Book Two: Chapter V

by Sherwood Anderson

　　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.