Book Four: Chapter XVI

by Sherwood Anderson

　　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.