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As
a merchant Ebenezer was not happily placed in life and he had not been
happily placed as a farmer. Still
he existed. His family,
consisting of a daughter named Mabel and the son, lived with him in rooms
above the store and it did not cost them much to live.
His troubles were not financial.
His unhappiness as a merchant lay in the fact that when a traveling
man with wares to be sold came in at the front door he was afraid. Behind the counter he stood shaking his head.
He was afraid, first that he would stubbornly refuse to buy and thus
lose the opportunity to sell again; second that he would not be stubborn
enough and would in a moment of weakness buy what could not be sold.
In
the store on the morning when Elmer Cowley saw George Willard standing and
apparently listening at the back door of the Eagle printshop, a situation
had arisen that always stirred the son's wrath.
The traveling man talked and Ebenezer listened, his whole figure
expressing uncertainty. "You
see how quickly it is done," said the traveling man, who had for sale a
small flat metal substitute for collar buttons.
With one hand he quickly unfastened a collar from his shirt and then
fastened it on again. He assumed a flattering wheedling tone.
"I tell you what, men have come to the end of all this fooling
with collar buttons and you are the man to make money out of the change that
is coming. I am offering you
the exclusive agency for this town. Take twenty dozen of these fasteners and I'll not visit any
other store. I'll leave the
field to you."
The
traveling man leaned over the counter and tapped with his finger on
Ebenezer's breast. "It's
an opportunity and I want you to take it," he urged. "A friend of
mine told me about you. 'See
that man Cowley,' he said. 'He's
a live one.'"
The
traveling man paused and waited. Taking
a book from his pocket he began writing out the order.
Still holding the shoe in his hand Elmer Cowley went through the
store, past the two absorbed men, to a glass showcase near the front door.
He took a cheap revolver from the case and began to wave it about. "You get out of here!" he shrieked. "We don't
want any collar fasteners here." An idea came to him. "Mind, I'm not making any threat," he added.
"I don't say I'll shoot. Maybe
I just took this gun out of the case to look at it.
But you better get out. Yes
sir, I'll say that. You better
grab up your things and get out."
The
young storekeeper's voice rose to a scream and going behind the counter he
began to advance upon the two men. "We're
through being fools here!" he cried.
"We ain't going to buy any more stuff until we begin to sell.
We ain't going to keep on being queer and have folks staring and
listening. You get out of here!"
The
traveling man left. Raking the
samples of collar fasteners off the counter into a black leather bag, he
ran. He was a small man and
very bow-legged and he ran awkwardly. The
black bag caught against the door and he stumbled and fell.
"Crazy, that's what he is--crazy!" he sputtered as he arose
from the sidewalk and hurried away.
In
the store Elmer Cowley and his father stared at each other.
Now that the immediate object of his wrath had fled, the younger man
was embarrassed. "Well, I meant it.
I think we've been queer long enough," he declared, going to the
showcase and replacing the revolver. Sitting
on a barrel he pulled on and fastened the shoe he had been holding in his
hand. He was waiting for some word of understanding from his father
but when Ebenezer spoke his words only served to reawaken the wrath in the
son and the young man ran out of the store without replying. Scratching his grey beard with his long dirty fingers, the
merchant looked at his son with the same wavering uncertain stare with which
he had confronted the traveling man. "I'll
be starched," he said softly. "Well, well, I'll be washed and ironed and
starched!"
Elmer
Cowley went out of Winesburg and along a country road that paralleled the
railroad track. He did not know
where he was going or what he was going to do.
In the shelter of a deep cut where the road, after turning sharply to
the right, dipped under the tracks he stopped and the passion that had been
the cause of his outburst in the store began to again find expression.
"I will not be queer--one to be looked at and listened to,"
he declared aloud. "I'll be like other people.
I'll show that George Willard. He'll
find out. I'll show him!"
The
distraught young man stood in the middle of the road and glared back at the
town. He did not know the
reporter George Willard and had no special feeling concerning the tall boy
who ran about town gathering the town news.
The reporter had merely come, by his presence in the office and in
the printshop of the Winesburg Eagle, to stand for something in the young
merchant's mind. He thought the
boy who passed and repassed Cowley & Son's store and who stopped to talk
to people in the street must be thinking of him and perhaps laughing at him. George Willard, he felt, belonged to the town, typified the
town, represented in his person the spirit of the town. Elmer Cowley could not have believed that George Willard had
also his days of unhappiness, that vague hungers and secret unnamable
desires visited also his mind. Did
he not represent public opinion and had not the public opinion of Winesburg
condemned the Cowleys to queerness? Did he not walk whistling and laughing
through Main Street? Might not one by striking his person strike also the
greater enemy--the thing that smiled and went its own way--the judgment of
Winesburg?
Elmer
Cowley was extraordinarily tall and his arms were long and powerful.
His hair, his eyebrows, and the downy beard that had begun to grow
upon his chin, were pale almost to whiteness. His teeth protruded from
between his lips and his eyes were blue with the colorless blueness of the
marbles called "aggies" that the boys of Winesburg carried in
their pockets. Elmer had lived
in Winesburg for a year and had made no friends.
He was, he felt, one condemned to go through life without friends and
he hated the thought.
Sullenly
the tall young man tramped along the road with his hands stuffed into his
trouser pockets. The day was cold with a raw wind, but presently the sun
began to shine and the road became soft and muddy.
The tops of the ridges of frozen mud that formed the road began to
melt and the mud clung to Elmer's shoes.
His feet became cold. When
he had gone several miles he turned off the road, crossed a field and
entered a wood. In the wood he
gathered sticks to build a fire, by which he sat trying to warm himself,
miserable in body and in mind.
For
two hours he sat on the log by the fire and then, arising and creeping
cautiously through a mass of underbrush, he went to a fence and looked
across fields to a small farmhouse surrounded by low sheds.
A smile came to his lips and he began making motions with his long
arms to a man who was husking corn in one of the fields.
In
his hour of misery the young merchant had returned to the farm where he had
lived through boyhood and where there was another human being to whom he
felt he could explain himself. The
man on the farm was a half-witted old fellow named Mook.
He had once been employed by Ebenezer Cowley and had stayed on the
farm when it was sold. The old
man lived in one of the unpainted sheds back of the farmhouse and puttered
about all day in the fields.
Mook
the half-wit lived happily. With
childlike faith he believed in the intelligence of the animals that lived in
the sheds with him, and when he was lonely held long conversations with the
cows, the pigs, and even with the chickens that ran about the barnyard.
He it was who had put the expression regarding being
"laundered" into the mouth of his former employer.
When excited or surprised by anything he smiled vaguely and muttered:
"I'll be washed and ironed. Well,
well, I'll be washed and ironed and starched."
When
the half-witted old man left his husking of corn and came into the wood to
meet Elmer Cowley, he was neither surprised nor especially interested in the
sudden appearance of the young man. His
feet also were cold and he sat on the log by the fire, grateful for the
warmth and apparently indifferent to what Elmer had to say.
Elmer
talked earnestly and with great freedom, walking up and down and waving his
arms about. "You don't understand what's the matter with me so of
course you don't care," he declared.
"With me it's different. Look
how it has always been with me. Father is queer and mother was queer, too.
Even the clothes mother used to wear were not like other people's
clothes, and look at that coat in which father goes about there in town,
thinking he's dressed up, too. Why
don't he get a new one? It wouldn't cost much.
I'll tell you why. Father
doesn't know and when mother was alive she didn't know either. Mabel is
different. She knows but she won't say anything. I will, though. I'm
not going to be stared at any longer. Why
look here, Mook, father doesn't know that his store there in town is just a
queer jumble, that he'll never sell the stuff he buys.
He knows nothing about it. Sometimes
he's a little worried that trade doesn't come and then he goes and buys
something else. In the evenings
he sits by the fire upstairs and says trade will come after a while. He
isn't worried. He's queer.
He doesn't know enough to be worried."
The
excited young man became more excited.
"He don't know but I know," he shouted, stopping to gaze
down into the dumb, unresponsive face of the half-wit. "I know too well. I
can't stand it. When we lived
out here it was different. I
worked and at night I went to bed and slept.
I wasn't always seeing people and thinking as I am now.
In the evening, there in town, I go to the post office or to the
depot to see the train come in, and no one says anything to me.
Everyone stands around and laughs and they talk but they say nothing
to me. Then I feel so queer
that I can't talk either. I go
away. I don't say anything.
I can't."
The
fury of the young man became uncontrollable. "I won't stand it,"
he yelled, looking up at the bare branches of the trees. "I'm not made to stand it."
Maddened
by the dull face of the man on the log by the fire, Elmer turned and glared
at him as he had glared back along the road at the town of Winesburg.
"Go on back to work," he screamed. "What good does it
do me to talk to you?" A thought came to him and his voice dropped.
"I'm a coward too, eh?" he muttered.
"Do you know why I came clear out here afoot? I had to tell
someone and you were the only one I could tell.
I hunted out another queer one, you see.
I ran away, that's what I did. I
couldn't stand up to someone like that George Willard.
I had to come to you. I
ought to tell him and I will."
Again
his voice arose to a shout and his arms flew about. "I will tell him. I
won't be queer. I don't care
what they think. I won't stand
it."
Elmer
Cowley ran out of the woods leaving the half-wit sitting on the log before
the fire. Presently the old man
arose and climbing over the fence went back to his work in the corn.
"I'll be washed and ironed and starched," he declared.
"Well, well, I'll be washed and ironed." Mook was
interested. He went along a
lane to a field where two cows stood nibbling at a straw stack.
"Elmer was here," he said to the cows.
"Elmer is crazy. You
better get behind the stack where he don't see you.
He'll hurt someone yet, Elmer will."
At
eight o'clock that evening Elmer Cowley put his head in at the front door of
the office of the Winesburg Eagle where George Willard sat writing. His cap
was pulled down over his eyes and a sullen determined look was on his face.
"You come on outside with me," he said, stepping in and
closing the door. He kept his
hand on the knob as though prepared to resist anyone else coming in.
"You just come along outside.
I want to see you."
George
Willard and Elmer Cowley walked through the main street of Winesburg.
The night was cold and George Willard had on a new overcoat and
looked very spruce and dressed up. He thrust his hands into the overcoat pockets and looked
inquiringly at his companion. He
had long been wanting to make friends with the young merchant and find out
what was in his mind. Now he
thought he saw a chance and was delighted.
"I wonder what he's up to? Perhaps he thinks he has a piece of
news for the paper. It can't be
a fire because I haven't heard the fire bell and there isn't anyone
running," he thought.
In
the main street of Winesburg, on the cold November evening, but few citizens
appeared and these hurried along bent on getting to the stove at the back of
some store. The windows of the
stores were frosted and the wind rattled the tin sign that hung over the
entrance to the stairway leading to Doctor Welling's office. Before Hern's Grocery a basket of apples and a rack filled
with new brooms stood on the sidewalk.
Elmer Cowley stopped and stood facing George Willard.
He tried to talk and his arms began to pump up and down.
His face worked spasmodically. He
seemed about to shout. "Oh,
you go on back," he cried. "Don't
stay out here with me. I ain't got anything to tell you.
I don't want to see you at all."
For
three hours the distracted young merchant wandered through the resident
streets of Winesburg blind with anger, brought on by his failure to declare
his determination not to be queer. Bitterly
the sense of defeat settled upon him and he wanted to weep. After the hours
of futile sputtering at nothingness that had occupied the afternoon and his
failure in the presence of the young reporter, he thought he could see no
hope of a future for himself.
And
then a new idea dawned for him. In
the darkness that surrounded him he began to see a light. Going to the now
darkened store, where Cowley & Son had for over a year waited vainly for
trade to come, he crept stealthily in and felt about in a barrel that stood
by the stove at the rear. In
the barrel beneath shavings lay a tin box containing Cowley & Son's
cash. Every evening Ebenezer
Cowley put the box in the barrel when he closed the store and went upstairs
to bed. "They wouldn't
never think of a careless place like that," he told himself, thinking
of robbers.
Elmer
took twenty dollars, two ten-dollar bills, from the little roll containing
perhaps four hundred dollars, the cash left from the sale of the farm.
Then replacing the box beneath the shavings he went quietly out at
the front door and walked again in the streets.
The
idea that he thought might put an end to all of his unhappiness was very
simple. "I will get out of
here, run away from home," he told himself.
He knew that a local freight train passed through Winesburg at
midnight and went on to Cleveland, where it arrived at dawn. He would steal a ride on the local and when he got to
Cleveland would lose himself in the crowds there.
He would get work in some shop and become friends with the other
workmen and would be indistinguishable.
Then he could talk and laugh. He
would no longer be queer and would make friends.
Life would begin to have warmth and meaning for him as it had for
others.
The
tall awkward young man, striding through the streets, laughed at himself
because he had been angry and had been half afraid of George Willard. He
decided he would have his talk with the young reporter before he left town,
that he would tell him about things, perhaps challenge him, challenge all of
Winesburg through him.
Aglow
with new confidence Elmer went to the office of the New Willard House and
pounded on the door. A
sleep-eyed boy slept on a cot in the office.
He received no salary but was fed at the hotel table and bore with
pride the title of "night clerk." Before the boy Elmer was bold,
insistent. "You 'wake him
up," he commanded. "You
tell him to come down by the depot. I
got to see him and I'm going away on the local.
Tell him to dress and come on down.
I ain't got much time."
The
midnight local had finished its work in Winesburg and the trainsmen were
coupling cars, swinging lanterns and preparing to resume their flight east.
George Willard, rubbing his eyes and again wearing the new overcoat,
ran down to the station platform afire with curiosity.
"Well, here I am. What
do you want? You've got something to tell me, eh?" he said.
Elmer
tried to explain. He wet his
lips with his tongue and looked at the train that had begun to groan and get
under way. "Well, you
see," he began, and then lost control of his tongue.
"I'll be washed and ironed.
I'll be washed and ironed and starched," he muttered half
incoherently.
Elmer
Cowley danced with fury beside the groaning train in the darkness on the
station platform. Lights leaped into the air and bobbed up and down before
his eyes. Taking the two
ten-dollar bills from his pocket he thrust them into George Willard's hand.
"Take them," he cried.
"I don't want them. Give them to father.
I stole them." With a snarl of rage he turned and his long arms
began to flay the air. Like one
struggling for release from hands that held him he struck out, hitting
George Willard blow after blow on the breast, the neck, the mouth.
The young reporter rolled over on the platform half unconscious,
stunned by the terrific force of the blows. Springing aboard the passing
train and running over the tops of cars, Elmer sprang down to a flat car and
lying on his face looked back, trying to see the fallen man in the darkness. Pride surged up in him.
"I showed him," he cried.
"I guess I showed him. I
ain't so queer. I guess I
showed him I ain't so queer."
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