Book VII: Chapter II

by Sherwood Anderson

　　On the day of the great demonstration, when McGregor's power over theminds and the bodies of the men of labour sent hundreds of thousandsmarching and singing in the streets, there was one man who wasuntouched by the song of labour expressed in the threshing of feet.David Ormsby had in his quiet way thought things out. He expected thatthe new impetus given to solidity in the ranks of labour would maketrouble for him and his kind, that it would express itself finally instrikes and in wide-spread industrial disturbance. He was not worried.In the end he thought that the silent patient power of money wouldbring his people the victory. On that day he did not go to his officebut in the morning stayed in his own room thinking of McGregor and ofhis daughter. Laura Ormsby was out of the city but Margaret was athome. David believed he had measured accurately the power of McGregorover her mind but occasional doubts came to him. "Well the time hascome to have it out with her," he decided. "I must reassert myascendency over her mind. The thing that is going on here is really astruggle of minds. McGregor differs from other leaders of labour as Idiffer from most leaders of the forces of money. He has brains. Verywell. I shall meet him on that level. Then, when I have made Margaretthink as I think, she will return to me."

　　* * * * *When he was still a small manufacturer in the Wisconsin town David hadbeen in the habit of driving out in the evening with his daughter.During the drives he had been almost a lover in his attentions to thechild and now when he thought of the forces at work within her he wasconvinced that she was still a child. Early in the afternoon he had acarriage brought to the door and drove off with her to the city. "Shewill want to see the man in the height of his power. If I am right inthinking that she is still under the influence of his personalitythere will be a romantic desire for that.

　　"I will give her the chance," he thought proudly. "In this struggle Iask no quarter from him and shall not make the common mistake ofparents in such cases. She is fascinated by the figure he has made ofhimself. Showy men who stand out from the crowd have that power. Sheis still under his influence. Why else her constant distraction andher want of interest in other things? Now I will be with her when theman is most powerful, when he shows to the greatest advantage, andthen I will make my fight for her. I will point out to her anotherroad, the road along which the real victors in life must learn totravel."

　　Together David the quiet efficient representative of wealth and hiswoman child sat in the carriage on the day of McGregor's triumph. Forthe moment an impassable gulf seemed to separate them and with intenseeyes each watched the hordes of men who massed themselves about thelabour leader. At the moment McGregor seemed to have caught all men inthe sweep of his movement. Business men had closed their desks, labourwas exultant, writers and men given to speculation in thought walkedabout dreaming of the realisation of the brotherhood of man. In thelong narrow treeless park the music made by the steady never-endingthresh of feet arose to something vast and rhythmical. It was like amighty chorus come up out of the hearts of men. David was unmoved.Occasionally he spoke to the horses and looked from the faces of themen massed about him to his daughter's face. In the coarse faces ofthe men he thought he saw only a crude sort of intoxication, theresult of a new kind of emotionalism. "It will not outlast thirty daysof ordinary living in their squalid surroundings," he thought grimly."It is not the kind of exaltation for Margaret. I can sing her a morewonderful song. I must get myself ready for that."

　　When McGregor arose to speak Margaret was overcome with emotions.Dropping to her knees in the carriage she put her head down upon herfather's arm. For days she had been telling herself that in the futureof the man she loved there was no place for failure. Now again shewhispered to herself that this great sturdy figure must not be deniedthe fulfilment of its purpose. When in the hush that followed themassing of the labourers about him the harsh booming voice floatedover the heads of the people her body shook as with a chill.Extravagant fancies invaded her mind and she wished it were possiblefor her to do something heroic, something that would make her liveagain in the mind of McGregor. She wanted to serve him, to give himsomething out of herself, and thought wildly that there might yet comea time and a way by which the beauty of her body could be laid like agift before him. The half mythical figure of Mary the lover of Jesuscame into her mind and she aspired to be such another. With her bodyshaken with emotions she pulled at the sleeve of her father's coat."Listen! It is going to come now," she murmured. "The brain of labouris going to express the dream of labour. An impulse sweet and lastingis going to come into the world."

　　* * * * *David Ormsby said nothing. When McGregor had begun to speak he touchedthe horses with the whip and drove slowly along Van Buren Street pastthe silent attentive ranks of men. When he had got into one of thestreets near the river a vast cheer arose. It seemed to shake the cityand the horses reared and leaped forward over the rough cobblestones.With one hand David quieted them while with the other he gripped thehand of his daughter. They drove over a bridge and into the West Sideand as they went the marching song of the workers rising up out ofthousands of throats rang in their ears. For a time the air seemed topulsate with it but as they went westward it grew continually less andless distinct. At last when they had turned into a street lined bytall factories it died out altogether. "That is the end of him for meand mine," thought David and again set himself for the task he had toperform.

　　Through street after street David let the horses wander while he clungto his daughter's hand and thought of what he wanted to say. Not allof the streets were lined with factories. Some, and these in theevening light were the most hideous, were bordered by the homes ofworkers. The houses of the workers, jammed closely together and blackwith grime, were filled with noisy life. Women sat in the doorways andchildren ran screaming and shouting in the road. Dogs barked andhowled. Everywhere was dirt and disorder, the terrible evidence ofmen's failure in the difficult and delicate art of living. In one ofthe streets a little girl child who sat on the post of a fence made aludicrous figure. As David and Margaret drove past she beat with herheels against the sides of the post and screamed. Tears ran down hercheeks and her dishevelled hair was black with dirt. "I want a banana!I want a banana!" she howled, staring at the blank walls of one of thehouses. In spite of herself Margaret was touched and her mind left thefigure of McGregor. By an odd chance the child on the post was thedaughter of that socialist orator who one night on the North Side hadclimbed upon a platform to confront McGregor with the propaganda ofthe Socialist Party.

　　David turned the horses into a wide boulevard that ran south throughthe factory district of the west. As they came out into the boulevardthey saw sitting on the sidewalk before a saloon a drunkard with adrum in his hand. The drunkard beat upon the drum and tried to singthe marching song of the workers but succeeded only in making a queergrunting noise like a distressed animal. The sight brought a smile toDavid's lips. "Already it has begun to disintegrate," he muttered. "Ibrought you into this part of town on purpose," he said to Margaret."I wanted you to see with your own eyes how much the world needs thething he is trying to do. The man is terribly right about the need fordiscipline and order. He is a big man doing a big thing and I admirehis courage. He would be a really big man had he the greater courage."

　　On the boulevard into which they had turned all was quiet. The summersun was setting and over the roofs of buildings the west was ablazewith light. They passed a factory surrounded by little patches ofgarden. Some employer of labour had tried thus feebly to bring beautyinto the neighbourhood of the place where his men worked. Davidpointed with the whip. "Life is a husk," he said, "and we men ofaffairs who take ourselves so seriously because the fates have beengood to us have odd silly little fancies. See what this fellow hasbeen at, patching away, striving to create beauty on the shell ofthings. He is like McGregor you see. I wonder if the man has madehimself beautiful, if either he or McGregor has seen to it that thereis something lovely inside the husk he wears around and that he callshis body, if he has seen through life to the spirit of life. I do notbelieve in patching nor do I believe in disturbing the shell of thingsas McGregor has dared to do. I have my own beliefs and they are thebeliefs of my kind. This man here, this maker of little gardens, islike McGregor. He might better let men find their own beauty. That ismy way. I have, I want to think, kept myself for the sweeter and moredaring effort."

　　David turned and looked hard at Margaret who had begun to beinfluenced by his mood. She waited, looking with averted face at thesky over the roofs of buildings. David began to talk of himself inrelation to her and her mother. A note of impatience came into hisvoice.

　　"How far you have been carried away, haven't you?" he said sharply."Listen. I am not talking to you now as your father nor as Laura'sdaughter. Let us be clear about that I love you and am in a contest towin your love. I am McGregor's rival. I accept the handicap offatherhood. I love you. You see I have let something within myselfalight upon you. McGregor has not done that. He refused what you hadto offer but I do not. I have centred my life upon you and have doneit quite knowingly and after much thought. The feeling I have issomething quite special. I am an individualist but believe in theoneness of man and woman. I would dare venture into but one other lifebeyond my own and that the life of a woman. I have chosen to ask youto let me venture so into your life. We will talk of it."

　　Margaret turned and looked at her father. Later she thought that somestrange phenomena must have happened at the moment Something like afilm was torn from her eyes and she saw the man David, not as a shrewdand calculating man of affairs, but as something magnificently young.Not only was he strong and solid but in his face there was at themoment the deep lines of thought and suffering she had seen on thecountenance of McGregor. "It is strange," she thought. "They are sounlike and yet the two men are both beautiful."

　　"I married your mother when I was a child as you are a child now,"David went on. "To be sure I had a passion for her and she had one forme. It passed but it was beautiful enough while it lasted. It did nothave depth or meaning. I want to tell you why. Then I am going to makeyou understand McGregor so that you may take your measure of the man.I am coming to that. I have to begin at the beginning.

　　"My factory began to grow and as an employer of labour I becameconcerned in the lives of a good many men."

　　His voice again became sharp. "I have been impatient with you," hesaid. "Do you think this McGregor is the only man who has seen andthought of other men in the mass? I have done that and have beentempted. I also might have become sentimental and destroyed myself. Idid not. Loving a woman saved me. Laura did that for me although whenit came to the real test of our love, understanding, she failed. I amnevertheless grateful to her that she was once the object of my love.I believe in the beauty of that."

　　Again David paused and began to tell his story in a new way. Thefigure of McGregor came back into Margaret's mind and her father beganto feel that to take it entirely away would be an accomplishment fullof significance. "If I can take her from him, I and my kind can takethe world from him also," he thought. "It will be another victory forthe aristocracy in the never-ending battle with the mob."

　　"I came to a turning point," he said aloud. "All men come to thatpoint. To be sure the great mass of people drift quite stupidly but weare not now talking of people in general. There is you and me andthere is the thing McGregor might be. We are each in our way somethingspecial. We come, people like us, to a place where there are two roadsto take. I took one and McGregor has taken another. I know why andperhaps he knows why. I concede to him knowledge of what he has done.But now it is time for you to decide which road you will take. Youhave seen the crowds moving along the broad way he has chosen and nowyou will set out on your own way. I want you to look down my road withme."

　　They came to a bridge over a canal and David stopped the horses. Abody of McGregor's marchers passed and Margaret's pulse began to beathigh again. When she looked at her father however he was unmoved andshe was a little ashamed of her emotions. For a moment David waited,as though for inspiration, and when the horses started on again hebegan to talk. "A labour leader came to my factory, a miniatureMcGregor with a crooked twist to him. He was a rascal but the thingshe said to my men were all true enough. I was making money for myinvestors, a lot of it. They might have won in a fight with me. Oneevening I went out into the country to walk alone under the trees andthink it over."

　　David's voice became harsh and Margaret thought it had becomestrangely like the voice of McGregor talking to workingmen. "I boughtthe man off," David said. "I used the cruel weapon men like me have touse. I gave him money and told him to get out, to let me alone. I didit because I had to win. My kind of men always have to win. During thewalk I took alone I got hold of my dream, my belief. I have the samedream now. It means more to me than the welfare of a million men. Forit I would crush whatever opposed me. I am going to tell you of thedream.

　　"It is too bad one has to talk. Talk kills dreams and talk will alsokill all such men as McGregor. Now that he has begun to talk we willget the best of him. I do not worry about McGregor. Time and talk willbring about his destruction."

　　David's mind ran off in a new direction. "I do not think a man's lifeis of much importance," he said. "No man is big enough to grasp all oflife. That is the foolish fancy of children. The grown man knows hecannot see life at one great sweep. It cannot be comprehended so. Onehas to realise that he lives in a patchwork of many lives and manyimpulses.

　　"The man must strike at beauty. That is the realisation maturitybrings and that is where the woman conies in. That is what McGregorwas not wise enough to understand. He is a child you see in a land ofexcitable children."

　　The quality of David's voice changed. Putting his arm about hisdaughter he drew her face down beside his own. Night descended uponthem. The woman who was tired from much thinking began to feelgrateful for the touch of the strong hand on her shoulder. David hadaccomplished his purpose. He had for the moment made his daughterforget that she was his daughter. There was something hypnotic in thequiet strength of his mood.

　　"I come now to women, to your part," he said. "We will talk of thething I want to make you understand. Laura failed as the woman. Shenever saw the point. As I grew she did not grow with me. Because I didnot talk of love she did not understand me as a lover, did not knowwhat I wanted, what I demanded of her.

　　"I wanted to fit my love down upon her figure as one puts a glove onhis hand. You see I was the adventurer, the man mussed and moiled bylife and its problems. The struggle to exist, to get money, could notbe avoided. I had to make that struggle. She did not. Why could shenot understand that I did not want to come into her presence to restor to say empty words. I wanted her to help me create beauty. Weshould have been partners in that. Together we should have undertakenthe most delicate and difficult of all struggles, the struggle forliving beauty in our everyday affairs."

　　Bitterness swept over the old ploughmaker and he used strong words."The whole point is in what I am now saying. That was my cry to thewoman. It came out of my soul. It was the only cry to another I haveever made. Laura was a little fool. Her mind flitted away to littlethings. I do not know what she wanted me to be and now I do not care.Perhaps she wanted me to be a poet, a stringer together of words, oneto write shrill little songs about her eyes and lips. It does notmatter now what she wanted.

　　"But you matter."

　　David's voice cut through the fog of new thoughts that were confusinghis daughter's mind and she could feel his body stiffen. A thrill ranthrough her own body and she forgot McGregor. With all the strength ofher spirit she was absorbed in what David was saying. In the challengethat was coming from the lips of her father she began to feel therewould be born in her own life a definite purpose.

　　"Women want to push out into life, to share with men the disorder andmussiness of little things. What a desire! Let them try it if theywish. They will sicken of the attempt. They lose sight of somethingbigger they might undertake. They have forgotten the old things, Ruthin the corn and Mary with the jar of precious ointment, they haveforgotten the beauty they were meant to help men create.

　　"Let them share only in man's attempt to create beauty. That is thebig, the delicate task to which they should consecrate themselves. Whyattempt instead the cheaper, the secondary task? They are like thisMcGregor."

　　The ploughmaker became silent. Taking up the whip he drove the horsesrapidly along. He thought that his point was made and was satisfied tolet the imagination of his daughter do the rest. They turned off theboulevard and passed through a street of small stores. Before a saloona troop of street urchins led by a drunken man without a hat gave agrotesque imitation of McGregor's Marchers before a crowd of laughingidlers. With a sinking heart Margaret realised that even at the heightof his power the forces that would eventually destroy the impulsesback of McGregor's Marchers were at work. She crept closer to David."I love you," she said. "Some day I may have a lover but always Ishall love you. I shall try to be what you want of me."

　　It was past two o'clock that night when David arose from the chairwhere he had been for several hours quietly reading. With a smile onhis face he went to a window facing north toward the city. All throughthe evening groups of men had been passing the house. Some had gonescuffling along, a mere disorderly mob, some had gone shoulder toshoulder chanting the marching song of the workers and a few, underthe influence of drink, had stopped before the house to roar outthreats. Now all was quiet. David lighted a cigar and stood for a longtime looking out over the city. He was thinking of McGregor andwondering what excited dream of power the day had brought into theman's head. Then he thought of his daughter and of her escape. A softlight came into his eyes. He was happy but when he had partiallyundressed a new mood came and he turned out the lights in the room andwent again to the window. In the room above Margaret had been unableto sleep and had also crept to the window. She was thinking again ofMcGregor and was ashamed of her thoughts. By chance both father anddaughter began at the same moment to doubt the truth of what David hadsaid during the drive along the boulevard. Margaret could not expressher doubts in words but tears came into her eyes.

　　As for David, he put his hand on the sill of the window and for just amoment his body trembled as with age and weariness. "I wonder," hemuttered--"if I had youth--perhaps McGregor knew he would fail and yethad the courage of failure, I wonder if both Margaret and myself lackthe greater courage, if that evening long ago when I walked under thetrees I made a mistake? What if after all this McGregor and his womanknew both roads. What if they, after looking deliberately along theroad toward success in life, went without regret along the road tofailure? What if McGregor and not myself knew the road to beauty?"

　　END