. He didn't want to come and I wish I'd gone alone. I could have handled himand I'd got all the credit. "

In the car Ed told the story of the night in the streets of Bidwell. Someone had seen Steve Hunter shot down in the street and had declared theharness maker had done it and had then run away. A crowd had gone to theharness shop and had found the body of Jim Gibson. On the floor of the shopwere the factory-made harnesses cut into bits. "He must have been in thereand at work for an hour or two, stayed right in there with the man he hadkilled. It's the craziest thing any man ever done. "

The harness maker, lying on the floor of the car where Ed had thrown him, stirred and sat up. Clara turned to look at him and shivered. His shirt wastorn so that the thin, old neck and shoulders could be plainly seen in theuncertain light, and his face was covered with blood that had dried and wasnow black with dust. Ed Hall went on with the tale of his triumph. "I foundhim where I said to myself I would. Yes, sir, I found him where I said tomyself I would. "

The car came to the first of the houses of the town, long rows of cheaplybuilt frame houses standing in what had once been Ezra French's cabbagepatch, where Hugh had crawled on the ground in the moonlight, workingout the mechanical problems that confronted him in the building of hisplant-setting machine. Suddenly the distraught and frightened man crouchedon the floor of the car, raised himself on his hands and lurched forward, trying to spring over the side. Ed Hall caught him by the arm and jerkedhim back. He drew back his arm to strike again but Clara's voice, cold andintense with passion, stopped him. "If you touch him, I'll kill you, " shesaid. "No matter what he does, don't you dare strike him again. "

Tom drove the car slowly through the streets of Bidwell to the door ofa police station. Word of the return of the murderer had run ahead, anda crowd had gathered. Although it was past two o'clock the lights stillburned in stores and saloons, and crowds stood at every corner. With theaid of a policeman, Ed Hall, with one eye fixed cautiously on the frontseat where Clara sat, started to lead Joe Wainsworth away. "Come on now, wewon't hurt you, " he said reassuringly, and had got his man free of the carwhen he broke away. Springing back into the rear seat the crazed man turnedto look at the crowd. A sob broke from his lips. For a moment he stoodtrembling with fright, and then turning, he for the first time saw Hugh, the man in whose footsteps he had once crept in the darkness in Turner'sPike, the man who had invented the machine by which the earnings of alifetime had been swept away. "It wasn't me. You did it. You killed JimGibson, " he screamed, and springing forward sank his fingers and teeth intoHugh's neck. 

CHAPTER XXIII

One day in the month of October, four years after the time of his firstmotor ride with Clara and Tom, Hugh went on a business trip to the cityof Pittsburgh. He left Bidwell in the morning and got to the steel cityat noon. At three o'clock his business was finished and he was ready toreturn. 

Although he had not yet realized it, Hugh's career as a successful inventorhad received a sharp check. The trick of driving directly at the point, ofbecoming utterly absorbed in the thing before him, had been lost. He wentto Pittsburgh to see about the casting of new parts for the hay-loadingmachine, but what he did in Pittsburgh was of no importance to the men whowould manufacture and sell that worthy, labor-saving tool. Although he didnot know it, a young man from Cleveland, in the employ of Tom and Steve, had already done what Hugh was striving half-heartedly to do. The machinehad been finished and ready to market in October three years before, andafter repeated tests a lawyer had made formal application for patent. Thenit was discovered that an Iowa man had already made application for andbeen granted a patent on a similar apparatus. 

When Tom came to the shop and told him what had happened Hugh had beenready to drop the whole matter, but that was not Tom's notion. "The devil!"he said. "Do you think we're going to waste all this money and labor?"

Drawings of the Iowa man's machine were secured, and Tom set Hugh at thetask of doing what he called "getting round" the other fellow's patents. "Do the best you can and we'll go ahead, " he said. "You see we've got themoney and that means power. Make what changes you can and then we'll go onwith our manufacturing plans. We'll whipsaw this other fellow through thecourts. We'll fight him till he's sick of fight and then we'll buy himout cheap. I've had the fellow looked up and he hasn't any money and is aboozer besides. You go ahead. We'll get that fellow all right. "

Hugh had tried valiantly to go along the road marked out for him by hisfather-in-law and had put aside other plans to rebuild the machine he hadthought of as completed and out of the way. He made new parts, changedother parts, studied the drawings of the Iowa man's machine, did what hecould to accomplish his task. 

Nothing happened. A conscientious determination not to infringe on the workof the Iowa man stood in his way. 

Then something did happen. At night as he sat alone in his shop after along study of the drawings of the other man's machine, he put them asideand sat staring into the darkness beyond the circle of light cast by hislamp. He forgot the machine and thought of the unknown inventor, the manfar away over forests, lakes and rivers, who for months had worked on thesame problem that had occupied his mind. Tom had said the man had no moneyand was a boozer. He could be defeated, bought cheap. He was himself atwork on the instrument of the man's defeat. 

Hugh left his shop and went for a walk, and the problem connected with thetwisting of the iron and steel parts of the hay-loading apparatus into newforms was again left unsolved. The Iowa man had become a distinct, almostunderstandable personality to Hugh. Tom had said he drank, got drunk. Hisown father had been a drunkard. Once a man, the very man who had been theinstrument of his own coming to Bidwell, had taken it for granted he was adrunkard. He wondered if some twist of life might not have made him one. 

Thinking of the Iowa man, Hugh began to think of other men. He thought ofhis father and of himself. When he was striving to come out of the filth, the flies, the poverty, the fishy smells, the shadowy dreams of his lifeby the river, his father had often tried to draw him back into that life. In imagination he saw before him the dissolute man who had bred him. Onafternoons of summer days in the river town, when Henry Shepard was notabout, his father sometimes came to the station where he was employed. Hehad begun to earn a little money and his father wanted it to buy drinks. Why?

There was a problem for Hugh's mind, a problem that could not be solved inwood and steel. He walked and thought about it when he should have beenmaking new parts for the hay-loading apparatus. He had lived but little inthe life of the imagination, had been afraid to live that life, had beenwarned and re-warned against living it. The shadowy figure of the unknowninventor in the state of Iowa, who had been brother to himself, who hadworked on the same problems and had come to the same conclusions, slippedaway, followed by the almost equally shadowy figure of his father. Hughtried to think of himself and his own life. 

For a time that seemed a simple and easy way out of the new and intricatetask he had set for his mind. His own life was a matter of history. Heknew about himself. Having walked far out of town, he turned and went backtoward his shop. His way led through the new city that had grown up sincehis coming to Bidwell. Turner's Pike that had been a country road alongwhich on summer evenings lovers strolled to the Wheeling station andPickleville was now a street. All that section of the new city was givenover to workers' homes and here and there a store had been built. The WidowMcCoy's place was gone and in its place was a warehouse, black and silentunder the night sky. How grim the street in the late night! The berrypickers who once went along the road at evening were now gone forever. LikeEzra French's sons they had perhaps become factory hands. Apple and cherrytrees once grew along the road. They had dropped their blossoms on theheads of strolling lovers. They also were gone. Hugh had once crept alongthe road at the heels of Ed Hall, who walked with his arm about a girl'swaist. He had heard Ed complaining of his lot in life and crying out fornew times. It was Ed Hall who had introduced the piecework plan in thefactories of Bidwell and brought about the strike, during which three menhad been killed and ill-feeling engendered in hundreds of silent workers. That strike had been won by Tom and Steve and they had since that time beenvictorious in a larger and more serious strike. Ed Hall was now at the headof a new factory being built along the Wheeling tracks. He was growing fatand was prosperous. 

When Hugh got to his shop he lighted his lamp and again got out thedrawings he had come from home to study. They lay unnoticed on the desk. He looked at his watch. It was two o'clock. "Clara may be awake. I must gohome, " he thought vaguely. He now owned his own motor car and it stood inthe road before the shop. Getting in he drove away into the darkness overthe bridge, out of Turner's Pike and along a street lined with factoriesand railroad sidings. Some of the factories were working and were ablazewith lights. Through lighted windows he could see men stationed alongbenches and bending over huge, iron machines. He had come from home thatevening to study the work of an unknown man from the far away state ofIowa, to try to circumvent that man. Then he had gone to walk and to thinkof himself and his own life. "The evening has been wasted. I have donenothing, " he thought gloomily as his car climbed up a long street linedwith the homes of the wealthier citizens of his town and turned into theshort stretch of Medina Road still left between the town and theButterworth farmhouse. 

 * * * * *

On the day when he went to Pittsburgh, Hugh got to the station where he wasto take the homeward train at three, and the train did not leave untilfour. He went into a big waiting-room and sat on a bench in a corner. Aftera time he arose and going to a stand bought a newspaper, but did not readit. It lay unopened on the bench beside him. The station was filled withmen, women, and children who moved restlessly about. A train came in and aswarm of people departed, were carried into faraway parts of the country, while new people came into the station from a nearby street. He looked atthose who were going out into the train shed. "It may be that some of themare going to that town in Iowa where that fellow lives, " he thought. It wasodd how thoughts of the unknown Iowa man clung to him. 

One day, during the same summer and but a few months earlier, Hugh had goneto the town of Sandusky, Ohio, on the same mission that had brought him toPittsburgh. How many parts for the hay-loading machine had been cast andlater thrown away! They did the work, but he decided each time that he hadinfringed on the other man's machine. When that happened he did not consultTom. Something within him warned him against doing that. He destroyed thepart. "It wasn't what I wanted, " he told Tom who had grown discouraged withhis son-in-law but did not openly voice his dissatisfaction. "Oh, well, he's lost his pep, marriage has taken the life out of him. We'll have toget some one else on the job, " he said to Steve, who had entirely recoveredfrom the wound received at the hands of Joe Wainsworth. 

On that day when he went to Sandusky, Hugh had several hours to wait forhis homebound train and went to walk by the shores of a bay. Some brightlycolored stones attracted his attention and he picked several of them up andput them in his pockets. In the station at Pittsburgh he took them out andheld them in his hand. A light came in at a window, a long, slanting lightthat played over the stones. His roving, disturbed mind was caught andheld. He rolled the stones back and forth. The colors blended and thenseparated again. When he raised his eyes, a woman and a child on a nearbybench, also attracted by the flashing bit of color held like a flame in hishand, were looking at him intently. 

He was confused and walked out of the station into the street. "What asilly fellow I have become, playing with colored stones like a child, " hethought, but at the same time put the stones carefully into his pockets. 

Ever since that night when he had been attacked in the motor, the sense ofsome indefinable, inner struggle had been going on in Hugh, as it went onthat day in the station at Pittsburgh and on the night in the shop, when hefound himself unable to fix his attention on the prints of the Iowa man'smachine. Unconsciously and quite without intent he had come into a newlevel of thought and action. He had been an unconscious worker, a doerand was now becoming something else. The time of the comparatively simplestruggle with definite things, with iron and steel, had passed. He foughtto accept himself, to understand himself, to relate himself with the lifeabout him. The poor white, son of the defeated dreamer by the river, whohad forced himself in advance of his fellows along the road of mechanicaldevelopment, was still in advance of his fellows of the growing Ohio towns. The struggle he was making was the struggle his fellows of anothergeneration would one and all have to make. 

Hugh got into his home-bound train at four o'clock and went into thesmoking car. The somewhat distorted and twisted fragment of thoughts thathad all day been playing through his mind stayed with him. "What differencedoes it make if the new parts I have ordered for the machine have to bethrown away?" he thought. "If I never complete the machine, it's all right. The one the Iowa man had made does the work. "

For a long time he struggled with that thought. Tom, Steve, all the Bidwellmen with whom he had been associated, had a philosophy into which thethought did not fit. "When you put your hand to the plow do not turn back, "they said. Their language was full of such sayings. To attempt to do athing and fail was the great crime, the sin against the Holy Ghost. Therewas unconscious defiance of a whole civilization in Hugh's attitude towardthe completion of the parts that would help Tom and his business associates"get around" the Iowa man's patent. 

The train from Pittsburgh went through northern Ohio to a junction whereHugh would get another train for Bidwell. Great booming towns, Youngstown, Akron, Canton, Massillon--manufacturing towns all--lay along the way. Inthe smoker Hugh sat, again playing with the colored stones held in hishand. There was relief for his mind in the stones. The light continuallyplayed about them, and their color shifted and changed. One could look atthe stones and get relief from thoughts. Raising his eyes he looked out ofthe car window. The train was passing through Youngstown. His eyes lookedalong grimy streets of worker's houses clustered closely about huge mills. The same light that had played over the stones in his hand began to playover his mind, and for a moment he became not an inventor but a poet. Therevolution within had really begun. A new declaration of independence wroteitself within him. "The gods have thrown the towns like stones over theflat country, but the stones have no color. They do not burn and change inthe light, " he thought. 

Two men who sat in a seat in the westward bound train began to talk, andHugh listened. One of them had a son in college. "I want him to be amechanical engineer, " he said. "If he doesn't do that I'll get him startedin business. It's a mechanical age and a business age. I want to see himsucceed. I want him to keep in the spirit of the times. "

Hugh's train was due in Bidwell at ten, but did not arrive until half aftereleven. He walked from the station through the town toward the Butterworthfarm. 

At the end of their first year of marriage a daughter had been born toClara, and some time before his trip to Pittsburgh she had told him she wasagain pregnant. "She may be sitting up. I must get home, " he thought, butwhen he got to the bridge near the farmhouse, the bridge on which he hadstood beside Clara that first time they were together, he got out of theroad and went to sit on a fallen log at the edge of a grove of trees. 

"How quiet and peaceful the night!" he thought and leaning forward held hislong, troubled face in his hands. He wondered why peace and quiet wouldnot come to him, why life would not let him alone. "After all, I've liveda simple life and have done good work, " he thought. "Some of the thingsthey've said about me are true enough. I've invented machines that saveuseless labor, I've lightened men's labor. "

Hugh tried to cling to that thought, but it would not stay in his mind. Allthe thoughts that gave his mind peace and quiet flew away like birds seenon a distant horizon at evening. It had been so ever since that night whenhe was suddenly and unexpectedly attacked by the crazed harness maker inthe motor. Before that his mind had often been unsettled, but he knew whathe wanted. He wanted men and women and close association with men andwomen. Often his problem was yet more simple. He wanted a woman, one whowould love him and lie close to him at night. He wanted the respect of hisfellows in the town where he had come to live his life. He wanted tosucceed at the particular task to which he had set his hand. 

The attack made upon him by the insane harness maker had at first seemed tosettle all his problems. At the moment when the frightened and desperateman sank his teeth and fingers into Hugh's neck, something had happened toClara. It was Clara who, with a strength and quickness quite amazing, hadtorn the insane man away. All through that evening she had been hating herhusband and father, and then suddenly she loved Hugh. The seeds of a childwere already alive in her, and when the body of her man was furiouslyattacked, he became also her child. Swiftly, like the passing of a shadowover the surface of a river on a windy day, the change in her attitudetoward her husband took place. All that evening she had been hating the newage she had thought so perfectly personified in the two men, who talkedof the making of machines while the beauty of the night was whirled awayinto the darkness with the cloud of dust thrown into the air by the flyingmotor. She had been hating Hugh and sympathizing with the dead past he andother men like him were destroying, the past that was represented by thefigure of the old harness maker who wanted to do his work by hand in theold way, by the man who had aroused the scorn and derision of her father. 

And then the past rose up to strike. It struck with claws and teeth, andthe claws and teeth sank into Hugh's flesh, into the flesh of the man whoseseed was already alive within her. 

At that moment the woman who had been a thinker stopped thinking. Withinher arose the mother, fierce, indomitable, strong with the strength of theroots of a tree. To her then and forever after Hugh was no hero, remakingthe world, but a perplexed boy hurt by life. He never again escaped out ofboyhood in her consciousness of him. With the strength of a tigress shetore the crazed harness maker away from Hugh, and with something of thesurface brutality of another Ed Hall, threw him to the floor of the car. When Ed and the policeman, assisted by several bystanders, came runningforward, she waited almost indifferently while they forced the screamingand kicking man through the crowd and in at the door of the police station. 

For Clara the thing for which she had hungered had, she thought, happened. In quick, sharp tones she ordered her father to drive the car to a doctor'shouse and later stood by while the torn and lacerated flesh of Hugh'scheek and neck was bandaged. The thing for which Joe Wainsworth stood andthat she had thought was so precious to herself no longer existed in herconsciousness, and if later she was for some weeks nervous and half ill, itwas not because of any thought given to the fate of the old harness maker. 

The sudden attack out of the town's past had brought Hugh to Clara, hadmade him a living if not quite satisfying companion to her, but it hadbrought something quite different to Hugh. The bite of the man's teeth andthe torn places on his cheeks left by the tense fingers had mended, leavingbut a slight scar; but a virus had got into his veins. The disease ofthinking had upset the harness maker's mind and the germ of that diseasehad got into Hugh's blood. It had worked up into his eyes and ears. Wordsmen dropped thoughtlessly and that in the past had been blown past hisears, as chaff is blown from wheat in the harvest, now stayed to echo andre-echo in his mind. In the past he had seen towns and factories grow andhad accepted without question men's word that growth was invariably good. Now his eyes looked at the towns, at Bidwell, Akron, Youngstown, and allthe great, new towns scattered up and down mid-western America as on thetrain and in the station at Pittsburgh he had looked at the colored stonesheld in his hand. He looked at the towns and wanted light and color to playover them as they played over the stones, and when that did not happen, his mind, filled with strange new hungers engendered by the disease ofthinking, made up words over which lights played. "The gods have scatteredtowns over the flat lands, " his mind had said, as he sat in the smokingcar of the train, and the phrase came back to him later, as he sat in thedarkness on the log with his head held in his hands. It was a good phraseand lights could play over it as they played over the colored stones, butit would in no way answer the problem of how to "get around" the Iowa's manpatent on the hay loading device. 

Hugh did not get to the Butterworth farmhouse until two o'clock in themorning, but when he got there his wife was awake and waiting for him. Sheheard his heavy, dragging footsteps in the road as he turned in at the farmgate, and getting quickly out of bed, threw a cloak over her shoulders andcame out to the porch facing the barns. A late moon had come up and thebarnyard was washed with moonlight. From the barns came the low, sweetsound of contented animals nibbling at the hay in the mangers before them, from a row of sheds back of one of the barns came the soft bleating ofsheep and in a far away field a calf bellowed loudly and was answered byits mother. 

When Hugh stepped into the moonlight around the corner of the house, Clararan down the steps to meet him, and taking his arm, led him past the barnsand over the bridge where as a child she had seen the figures of her fancyadvancing towards her. Sensing his troubled state her mother spirit wasaroused. He was unfilled by the life he led. She understood that. It was sowith her. By a lane they went to a fence where nothing but open fields laybetween the farm and the town far below. Although she sensed his troubledstate, Clara was not thinking of Hugh's trip to Pittsburgh nor of theproblems connected with the completion of the hay-loading machine. It maybe that like her father she had dismissed from her mind all thoughts of himas one who would continue to help solve the mechanical problems of his age. Thoughts of his continued success had never meant much to her, but duringthe evening something had happened to Clara and she wanted to tell himabout it, to take him into the joy of it. Their first child had been a girland she was sure the next would be a man child. "I felt him to-night, " shesaid, when they had got to the place by the fence and saw below the lightsof the town. "I felt him to-night, " she said again, "and oh, he was strong!He kicked like anything. I am sure this time it's a boy. "

For perhaps ten minutes Clara and Hugh stood by the fence. The disease ofthinking that was making Hugh useless for the work of his age had sweptaway many old things within him and he was not self-conscious in thepresence of his woman. When she told him of the struggle of the man ofanother generation, striving to be born he put his arm about her and heldher close against his long body. For a time they stood in silence, and thenstarted to return to the house and sleep. As they went past the barns andthe bunkhouse where several men now slept they heard, as though coming outof the past, the loud snoring of the rapidly ageing farm hand, Jim Priest, and then above that sound and above the sound of the animals stirring inthe barns arose another sound, a sound shrill and intense, greetingsperhaps to an unborn Hugh McVey. For some reason, perhaps to announce ashift in crews, the factories of Bidwell that were engaged in night workset up a great whistling and screaming. The sound ran up the hillside andrang in the ears of Hugh as, with his arm about Clara's shoulders, he wentup the steps and in at the farmhouse door.