Book Two: Chapter VII

by Sherwood Anderson

　　Modern men and women who live in industrial cities are like mice that havecome out of the fields to live in houses that do not belong to them. Theylive within the dark walls of the houses where only a dim light penetrates,and so many have come that they grow thin and haggard with the constanttoil of getting food and warmth. Behind the walls the mice scamper aboutin droves, and there is much squealing and chattering. Now and then a boldmouse stands upon his hind legs and addresses the others. He declares hewill force his way through the walls and conquer the gods who have builtthe house. "I will kill them," he declares. "The mice shall rule. You shalllive in the light and the warmth. There shall be food for all and no oneshall go hungry."

　　The little mice, gathered in the darkness out of sight in the great houses,squeal with delight. After a time when nothing happens they become sad anddepressed. Their minds go back to the time when they lived in the fields,but they do not go out of the walls of the houses, because long living indroves has made them afraid of the silence of long nights and the emptinessof skies. In the houses giant children are being reared. When the childrenfight and scream in the houses and in the streets, the dark spaces betweenthe walls rumble with strange and appalling noises.

　　The mice are terribly afraid. Now and then a single mouse for a momentescapes the general fear. A mood comes over such a one and a light comesinto his eyes. When the noises run through the houses he makes up storiesabout them. "The horses of the sun are hauling wagon loads of days overthe tops of trees," he says and looks quickly about to see if he has beenheard. When he discovers a female mouse looking at him he runs away witha flip of his tail and the female follows. While other mice are repeatinghis saying and getting some little comfort from it, he and the female mousefind a warm dark corner and lie close together. It is because of them thatmice continue to be born to dwell within the walls of the houses.

　　When the first small model of Hugh McVey's plant-setting machine had beenwhittled out by the half-wit Allie Mulberry, it replaced the famous ship,floating in the bottle, that for two or three years had been lying in thewindow of Hunter's jewelry store. Allie was inordinately proud of the newspecimen of his handiwork. As he worked under Hugh's directions at a benchin a corner of the deserted pickle factory, he was like a strange dog thathas at last found a master. He paid no attention to Steve Hunter who, withthe air of one bearing in his breast some gigantic secret, came in andwent out at the door twenty times a day, but kept his eyes on the silentHugh who sat at a desk and made drawings on sheets of paper. Allie triedvaliantly to follow the instructions given him and to understand what hismaster was trying to do, and Hugh, finding himself unembarrassed by thepresence of the half-wit, sometimes spent hours trying to explain theworkings of some intricate part of the proposed machine. Hugh made eachpart crudely out of great pieces of board and Allie reproduced the part inminiature. Intelligence began to come into the eyes of the man who all hislife had whittled meaningless wooden chains, baskets formed out of peachstones, and ships intended to float in bottles. Love and understandingbegan a little to do for him what words could not have done. One day when apart Hugh had fashioned would not work the half-wit himself made the modelof a part that worked perfectly. When Hugh incorporated it in the machine,he was so happy that he could not sit still, and walked up and down cooingwith delight.

　　When the model of the machine appeared in the jeweler's window, a fever ofexcitement took hold of the minds of the people. Every one declared himselfeither for or against it. Something like a revolution took place. Partieswere formed. Men who had no interest in the success of the invention, andin the nature of things could not have, were ready to fight any one whodared to doubt its success. Among the farmers who drove into town to seethe new wonder were many who said the machine would not, could not, work."It isn't practical," they said. Going off by themselves and forminggroups, they whispered warnings. A hundred objections sprang to their lips."See all the little wheels and cogs the thing has," they said. "You seeit won't work. You take now in a field where there are stones and oldtree roots, maybe, sticking in the ground. There you'll see. Fools'll buythe machine, yes. They'll spend their money. They'll put in plants. Theplants'll die. The money'll be wasted. There'll be no crop." Old men, whohad been cabbage farmers in the country north of Bidwell all their lives,and whose bodies were all twisted out of shape by the terrible labor ofthe cabbage fields, came hobbling into town to look at the model of thenew machine. Their opinions were anxiously sought by the merchant, thecarpenter, the artisan, the doctor--by all the townspeople. Almost withoutexception, they shook their heads in doubt. Standing on the sidewalk beforethe jeweler's window, they stared at the machine and then, turning to thecrowd that had gathered about, they shook their heads in doubt. "Huh," theyexclaimed, "a thing of wheels and cogs, eh? Well, so young Hunter expectsthat thing to take the place of a man. He's a fool. I always said that boywas a fool." The merchants and townspeople, their ardor a little dampenedby the adverse decision of the men who knew plant-setting, went off bythemselves. They went into Birdie Spinks' drugstore, but did not listento the talk of Judge Hanby. "If the machine works, the town'll wake up,"some one declared. "It means factories, new people coming in, houses tobe built, goods to be bought." Visions of suddenly acquired wealth beganto float in their minds. Young Ed Hall, apprentice to Ben Peeler thecarpenter, grew angry. "Hell," he exclaimed, "why listen to a lot of damnedold calamity howlers? It's the town's duty to get out and plug for thatmachine. We got to wake up here. We got to forget what we used to thinkabout Steve Hunter. Anyway, he saw a chance, didn't he? and he took it.I wish I was him. I only wish I was him. And what about that fellow wethought was maybe just a telegraph operator? He fooled us all slick, nowdidn't he? I tell you we ought to be proud to have such men as him andSteve Hunter living in Bidwell. That's what I say. I tell you it's thetown's duty to get out and plug for them and for that machine. If we don't,I know what'll happen. Steve Hunter's a live one. I been thinking maybe hewas. He'll take that invention and that inventor of his to some other townor to a city. That's what he'll do. Damn it, I tell you we got to get outand back them fellows up. That's what I say."

　　On the whole the town of Bidwell agreed with young Hall. The excitementdid not die, but grew every day more intense. Steve Hunter had a carpentercome to his father's store and build in the show window facing MainStreet, a long shallow box formed in the shape of a field. This he filledwith pulverized earth and then by an arrangement of strings and pulleysconnected with a clockwork device the machine was pulled across the field.In a receptacle at the top of the machine had been placed some dozens oftiny plants no larger than pins. When the clockwork was started and thestrings pulled to imitate applied horse power, the machine crept slowlyforward, an arm came down and made a hole in the ground, the plant droppedinto the hole and spoon-like hands appeared and packed the earth about theplant roots. At the top of the machine there was a tank filled with water,and when the plant was set, a portion of water, nicely calculated as toquantity, ran down a pipe and was deposited at the plant roots.

　　Evening after evening the machine crawled forward across the tiny field,setting the plants in perfect order. Steve Hunter busied himself with it;he did nothing else; and rumors of a great company to be formed in Bidwellto manufacture the device were whispered about. Every evening a new talewas told. Steve went to Cleveland for a day and it was said that Bidwellwas to lose its chance, that big moneyed men had induced Steve to take hisfactory project to the city. Hearing Ed Hall berate a farmer who doubtedthe practicability of the machine, Steve took him aside and talked to him."We're going to need live young men who know how to handle other men forjobs as superintendent and things like that," he said. "I make no promises.I only want to tell you that I like live young fellows who can see the holein a bushel basket. I like that kind. I like to see them get up in theworld."

　　Steve heard the farmers continually expressing their skepticism aboutmaking the plants that had been set by the machine grow into maturity, andhad the carpenter build another tiny field in a side window of the store.He had the machine moved and plants set in the new field. He let thesegrow. When some of the plants showed signs of dying he came secretly atnight and replaced them with sturdier shoots so that the miniature fieldshowed always a brave, vigorous front to the world.

　　Bidwell became convinced that the most rigorous of all forms of human laborpracticed by its people was at an end. Steve made and had hung in the storewindow a large sheet showing the relative cost of planting an acre ofcabbage with the machine, and by what was already called "the old way," byhand. Then he formally announced that a stock company would be formed inBidwell and that every one would have a chance to get into it. He printedan article in the weekly paper in which he said that many offers had cometo him to take his project to the city or to other and larger towns."Mr. McVey, the celebrated inventor, and I both want to stick to our ownpeople," he said, regardless of the fact that Hugh knew nothing of thearticle and had never been taken into the lives of the people addressed.A day was set for the beginning of the taking of stock subscriptions, andin private conversations Steve whispered of huge profits to be made. Thematter was talked over in every household and plans were made for raisingmoney to buy stock. John Clark agreed to lend a certain percentage on thevalue of the town property and Steve secured a long-time option on all theland facing Turner's Pike clear down to Pickleville. When the town heardof this it was filled with wonder. "Gee," the loiterers before the storeexclaimed, "old Bidwell is going to grow up. Now look at that, will you?There are going to be houses clear down to Pickleville." Hugh went toCleveland to see about having one of his new machines made in steel andwood and in a size that would permit its actual use in the field. Hereturned, a hero in the town's eyes. His silence made it possible for thepeople, who could not entirely forget their former lack of faith in Steve,to let their minds take hold of something they thought was truly heroic.

　　In the evening, after going again to see the machine in the window of thejewelry store, crowds of young and old men wandered down along Turner'sPike to the Wheeling Station where a new man had come to replace Hugh.They hardly saw the evening train when it came in. Like devotees beforea shrine they gazed with something like worship in their eyes at the oldpickle factory, and when by chance Hugh came among them, unconscious ofthe sensation he was creating, they became embarrassed as he was alwaysembarrassed by their presence. Every one dreamed of becoming suddenly richby the power of the man's mind. They thought of him as thinking alwaysgreat thoughts. To be sure, Steve Hunter might be more than half bluff andblow and pretense, but there was no bluff and blow about Hugh. He didn'twaste his time in words. He thought, and out of his thought sprang almostunbelievable wonders.

　　In every part of the town of Bidwell, the new impulse toward progress wasfelt. Old men, who had become settled in their ways and who had begun topass their days in a sort of sleepy submission to the idea of the gradualpassing away of their lives, awoke and went into Main Street in theevening to argue with skeptical farmers. Beside Ed Hall, who had become aDemosthenes on the subject of progress and the duty of the town to awakeand stick to Steve Hunter and the machine, a dozen other men held forth onthe street corners. Oratorical ability awoke in the most unexpected places.Rumors flew from lip to lip. It was said that within a year Bidwell was tohave a brick factory covering acres of ground, that there would be pavedstreets and electric lights.

　　Oddly enough the most persistent decrier of the new spirit in Bidwell wasthe man who, if the machine turned out to be a success, would profit mostfrom its use. Ezra French, the profane, refused to be convinced. Whenpressed by Ed Hall, Dr. Robinson, and other enthusiasts, he fell back uponthe word of that God whose name had been so much upon his lips. The decrierof God became the defender of God. "The thing, you see, can't be done.It ain't all right. Something awful'll happen. The rains won't come andthe plants'll dry up and die. It'll be like it was in Egypt in the Bibletimes," he declared. The old farmer with the twisted leg stood before thecrowd in the drug-store and proclaimed the truth of God's word. "Don't itsay in the Bible men shall work and labor by the sweat of their brows?" heasked sharply. "Can a machine like that sweat? You know it can't. And itcan't do the work either. No, siree. Men've got to do it. That's the waythings have been since Cain killed Abel in the Garden of Eden. God intendedit so and there can't no telegraph operator or no smart young squirt likeSteve Hunter--fellows in a town like this--set themselves up before me tochange the workings of God's laws. It can't be done, and if it could bedone it would be wicked and ungodly to try. I'll have nothing to do withit. It ain't right. That's what I say and all your smart talk ain't a-goingto change me."

　　It was in the year 1892 that Steve Hunter organized the first industrialenterprise that came to Bidwell. It was called the Bidwell Plant-SettingMachine Company, and in the end it turned out to be a failure. A largefactory was built on the river bank facing the New York Central tracks. Itis now occupied by an enterprise called the Hunter Bicycle Company and iswhat in industrial parlance is called a live, going concern.

　　For two years Hugh worked faithfully trying to perfect the first of hisinventions. After the working models of the plant-setter were brought fromCleveland, two trained mechanics were employed to come to Bidwell and workwith him. In the old pickle factory an engine was installed and lathes andother tool-making machines were set up. For a long time Steve, John Clark,Tom Butterworth, and the other enthusiastic promoters of the enterprise hadno doubt as to the final outcome. Hugh wanted to perfect the machine, hadhis heart set on doing the job he had set out to do, but he had then and,for that matter, he continued during his whole life to have but littleconception of the import in the lives of the people about him of the thingshe did. Day after day, with two city mechanics and Allie Mulberry to drivethe team of horses Steve had provided, he went into a rented field north ofthe factory. Weak places developed in the complicated mechanism, and newand stronger parts were made. For a time the machine worked perfectly. Thenother defects appeared and other parts had to be strengthened and changed.The machine became too heavy to be handled by one team. It would not workwhen the soil was either too wet or too dry. It worked perfectly in bothwet and dry sand but would do nothing in clay. During the second yearand when the factory was nearing completion and much machinery had beeninstalled, Hugh went to Steve and told him of what he thought were thelimitations of the machine. He was depressed by his failure, but in workingwith the machine, he felt he had succeeded in educating himself as he nevercould have done by studying books. Steve decided that the factory should bestarted and some of the machines made and sold. "You keep the two men youhave and don't talk," he said. "The machine may yet turn out to be betterthan you think. One can never tell. I have made it worth their whileto keep still." On the afternoon of the day on which he had his talkwith Hugh, Steve called the four men who were associated with him in thepromotion of the enterprise into the back room of the bank and told them ofthe situation. "We're up against something here," he said. "If we let wordof the failure of this machine get out, where'll we be? It is a case of thesurvival of the fittest."

　　Steve explained his plan to the men in the room. After all, he said, therewas no occasion for any of them to get excited. He had taken them into thething and he proposed to get them out. "I'm that kind of a man," he saidpompously. In a way, he declared, he was glad things had turned out asthey had. The four men had little actual money invested. They had alltried honestly to do something for the town and he would see to it thateverything came out all right. "We'll be honest with every one," he said."The stock in the company has all been sold. We'll make some of themachines and sell them. If they're failures, as this inventor thinks, itwill not be our fault. The plant, you see, will have to be sold cheap. Whenthat times comes we five will have to save ourselves and the future of thetown. The machinery we have bought, is, you see, iron and wood workingmachinery, the very latest kind. It can be used to make some other thing.If the plant-setting machine is a failure we'll simply buy up the plant ata low price and make something else. Perhaps it'll be better for the townto have the entire stock control in our hands. You see we few men have gotto run things here. It's going to be on our shoulders to see that labor isemployed. A lot of small stock-holders are a nuisance. As man to man I'mgoing to ask each of you not to sell his stock, but if any one comes to youand asks about its value, I expect you to be loyal to our enterprise. I'llbegin looking about for something to replace the plant-setting machine, andwhen the shop closes we'll start right up again. It isn't every day men geta chance to sell themselves a fine plant full of new machinery as we can doin a year or so now."

　　Steve went out of the bank and left the four men staring at each other.Then his father got up and went out. The other men, all connected with thebank, arose and wandered out. "Well," said John Clark, somewhat heavily,"he's a smart man. I suppose after all it is up to us to stick with himand with the town. As he says, labor has got to be employed. I can't seethat it does a carpenter or a farmer any good to own a little stock in afactory. It only takes their minds off their work. They have foolish dreamsof getting rich and don't attend to their own affairs. It would be anactual benefit to the town if a few men owned the factory." The bankerlighted a cigar and going to a window stared out into the main street ofBidwell. Already the town had changed. Three new brick buildings were beingerected on Main Street within sight of the bank window. Workmen employed inthe building of the factory had come to town to live, and many new houseswere being built. Everywhere things were astir. The stock of the companyhad been oversubscribed, and almost every day men came into the bank andspoke of wanting to buy more. Only the day before a farmer had come in withtwo thousand dollars. The banker's mind began to secrete the poison of hisage. "After all, it's men like Steve Hunter, Tom Butterworth, Gordon Hart,and myself that have to take care of things, and to be in shape to do itwe have to look out for ourselves," he soliloquized. Again he stared intoMain Street. Tom Butterworth went out at the front door. He wanted to be byhimself and think his own thoughts. Gordon Hart returned to the empty backroom and standing by a window looked out into an alleyway. His thoughtsran in the same channel as those that played through the mind of the bankpresident. He also thought of men who wanted to buy stock in the companythat was doomed to failure. He began to doubt the judgment of Hugh McVeyin the matter of failure. "Such fellows are always pessimists," he toldhimself. From the window at the back of the bank, he could see over theroofs of a row of small sheds and down a residence street to where twonew workingmen's houses were being built. His thoughts only differed fromthe thoughts of John Clark because he was a younger man. "A few men ofthe younger generation, like Steve and myself will have to take hold ofthings," he muttered aloud. "We'll have to have money to work with. We'llhave to take the responsibility of the ownership of money."

　　At the front of the bank John Clark puffed at his cigar. He felt like asoldier weighing the chances of battle. Vaguely he thought of himself asa general, a kind of U. S. Grant of industry. The lives and happiness ofmany people, he told himself, depended on the clear working of his brain."Well," he thought, "when factories start coming to a town and it begins togrow as this town is growing no man can stop it. The fellow who thinks ofindividual men, little fellows with their savings invested, who may be hurtby an industrial failure, is just a weakling. Men have to face the dutieslife brings. The few men who see clearly have to think first of themselves.They have to save themselves in order that they may save others."

　　* * * * *Things kept on the stir in Bidwell and the gods of chance played into thehands of Steve Hunter. Hugh invented an apparatus for lifting a loadedcoal-car off the railroad tracks, carrying it high up into the air anddumping its contents into a chute. By its use an entire car of coal couldbe emptied with a roaring rush into the hold of a ship or the engine roomof a factory. A model of the new invention was made and a patent secured.Then Steve Hunter carried it off to New York. He received two hundredthousand dollars in cash for it, half of which went to Hugh. Steve's faithin the inventive genius of the Missourian was renewed and strengthened. Helooked forward with a feeling almost approaching pleasure to the time whenthe town would be forced to face the fact that the plant-setting machinewas a failure, and the factory with its new machinery would have to bethrown on the market. He knew that his associates in the promotion of theenterprise were secretly selling their stock. One day he went to Clevelandand had a long talk with a banker there. Hugh was at work on a corn-cuttingmachine and already he had secured an option on it. "Perhaps when thetime comes to sell the factory there'll be more than one bidder," he toldErnestine, the soap maker's daughter, who had married him within a monthafter the sale of the car-unloading device. He grew indignant when he toldher of the disloyalty of the two men in the bank, and the rich farmer,Tom Butterworth. "They're selling their shares and letting the smallstock-holders lose their money," he declared. "I told 'em not to do it. Nowif anything happens to spoil their plans they'll not have me to blame."

　　Nearly a year had been spent in stirring up the people of Bidwell to thepoint of becoming investors. Then things began to stir. The ground wasbroken for the erection of the factory. No one knew of the difficultiesthat had been encountered in attempting to perfect the machine and wordwas passed about that in actual tests in the fields it had proven itselfentirely practical. The skeptical farmers who came into town on Saturdayswere laughed at by the town enthusiasts. A field, that had been plantedduring one of the brief periods when the machine finding ideal soilconditions had worked perfectly, was left to grow. As when he operatedthe tiny model in the store window, Steve took no chances. He engaged EdHall to go at night and replace the plants that did not live. "It's fairenough," he explained to Ed. "A hundred things can cause the plants to die,but if they die it'll be blamed on the machine. What will become of thetown if we don't believe in the thing we're going to manufacture here?"

　　The crowds of people, who in the evenings walked out along Turner's Piketo look at the field with its long rows of sturdy young cabbages, movedrestlessly about and talked of the new days. From the field they went alongthe railroad tracks to the site of the factory. The brick walls began tomount up into the sky. Machinery began to arrive and was housed undertemporary sheds against the time when it could be installed. An advancehorde of workmen came to town and new faces appeared on Main Street in theevening. The thing that was happening in Bidwell happened in towns all overthe Middle West. Out through the coal and iron regions of Pennsylvania,into Ohio and Indiana, and on westward into the States bordering on theMississippi River, industry crept. Gas and oil were discovered in Ohio andIndiana. Over night, towns grew into cities. A madness took hold of theminds of the people. Villages like Lima and Findlay, Ohio, and like Muncieand Anderson in Indiana, became small cities within a few weeks. To some ofthese places, so anxious were the people to get to them and to invest theirmoney, excursion trains were run. Town lots that a few weeks before thediscovery of oil or gas could have been bought for a few dollars sold forthousands. Wealth seemed to be spurting out of the very earth. On farms inIndiana and Ohio giant gas wells blew the drilling machinery out of theground, and the fuel so essential to modern industrial development rushedinto the open. A wit, standing in the presence of one of the roaring gaswells exclaimed, "Papa, Earth has indigestion; he has gas on his stomach.His face will be covered with pimples."

　　Having, before the factories came, no market for the gas, the wells werelighted and at night great torches of flame lit the skies. Pipes were laidon the surface of the ground and by a day's work a laborer earned enough toheat his house at tropical heat through an entire winter. Farmers owningoil-producing land went to bed in the evening poor and owing money at thebank, and awoke in the morning rich. They moved into the towns and investedtheir money in the factories that sprang up everywhere. In one county insouthern Michigan, over five hundred patents for woven wire farm fencingwere taken out in one year, and almost every patent was a magnet aboutwhich a company for the manufacture of fence formed itself. A vast energyseemed to come out of the breast of earth and infect the people. Thousandsof the most energetic men of the middle States wore themselves out informing companies, and when the companies failed, immediately formedothers. In the fast-growing towns, men who were engaged in organizingcompanies representing a capital of millions lived in houses thrownhurriedly together by carpenters who, before the time of the greatawakening, were engaged in building barns. It was a time of hideousarchitecture, a time when thought and learning paused. Without music,without poetry, without beauty in their lives or impulses, a whole people,full of the native energy and strength of lives lived in a new land, rushedpell-mell into a new age. A man in Ohio, who had been a dealer in horses,made a million dollars out of a patent churn he had bought for the price ofa farm horse, took his wife to visit Europe and in Paris bought a paintingfor fifty thousand dollars. In another State of the Middle West, a man whosold patent medicine from door to door through the country began dealing inoil leases, became fabulously rich, bought himself three daily newspapers,and before he had reached the age of thirty-five succeeded in havinghimself elected Governor of his State. In the glorification of his energyhis unfitness as a statesman was forgotten.

　　In the days before the coming of industry, before the time of the madawakening, the towns of the Middle West were sleepy places devoted to thepractice of the old trades, to agriculture and to merchandising. In themorning the men of the towns went forth to work in the fields or to thepractice of the trade of carpentry, horse-shoeing, wagon making, harnessrepairing, and the making of shoes and clothing. They read books andbelieved in a God born in the brains of men who came out of a civilizationmuch like their own. On the farms and in the houses in the towns the menand women worked together toward the same ends in life. They lived in smallframe houses set on the plains like boxes, but very substantially built.The carpenter who built a farmer's house differentiated it from the barn byputting what he called scroll work up under the eaves and by building atthe front a porch with carved posts. After one of the poor little houseshad been lived in for a long time, after children had been born and men haddied, after men and women had suffered and had moments of joy together inthe tiny rooms under the low roofs, a subtle change took place. The housesbecame almost beautiful in their old humanness. Each of the houses beganvaguely to shadow forth the personality of the people who lived within itswalls.

　　In the farmhouses and in the houses on the side streets in the villages,life awoke at dawn. Back of each of the houses there was a barn for thehorses and cows, and sheds for pigs and chickens. At daylight a chorus ofneighs, squeals, and cries broke the silence. Boys and men came out ofthe houses. They stood in the open spaces before the barns and stretchedtheir bodies like sleepy animals. The arms extended upward seemed to besupplicating the gods for fair days, and the fair days came. The men andboys went to a pump beside the house and washed their faces and handsin the cold water. In the kitchens there was the smell and sound of thecooking of food. The women also were astir. The men went into the barns tofeed the animals and then hurried to the houses to be themselves fed. Acontinual grunting sound came from the sheds where pigs were eating corn,and over the houses a contented silence brooded.

　　After the morning meal men and animals went together to the fields and tothe doing of their tasks, and in the houses the women mended clothes, putfruit in cans against the coming of winter and talked of woman's affairs.On the streets of the towns on fair days lawyers, doctors, the officials ofthe county courts, and the merchants walked about in their shirt sleeves.The house painter went along with his ladder on his shoulder. In thestillness there could be heard the hammers of the carpenters building anew house for the son of a merchant who had married the daughter of ablacksmith. A sense of quiet growth awoke in sleeping minds. It was thetime for art and beauty to awake in the land.

　　Instead, the giant, Industry, awoke. Boys, who in the schools had read ofLincoln, walking for miles through the forest to borrow his first book, andof Garfield, the towpath lad who became president, began to read in thenewspapers and magazines of men who by developing their faculty for gettingand keeping money had become suddenly and overwhelmingly rich. Hiredwriters called these men great, and there was no maturity of mind in thepeople with which to combat the force of the statement, often repeated.Like children the people believed what they were told.

　　While the new factory was being built with the carefully saved dollarsof the people, young men from Bidwell went out to work in other places.After oil and gas were discovered in neighboring states, they went to thefast-growing towns and came home telling wonder tales. In the boom townsmen earned four, five and even six dollars a day. In secret and when noneof the older people were about, they told of adventures on which they hadgone in the new places; of how, attracted by the flood of money, women camefrom the cities; and the times they had been with these women. Young HarleyParsons, whose father was a shoemaker and who had learned the blacksmithtrade, went to work in one of the new oil fields. He came home wearing afancy silk vest and astonished his fellows by buying and smoking ten-centcigars. His pockets were bulging with money. "I'm not going to stay longin this town, you can bet on that," he declared one evening as he stood,surrounded by a group of admirers before Fanny Twist's Millinery Shop onlower Main Street. "I have been with a Chinese woman, and an Italian, andwith one from South America." He took a puff of his cigar and spat on thesidewalk. "I'm out to get what I can out of life," he declared. "I'm goingback and I'm going to make a record. Before I get through I'm going to bewith a woman of every nationality on earth, that's what I'm going to do."

　　Joseph Wainsworth the harness maker, who had been the first man in Bidwellto feel the touch of the heavy finger of industrialism, could not get overthe effect of the conversation had with Butterworth, the farmer who hadasked him to repair harnesses made by machines in a factory. He became asilent disgruntled man and muttered as he went about his work in the shop.When Will Sellinger his apprentice threw up his place and went to Clevelandhe did not get another boy but for a time worked alone in the shop. He gotthe name of being disagreeable, and on winter afternoons the farmers nolonger came into his place to loaf. Being a sensitive man, Joe felt like apigmy, a tiny thing walking always in the presence of a giant that mightat any moment and by a whim destroy him. All his life he had been somewhatoff-hand with his customers. "If they don't like my work, let 'em go to thedevil," he said to his apprentices. "I know my trade and I don't have tobow down to any one here."

　　When Steve Hunter organized the Bidwell Plant-Setting Machine Company, theharness maker put his savings, twelve hundred dollars, into the stock ofthe company. One day, during the time when the factory was building, heheard that Steve had paid twelve hundred dollars for a new lathe that hadjust arrived by freight and had been set on the floor of the uncompletedbuilding. The promoter had told a farmer that the lathe would do the workof a hundred men, and the farmer had come into Joe's shop and repeated thestatement. It stuck in Joe's mind and he came to believe that the twelvehundred dollars he had invested in stock had been used for the purchase ofthe lathe. It was money he had earned in a long lifetime of effort and ithad now bought a machine that would do the work of a hundred men. Alreadyhis money had increased by a hundred fold and he wondered why he couldnot be happy about the matter. On some days he was happy, and then hishappiness was followed by an odd fit of depression. Suppose, after all,the plant-setting machine wouldn't work? What then could be done with thelathe, with the machine bought with his money?

　　One evening after dark and without saying anything to his wife, he wentdown along Turner's Pike to the old factory at Pickleville where Hugh withthe half-wit Allie Mulberry, and the two mechanics from the city, werestriving to correct the faults in the plant-setting machine. Joe wantedto look at the tall gaunt man from the West, and had some notion oftrying to get into conversation with him and of asking his opinion of thepossibilities of the success of the new machine. The man of the age offlesh and blood wanted to walk in the presence of the man who belonged tothe new age of iron and steel. When he got to the factory it was dark andon an express truck in front of the Wheeling Station the two city workmensat smoking their evening pipes. Joe walked past them to the station doorand then returned along the platform and got again into Turner's Pike. Hestumbled along the path beside the road and presently saw Hugh McVey comingtoward him. It was one of the evenings when Hugh, overcome with loneliness,and puzzled that his new position in the town's life did not bring him anycloser to people, had gone to town to walk through Main Street, half hopingsome one would break through his embarrassment and enter into conversationwith him.

　　When the harness maker saw Hugh walking in the path, he crept into a fencecorner, and crouching down, watched the man as Hugh had watched the Frenchboys at work in the cabbage fields. Strange thoughts came into his head. Hethought the extraordinarily tall figure before him in some way terrible. Hebecame childishly angry and for a moment thought that if he had a stone inhis hand he would throw it at the man, the workings of whose brain had soupset his own life. Then as the figure of Hugh went away along the pathanother mood came. "I have worked all my life for twelve hundred dollars,for money that will buy one machine that this man thinks nothing about," hemuttered aloud. "Perhaps I'll get more money than I invested: Steve Huntersays maybe I will. If machines kill the harness-making trade what's thedifference? I'll be all right. The thing to do is to get in with the newtimes, to wake up, that's the ticket. With me it's like with every oneelse: nothing venture nothing gain."

　　Joe crawled out of the fence corner and went stealthily along the roadbehind Hugh. A fervor seized him and he thought he would like to creepclose and touch with his finger the hem of Hugh's coat. Afraid to tryanything so bold his mind took a new turn. He ran in the darkness along theroad toward town and, when he had crossed the bridge and come to the NewYork Central tracks, turned west and went along the tracks until he came tothe new factory. In the darkness the half completed walls stuck up into thesky, and all about were piles of building materials. The night had beendark and cloudy, but now the moon began to push its way through the clouds.Joe crawled over a pile of bricks and through a window into the building.He felt his way along the walls until he came to a mass of iron covered bya rubber blanket. He was sure it must be the lathe his money had bought,the machine that was to do the work of a hundred men and that was to makehim comfortably rich in his old age. No one had spoken of any other machinehaving been brought in on the factory floor. Joe knelt on the floor and puthis hands about the heavy iron legs of the machine. "What a strong thingit is! It will not break easily," he thought. He had an impulse to dosomething he knew would be foolish, to kiss the iron legs of the machineor to say a prayer as he knelt before it. Instead he got to his feet andcrawling out again through the window, went home. He felt renewed and fullof new courage because of the experiences of the night, but when he got tohis own house and stood at the door outside, he heard his neighbor, DavidChapman, a wheelwright who worked in Charlie Collins' wagon shop, prayingin his bedroom before an open window. Joe listened for a moment and, forsome reason he couldn't understand, his new-found faith was destroyed bywhat he heard. David Chapman, a devout Methodist, was praying for HughMcVey and for the success of his invention. Joe knew his neighbor had alsoinvested his savings in the stock of the new company. He had thought thathe alone was doubtful of success, but it was apparent that doubt had comealso into the mind of the wheelwright. The pleading voice of the prayingman, as it broke the stillness of the night, cut across and for the momentutterly destroyed his confidence. "O God, help the man Hugh McVey to removeevery obstacle that stands in his way," David Chapman prayed. "Make theplant-setting machine a success. Bring light into the dark places. O Lord,help Hugh McVey, thy servant, to build successfully the plant-settingmachine."