Book Four: Chapter XIV

by Sherwood Anderson

　　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.