Chapter VI

by Sherwood Anderson

　　At the end of the short street on which the Wescotts lived in WillowSprings there was a cornfield. When Rosalind was a child it was ameadow and beyond was an orchard.

　　On summer afternoons the child often went there to sit alone on thebanks of a tiny stream that wandered away eastward toward Willow Creek,draining the farmer's fields on the way. The creek had made a slightdepression in the level contour of the land and she sat with her backagainst an old apple tree and with her bare feet almost touching thewater. Her mother did not permit her to run bare footed through thestreets but when she got into the orchard she took her shoes off. Itgave her a delightful naked feeling.

　　Overhead and through the branches the child could see the great sky.Masses of white clouds broke into fragments and then the fragments cametogether again. The sun ran in behind one of the cloud masses and greyshadows slid silently over the face of distant fields. The world of herchild life, the Wescott household, Melville Stoner sitting in hishouse, the cries of other children who lived in her street, all thelife she knew went far away. To be there in that silent place was likelying awake in bed at night only in some way sweeter and better. Therewere no dull household sounds and the air she breathed was sweeter,cleaner. The child played a little game. All the apple trees in theorchard were old and gnarled and she had given all the trees names.There was one fancy that frightened her a little but was delicious too.She fancied that at night when she had gone to bed and was asleep andwhen all the town of Willow Springs had gone to sleep the trees cameout of the ground and walked about. The grasses beneath the trees, thebushes that grew beside the fence--all came out of the ground and ranmadly here and there. They danced wildly. The old trees, like statelyold men, put their heads together and talked. As they talked theirbodies swayed slightly--back and forth, back and forth. The bushes andflowering weeds ran in great circles among the little grasses. Thegrasses hopped straight up and down.

　　Sometimes when she sat with her back against the tree on warm brightafternoons the child Rosalind had played the game of dancing-life untilshe grew afraid and had to give it up. Nearby in the fields men werecultivating corn. The breasts of the horses and their wide strongshoulders pushed the young corn aside and made a low rustling sound.Now and then a man's voice was raised in a shout. "Hi, there you Joe!Get in there Frank!" The widow of the hens owned a little woolly dogthat occasionally broke into a spasm of barking, apparently withoutcause, senseless, eager, barking. Rosalind shut all the sounds out. Sheclosed her eyes and struggled, trying to get into the place beyondhuman sounds. After a time her desire was accomplished. There was a lowsweet sound like the murmuring of voices far away. Now the thing washappening. With a kind of tearing sound the trees came up to stand ontop of the ground. They moved with stately tread toward each other. Nowthe mad bushes and the flowering weeds came running, dancing madly, nowthe joyful grasses hopped. Rosalind could not stay long in her world offancy. It was too mad, too joyful. She opened her eyes and jumped toher feet. Everything was all right. The trees stood solidly rooted inthe ground, the weeds and bushes had gone back to their places by thefence, the grasses lay asleep on the ground. She felt that her fatherand mother, her brother, everyone she knew would not approve of herbeing there among them. The world of dancing life was a lovely but awicked world. She knew. Sometimes she was a little mad herself and thenshe was whipped or scolded. The mad world of her fancy had to be putaway. It frightened her a little. Once after the thing appeared shecried, went down to the fence crying. A man who was cultivating corncame along and stopped his horses. "What's the matter?" he askedsharply. She couldn't tell him so she told a lie. "A bee stung me," shesaid. The man laughed. "It'll get well. Better put on your shoes," headvised.

　　The time of the marching trees and the dancing grasses was inRosalind's childhood. Later when she had graduated from the WillowSprings High School and had the three years of waiting about theWescott house before she went to the city she had other experiences inthe orchard. Then she had been reading novels and had talked with otheryoung women. She knew many things that after all she did not know. Inthe attic of her mother's house there was a cradle in which she and herbrother had slept when they were babies. One day she went up there andfound it. Bedding for the cradle was packed away in a trunk and shetook it out. She arranged the cradle for the reception of a child. Thenafter she did it she was ashamed. Her mother might come up the atticstairs and see it. She put the bedding quickly back into the trunk andwent down stairs, her cheeks burning with shame.

　　What a confusion! One day she went to the house of a schoolgirl friendwho was about to be married. Several other girls came and they were alltaken into a bedroom where the bride's trousseau was laid out on a bed.What soft lovely things! All the girls went forward and stood overthem, Rosalind among them. Some of the girls were shy, others bold.There was one, a thin girl who had no breasts. Her body was flat like adoor and she had a thin sharp voice and a thin sharp face. She began tocry out strangely. "How sweet, how sweet, how sweet," she cried overand over. The voice was not like a human voice. It was like somethingbeing hurt, an animal in the forest, far away somewhere by itself,being hurt. Then the girl dropped to her knees beside the bed and beganto weep bitterly. She declared she could not bear the thought of herschoolgirl friend being married. "Don't do it! O, Mary don't do it!"she pleaded. The other girls laughed but Rosalind couldn't stand it.She hurried out of the house.

　　That was one thing that had happened to Rosalind and there were otherthings. Once she saw a young man on the street. He clerked in a storeand Rosalind did not know him. However her fancy played with thethought that she had married him. Her own thoughts made her ashamed.

　　Everything shamed her. When she went into the orchard on summerafternoons she sat with her back against the apple tree and took offher shoes and stockings just as she had when she was a child, but theworld of her childhood fancy was gone, nothing could bring it back.

　　Rosalind's body was soft but all her flesh was firm and strong. Shemoved away from the tree and lay on the ground. She pressed her bodydown into the grass, into the firm hard ground. It seemed to her thather mind, her fancy, all the life within her, except just her physicallife, went away. The earth pressed upwards against her body. Her bodywas pressed against the earth. There was darkness. She was imprisoned.She pressed against the walls of her prison. Everything was dark andthere was in all the earth silence. Her fingers clutched a handful ofthe grasses, played in the grasses.

　　Then she grew very still but did not sleep. There was something thathad nothing to do with the ground beneath her or the trees or theclouds in the sky, that seemed to want to come to her, come into her, akind of white wonder of life.

　　The thing couldn't happen. She opened her eyes and there was the skyoverhead and the trees standing silently about. She went again to sitwith her back against one of the trees. She thought with dread of theevening coming on and the necessity of going out of the orchard and tothe Wescott house. She was weary. It was the weariness that made herappear to others a rather dull stupid young woman. Where was the wonderof life? It was not within herself, not in the ground. It must be inthe sky overhead. Presently it would be night and the stars would comeout. Perhaps the wonder did not really exist in life. It had somethingto do with God. She wanted to ascend upwards, to go at once up intoGod's house, to be there among the light strong men and women who haddied and left dullness and heaviness behind them on the earth. Thinkingof them took some of her weariness away and sometimes she went out ofthe orchard in the late afternoon walking almost lightly. Somethinglike grace seemed to have come into her tall strong body.

　　* * * * *Rosalind had gone away from the Wescott house and from Willow Springs,Iowa, feeling that life was essentially ugly. In a way she hated lifeand people. In Chicago sometimes it was unbelievable how ugly the worldhad become. She tried to shake off the feeling but it clung to her. Shewalked through the crowded streets and the buildings were ugly. A seaof faces floated up to her. They were the faces of dead people. Thedull death that was in them was in her also. They too could not breakthrough the walls of themselves to the white wonder of life. After allperhaps there was no such thing as the white wonder of life. It mightbe just a thing of the mind. There was something essentially dirtyabout life. The dirt was on her and in her. Once as she walked atevening over the Rush Street bridge to her room on the North Side shelooked up suddenly and saw the chrysoprase river running inland fromthe lake. Near at hand stood a soap factory. The men of the city hadturned the river about, made it flow inland from the lake. Someone haderected a great soap factory there near the river's entrance to thecity, to the land of men. Rosalind stopped and stood looking along theriver toward the lake. Men and women, wagons, automobiles rushed pasther. They were dirty. She was dirty. "The water of an entire sea andmillions of cakes of soap will not wash me clean," she thought. Thedirtiness of life seemed a part of her very being and an almostoverwhelming desire to climb upon the railing of the bridge and leapdown into the chrysoprase river swept over her. Her body trembledviolently and putting down her head and staring at the flooring of thebridge she hurried away.

　　* * * * *And now Rosalind, a grown woman, was in the Wescott house at the suppertable with her father and mother. None of the three people ate. Theyfussed about with the food Ma Wescott had prepared. Rosalind looked ather mother and thought of what Melville Stoner had said.

　　"If I wanted to write I'd do something. I'd tell what everyone thought.It would startle people, frighten them a little, eh? I would tell whatyou have been thinking this afternoon while you walked here on thisrailroad track with me. I would tell what your mother has been thinkingat the same time and what she would like to say to you."

　　What had Rosalind's mother been thinking all through the three dayssince her daughter had so unexpectedly come home from Chicago? What didmothers think in regard to the lives led by their daughters? Hadmothers something of importance to say to daughters and if they didwhen did the time come when they were ready to say it?

　　She looked at her mother sharply. The older woman's face was heavy andsagging. She had grey eyes like Rosalind's but they were dull like theeyes of a fish lying on a slab of ice in the window of a city meatmarket. The daughter was a little frightened by what she saw in hermother's face and something caught in her throat. There was anembarrassing moment. A strange sort of tenseness came into the air ofthe room and all three people suddenly got up from the table.

　　Rosalind went to help her mother with the dishes and her father sat ina chair by a window and read a paper. The daughter avoided lookingagain into her mother's face. "I must gather myself together if I am todo what I want to do," she thought. It was strange--in fancy she sawthe lean bird-like face of Melville Stoner and the eager tired face ofWalter Sayers floating above the head of her mother who leaned over thekitchen sink, washing the dishes. Both of the men's faces sneered ather. "You think you can but you can't. You are a young fool," the men'slips seemed to be saying.

　　Rosalind's father wondered how long his daughter's visit was to last.After the evening meal he wanted to clear out of the house, go up town,and he had a guilty feeling that in doing so he was being discourteousto his daughter. While the two women washed the dishes he put on hishat and going into the back yard began chopping wood. Rosalind went tosit on the front porch. The dishes were all washed and dried but for ahalf hour her mother would putter about in the kitchen. She always didthat. She would arrange and rearrange, pick up dishes and put them downagain. She clung to the kitchen. It was as though she dreaded the hoursthat must pass before she could go upstairs and to bed and asleep, tofall into the oblivion of sleep.

　　When Henry Wescott came around the corner of the house and confrontedhis daughter he was a little startled. He did not know what was thematter but he felt uncomfortable. For a moment he stopped and looked ather. Life radiated from her figure. A fire burned in her eyes, in hergrey intense eyes. Her hair was yellow like cornsilk. She was, at themoment, a complete, a lovely daughter of the cornlands, a being to beloved passionately, completely by some son of the cornlands--had therebeen in the land a son as alive as this daughter it had thrown aside.The father had hoped to escape from the house unnoticed. "I'm going uptown a little while," he said hesitatingly. Still he lingered a moment.Some old sleeping thing awoke in him, was awakened in him by thestartling beauty of his daughter. A little fire flared up among thecharred rafters of the old house that was his body. "You look pretty,girly," he said sheepishly and then turned his back to her and wentalong the path to the gate and the street.

　　Rosalind followed her father to the gate and stood looking as he wentslowly along the short street and around a corner. The mood induced inher by her talk with Melville Stoner had returned. Was it possible thather father also felt as Melville Stoner sometimes did? Did lonelinessdrive him to the door of insanity and did he also run through the nightseeking some lost, some hidden and half forgotten loveliness?

　　When her father had disappeared around the corner she went through thegate and into the street. "I'll go sit by the tree in the orchard untilmother has finished puttering about the kitchen," she thought.

　　Henry Wescott went along the streets until he came to the square aboutthe court house and then went into Emanuel Wilson's Hardware Store. Twoor three other men presently joined him there. Every evening he satamong these men of his town saying nothing. It was an escape from hisown house and his wife. The other men came for the same reason. A faintperverted kind of male fellowship was achieved. One of the men of theparty, a little old man who followed the housepainters trade, wasunmarried and lived with his mother. He was himself nearing the age ofsixty but his mother was still alive. It was a thing to be wonderedabout. When in the evening the house painter was a trifle late at therendezvous a mild flurry of speculation arose, floated in the air for amoment and then settled like dust in an empty house. Did the old housepainter do the housework in his own house, did he wash the dishes, cookthe food, sweep and make the beds or did his feeble old mother do thesethings? Emanuel Wilson told a story he had often told before. In a townin Ohio where he had lived as a young man he had once heard a tale.There was an old man like the house painter whose mother was also stillalive and lived with him. They were very poor and in the winter had notenough bedclothes to keep them both warm. They crawled into a bedtogether. It was an innocent enough matter, just like a mother takingher child into her bed.

　　Henry Wescott sat in the store listening to the tale Emanuel Wilsontold for the twentieth time and thought about his daughter. Her beautymade him feel a little proud, a little above the men who were hiscompanions. He had never before thought of his daughter as a beautifulwoman. Why had he never before noticed her beauty? Why had she comefrom Chicago, there by the lake, to Willow Springs, in the hot month ofAugust? Had she come home from Chicago because she really wanted to seeher father and mother? For a moment he was ashamed of his own heavybody, of his shabby clothes and his unshaven face and then the tinyflame that had flared up within him burned itself out. The housepainter came in and the faint flavor of male companionship to which heclung so tenaciously was reestablished.

　　In the orchard Rosalind sat with her back against the tree in the samespot where her fancy had created the dancing life of her childhood andwhere as a young woman graduate of the Willow Springs High School shehad come to try to break through the wall that separated her from life.The sun had disappeared and the grey shadows of night were creepingover the grass, lengthening the shadows cast by the trees. The orchardhad long been neglected and many of the trees were dead and withoutfoliage. The shadows of the dead branches were like long lean arms thatreached out, felt their way forward over the grey grass. Long leanfingers reached and clutched. There was no wind and the night would bedark and without a moon, a hot dark starlit night of the plains.

　　In a moment more it would be black night. Already the creeping shadowson the grass were barely discernible. Rosalind felt death all abouther, in the orchard, in the town. Something Walter Sayers had once saidto her came sharply back into her mind. "When you are in the countryalone at night sometime try giving yourself to the night, to thedarkness, to the shadows cast by trees. The experience, if you reallygive yourself to it, will tell you a startling story. You will findthat, although the white men have owned the land for severalgenerations now and although they have built towns everywhere, dug coalout of the ground, covered the land with railroads, towns and cities,they do not own an inch of the land in the whole continent. It stillbelongs to a race who in their physical life are now dead. The red men,although they are practically all gone still own the Americancontinent. Their fancy has peopled it with ghosts, with gods anddevils. It is because in their time they loved the land. The proof ofwhat I say is to be seen everywhere. We have given our towns nobeautiful names of our own because we have not built the townsbeautifully. When an American town has a beautiful name it was stolenfrom another race, from a race that still owns the land in which welive. We are all strangers here. When you are alone at night in thecountry, anywhere in America, try giving yourself to the night. Youwill find that death only resides in the conquering whites and thatlife remains in the red men who are gone."

　　The spirits of the two men, Walter Sayers and Melville Stoner,dominated the mind of Rosalind. She felt that. It was as though theywere beside her, sitting beside her on the grass in the orchard. Shewas quite certain that Melville Stoner had come back to his house andwas now sitting within sound of her voice, did she raise her voice tocall. What did they want her of her? Had she suddenly begun to love twomen, both older than herself? The shadows of the branches of trees madea carpet on the floor of the orchard, a soft carpet spun of somedelicate material on which the footsteps of men could make no sound.The two men were coming toward her, advancing over the carpet. MelvilleStoner was near at hand and Walter Sayers was coming from far away, outof the distance. The spirit of him was creeping toward her. The two menwere in accord. They came bearing some male knowledge of life,something they wanted to give her.

　　She arose and stood by the tree, trembling. Into what a state she hadgot herself! How long would it endure? Into what knowledge of life anddeath was she being led? She had come home on a simple mission. Sheloved Walter Sayers, wanted to offer herself to him but before doing sohad felt the call to come home to her mother. She had thought she wouldbe bold and would tell her mother the story of her love. She would tellher and then take what the older woman offered. If her motherunderstood and sympathized, well that would be a beautiful thing tohave happen. If her mother did not understand--at any rate she wouldhave paid some old debt, would have been true to some old, unexpressedobligation.

　　The two men--what did they want of her? What had Melville Stoner to dowith the matter? She put the figure of him out of her mind. In thefigure of the other man, Walter Sayers, there was something lessaggressive, less assertive. She clung to that.

　　She put her arm about the trunk of the old apple tree and laid hercheek against its rough bark. Within herself she was so intense, soexcited that she wanted to rub her cheeks against the bark of the treeuntil the blood came, until physical pain came to counteract thetenseness within that had become pain.

　　Since the meadow between the orchard and the street end had beenplanted to corn she would have to reach the street by going along alane, crawling under a wire fence and crossing the yard of the widowedchicken raiser. A profound silence reigned over the orchard and whenshe had crawled under the fence and reached the widow's back yard shehad to feel her way through a narrow opening between a chicken houseand a barn by running her fingers forward over the rough boards.

　　Her mother sat on the porch waiting and on the narrow porch before hishouse next door sat Melville Stoner. She saw him as she hurried pastand shivered slightly. "What a dark vulture-like thing he is! He livesoff the dead, off dead glimpses of beauty, off dead old sounds heard atnight," she thought. When she got to the Wescott house she threwherself down on the porch and lay on her back with her arms stretchedabove her head. Her mother sat on a rocking chair beside her. There wasa street lamp at the corner at the end of the street and a little lightcame through the branches of trees and lighted her mother's face. Howwhite and still and death-like it was. When she had looked Rosalindclosed her eyes. "I mustn't. I shall lose courage," she thought.

　　There was no hurry about delivering the message she had come todeliver. It would be two hours before her father came home. The silenceof the village street was broken by a hubbub that arose in the houseacross the street. Two boys playing some game ran from room to roomthrough the house, slamming doors, shouting. A baby began to cry andthen a woman's voice protested. "Quit it! Quit it!" the voice called."Don't you see you have wakened the baby? Now I shall have a timegetting him to sleep again."

　　Rosalind's fingers closed and her hands remained clenched. "I came hometo tell you something. I have fallen in love with a man and can't marryhim. He is a good many years older than myself and is already married.He has two children. I love him and I think he loves me--I know hedoes. I want him to have me too. I wanted to come home and tell youbefore it happened," she said speaking in a low clear voice. Shewondered if Melville Stoner could hear her declaration.

　　Nothing happened. The chair in which Rosalind's mother sat had beenrocking slowly back and forth and making a slight creaking sound. Thesound continued. In the house across the street the baby stoppedcrying. The words Rosalind had come from Chicago to say to her motherwere said and she felt relieved and almost happy. The silence betweenthe two women went on and on. Rosalind's mind wandered away. Presentlythere would be some sort of reaction from her mother. She would becondemned. Perhaps her mother would say nothing until her father camehome and would then tell him. She would be condemned as a wicked woman,ordered to leave the house. It did not matter.

　　Rosalind waited. Like Walter Sayers, sitting in his garden, her mindseemed to float away, out of her body. It ran away from her mother tothe man she loved.

　　One evening, on just such another quiet summer evening as this one, shehad gone into the country with Walter Sayers. Before that he had talkedto her, at her, on many other evenings and during long hours in theoffice. He had found in her someone to whom he could talk, to whom hewanted to talk. What doors of life he had opened for her! The talk hadgone on and on. In her presence the man was relieved, he relaxed out ofthe tenseness that had become the habit of this body. He had told herof how he had wanted to be a singer and had given up the notion. "Itisn't my wife's fault nor the children's fault," he had said. "Theycould have lived without me. The trouble is I could not have livedwithout them. I am a defeated man, was intended from the first to be adefeated man and I needed something to cling to, something with whichto justify my defeat. I realize that now. I am a dependent. I shallnever try to sing now because I am one who has at least one merit. Iknow defeat. I can accept defeat."

　　That is what Walter Sayers had said and then on the summer evening inthe country as she sat beside him in his car he had suddenly begun tosing. He had opened a farm gate and had driven the car silently along agrass covered lane and into a meadow. The lights had been put out andthe car crept along. When it stopped some cattle came and stood nearby.

　　Then he began to sing, softly at first and with increasing boldness ashe repeated the song over and over. Rosalind was so happy she hadwanted to cry out. "It is because of myself he can sing now," she hadthought proudly. How intensely, at the moment she loved the man, andyet perhaps the thing she felt was not love after all. There was pridein it. It was for her a moment of triumph. He had crept up to her outof a dark place, out of the dark cave of defeat. It had been her handreached down that had given him courage.

　　She lay on her back, at her mother's feet, on the porch of the Wescotthouse trying to think, striving to get her own impulses clear in hermind. She had just told her mother that she wanted to give herself tothe man, Walter Sayers. Having made the statement she already wonderedif it could be quite true. She was a woman and her mother was a woman.What would her mother have to say to her? What did mothers say todaughters? The male element in life--what did it want? Her own desiresand impulses were not clearly realized within herself. Perhaps what shewanted in life could be got in some sort of communion with anotherwoman, with her mother. What a strange and beautiful thing it would beif mothers could suddenly begin to sing to their daughters, if out ofthe darkness and silence of old women song could come.

　　Men confused Rosalind, they had always confused her. On that veryevening her father for the first time in years had really looked ather. He had stopped before her as she sat on the porch and there hadbeen something in his eyes. A fire had burned in his old eyes as it hadsometimes burned in the eyes of Walter. Was the fire intended toconsume her quite? Was it the fate of women to be consumed by men andof men to be consumed by women?

　　In the orchard, an hour before she had distinctly felt the two men,Melville Stoner and Walter Sayers coming toward her, walking silentlyon the soft carpet made of the dark shadows of trees.

　　They were again coming toward her. In their thoughts they approachednearer and nearer to her, to the inner truth of her. The street and thetown of Willow Springs were covered with a mantle of silence. Was itthe silence of death? Had her mother died? Did her mother sit there nowa dead thing in the chair beside her?

　　The soft creaking of the rocking chair went on and on. Of the two menwhose spirits seemed hovering about one, Melville Stoner, was bold andcunning. He was too close to her, knew too much of her. He wasunafraid. The spirit of Walter Sayers was merciful. He was gentle, aman of understanding. She grew afraid of Melville Stoner. He was tooclose to her, knew too much of the dark, stupid side of her life. Sheturned on her side and stared into the darkness toward the Stoner houseremembering her girlhood. The man was too physically close. The faintlight from the distant street lamp that had lighted her mother's facecrept between branches of trees and over the tops of bushes and shecould see dimly the figure of Melville Stoner sitting before his house.She wished it were possible with a thought to destroy him, wipe himout, cause him to cease to exist. He was waiting. When her mother hadgone to bed and when she had gone upstairs to her own room to lie awakehe would invade her privacy. Her father would come home, walking withdragging footsteps along the sidewalk. He would come into the Wescotthouse and through to the back door. He would pump the pail of water atthe pump and bring it into the house to put it on the box by thekitchen sink. Then he would wind the clock. He would--

　　Rosalind stirred uneasily. Life in the figure of Melville Stoner hadher, it gripped her tightly. She could not escape. He would come intoher bedroom and invade her secret thoughts. There was no escape forher. She imagined his mocking laughter ringing through the silenthouse, the sound rising above the dreadful commonplace sounds ofeveryday life there. She did not want that to happen. The sudden deathof Melville Stoner would bring sweet silence. She wished it possiblewith a thought to destroy him, to destroy all men. She wanted hermother to draw close to her. That would save her from the men. Surely,before the evening had passed her mother would have something to say,something living and true.

　　Rosalind forced the figure of Melville Stoner out of her mind. It wasas though she had got out of her bed in the room upstairs and had takenthe man by the arm to lead him to the door. She had put him out of theroom and had closed the door.

　　Her mind played her a trick. Melville Stoner had no sooner gone out ofher mind than Walter Sayers came in. In imagination she was with Walterin the car on the summer evening in the pasture and he was singing. Thecattle with their soft broad noses and the sweet grass-flavored breathswere crowding in close.

　　There was sweetness in Rosalind's thoughts now. She rested and waited,waited for her mother to speak. In her presence Walter Sayers hadbroken his long silence and soon the old silence between mother anddaughter would also be broken.

　　The singer who would not sing had begun to sing because of herpresence. Song was the true note of life, it was the triumph of lifeover death.

　　What sweet solace had come to her that time when Walter Sayers sang!How life had coursed through her body! How alive she had suddenlybecome! It was at that moment she had decided definitely, finally, thatshe wanted to come closer to the man, that she wanted with him theultimate physical closeness--to find in physical expression through himwhat in his song he was finding through her.

　　It was in expressing physically her love of the man she would find thewhite wonder of life, the wonder of which, as a clumsy and crude girl,she had dreamed as she lay on the grass in the orchard. Through thebody of the singer she would approach, touch the white wonder of life."I shall willingly sacrifice everything else on the chance that mayhappen," she thought.

　　How peaceful and quiet the summer night had become! How clearly now sheunderstood life! The song Walter Sayers had sung in the field, in thepresence of the cattle was in a tongue she had not understood, but nowshe understood everything, even the meaning of the strange foreignwords.

　　The song was about life and death. What else was there to sing about?The sudden knowledge of the content of the song had not come out of herown mind. The spirit of Walter was coming toward her. It had pushed themocking spirit of Melville Stoner aside. What things had not the mindof Walter Sayers already done to her mind, to the awakening womanwithin her. Now it was telling her the story of the song. The words ofthe song itself seemed to float down the silent street of the Iowatown. They described the sun going down in the smoke clouds of a cityand the gulls coming from a lake to float over the city.

　　Now the gulls floated over a river. The river was the color ofchrysoprase. She, Rosalind Wescott, stood on a bridge in the heart ofthe city and she had become entirely convinced of the filth andugliness of life. She was about to throw herself into the river, todestroy herself in an effort to make herself clean.

　　It did not matter. Strange sharp cries came from the birds. The criesof the birds were like the voice of Melville Stoner. They whirled andturned in the air overhead. In a moment more she would throw herselfinto the river and then the birds would fall straight down in a longgraceful line. The body of her would be gone, swept away by the stream,carried away to decay but what was really alive in herself would arisewith the birds, in the long graceful upward line of the flight of thebirds.

　　Rosalind lay tense and still on the porch at her mother's feet. In theair above the hot sleeping town, buried deep in the ground beneath alltowns and cities, life went on singing, it persistently sang. The songof life was in the humming of bees, in the calling of tree toads, inthe throats of negroes rolling cotton bales on a boat in a river.

　　The song was a command. It told over and over the story of life and ofdeath, life forever defeated by death, death forever defeated by life.

　　* * * * *The long silence of Rosalind's mother was broken and Rosalind tried totear herself away from the spirit of the song that had begun to singitself within her--

　　The sun sank down into the western sky over a city--

　　Life defeated by death, Death defeated by life.The factory chimneys had become pencils of light--

　　Life defeated by death, Death defeated by life.The rocking chair in which Rosalind's mother sat kept creaking. Wordscame haltingly from between her white lips. The test of Ma Wescott'slife had come. Always she had been defeated. Now she must triumph inthe person of Rosalind, the daughter who had come out of her body. Toher she must make clear the fate of all women. Young girls grew updreaming, hoping, believing. There was a conspiracy. Men made words,they wrote books and sang songs about a thing called love. Young girlsbelieved. They married or entered into close relationships with menwithout marriage. On the marriage night there was a brutal assault andafter that the woman had to try to save herself as best she could. Shewithdrew within herself, further and further within herself. Ma Wescotthad stayed all her life hidden away within her own house, in thekitchen of her house. As the years passed and after the children cameher man had demanded less and less of her. Now this new trouble hadcome. Her daughter was to have the same experience, to go through theexperience that had spoiled life for her.

　　How proud she had been of Rosalind, going out into the world, makingher own way. Her daughter dressed with a certain air, walked with acertain air. She was a proud, upstanding, triumphant thing. She did notneed a man.

　　"God, Rosalind, don't do it, don't do it," she muttered over and over.

　　How much she had wanted Rosalind to keep clear and clean! Once she alsohad been a young woman, proud, upstanding. Could anyone think she hadever wanted to become Ma Wescott, fat, heavy and old? All through hermarried life she had stayed in her own house, in the kitchen of her ownhouse, but in her own way she had watched, she had seen how things wentwith women. Her man had known how to make money, he had always housedher comfortably. He was a slow, silent man but in his own way he was asgood as any of the men of Willow Springs. Men worked for money, theyate heavily and then at night they came home to the woman they hadmarried.

　　Before she married, Ma Wescott had been a farmer's daughter. She hadseen things among the beasts, how the male pursued the female. Therewas a certain hard insistence, cruelty. Life perpetuated itself thatway. The time of her own marriage was a dim, terrible time. Why had shewanted to marry? She tried to tell Rosalind about it. "I saw him on theMain Street of town here, one Saturday evening when I had come to townwith father, and two weeks after that I met him again at a dance out inthe country," she said. She spoke like one who has been running a longdistance and who has some important, some immediate message to deliver."He wanted me to marry him and I did it. He wanted me to marry him andI did it."

　　She could not get beyond the fact of her marriage. Did her daughterthink she had no vital thing to say concerning the relationship of menand women? All through her married life she had stayed in her husband'shouse, working as a beast might work, washing dirty clothes, dirtydishes, cooking food.

　　She had been thinking, all through the years she had been thinking.There was a dreadful lie in life, the whole fact of life was a lie.

　　She had thought it all out. There was a world somewhere unlike theworld in which she lived. It was a heavenly place in which there was nomarrying or giving in marriage, a sexless quiet windless place wheremankind lived in a state of bliss. For some unknown reason mankind hadbeen thrown out of that place, had been thrown down upon the earth. Itwas a punishment for an unforgivable sin, the sin of sex.

　　The sin had been in her as well as in the man she had married. She hadwanted to marry. Why else did she do it? Men and women were condemnedto commit the sin that destroyed them. Except for a few rare sacredbeings no man or woman escaped.

　　What thinking she had done! When she had just married and after her manhad taken what he wanted of her he slept heavily but she did not sleep.She crept out of bed and going to a window looked at the stars. Thestars were quiet. With what a slow stately tread the moon moved acrossthe sky. The stars did not sin. They did not touch one another. Eachstar was a thing apart from all other stars, a sacred inviolate thing.On the earth, under the stars everything was corrupt, the trees,flowers, grasses, the beasts of the field, men and women. They were allcorrupt. They lived for a moment and then fell into decay. She herselfwas falling into decay. Life was a lie. Life perpetuated itself by thelie called love. The truth was that life itself came out of sin,perpetuated itself only by sin.

　　"There is no such thing as love. The word is a lie. The man you aretelling me about wants you for the purpose of sin," she said andgetting heavily up went into the house.

　　Rosalind heard her moving about in the darkness. She came to the screendoor and stood looking at her daughter lying tense and waiting on theporch. The passion of denial was so strong in her that she felt choked.To the daughter it seemed that her mother standing in the darknessbehind her had become a great spider, striving to lead her down intosome web of darkness. "Men only hurt women," she said, "they can't helpwanting to hurt women. They are made that way. The thing they call lovedoesn't exist. It's a lie."

　　"Life is dirty. Letting a man touch her dirties a woman." Ma Wescottfairly screamed forth the words. They seemed torn from her, from somedeep inner part of her being. Having said them she moved off into thedarkness and Rosalind heard her going slowly toward the stairway thatled to the bedroom above. She was weeping in the peculiar half chokedway in which old fat women weep. The heavy feet that had begun to mountthe stair stopped and there was silence. Ma Wescott had said nothing ofwhat was in her mind. She had thought it all out, what she wanted tosay to her daughter. Why would the words not come? The passion fordenial within her was not satisfied. "There is no love. Life is a lie.It leads to sin, to death and decay," she called into the darkness.

　　A strange, almost uncanny thing happened to Rosalind. The figure of hermother went out of her mind and she was in fancy again a young girl andhad gone with other young girls to visit a friend about to be married.With the others she stood in a room where white dresses lay on a bed.One of her companions, a thin, flat breasted girl fell on her kneesbeside the bed. A cry arose. Did it come from the girl or from the oldtired defeated woman within the Wescott house? "Don't do it. O,Rosalind don't do it," pleaded a voice broken with sobs.

　　The Wescott house had become silent like the street outside and likethe sky sprinkled with stars into which Rosalind gazed. The tensenesswithin her relaxed and she tried again to think. There was a thing thatbalanced, that swung backward and forward. Was it merely her heartbeating? Her mind cleared.

　　The song that had come from the lips of Walter Sayers was still singingwithin her--

　　Life the conqueror over death, Death the conqueror over life.She sat up and put her head into her hands. "I came here to WillowSprings to put myself to a test. Is it the test of life and death?" sheasked herself. Her mother had gone up the stairway, into the darknessof the bedroom above.

　　The song singing within Rosalind went on--

　　Life the conqueror over death, Death the conqueror over life.Was the song a male thing, the call of the male to the female, a lie,as her mother had said? It did not sound like a lie. The song had comefrom the lips of the man Walter and she had left him and had come toher mother. Then Melville Stoner, another male, had come to her. In himalso was singing the song of life and death. When the song stoppedsinging within one did death come? Was death but denial? The song wassinging within herself. What a confusion!

　　After her last outcry Ma Wescott had gone weeping up the stairs and toher own room and to bed. After a time Rosalind followed. She threwherself onto her own bed without undressing. Both women lay waiting.Outside in the darkness before his house sat Melville Stoner, the male,the man who knew of all that had passed between mother and daughter.Rosalind thought of the bridge over the river near the factory in thecity and of the gulls floating in the air high above the river. Shewished herself there, standing on the bridge. "It would be sweet now tothrow my body down into the river," she thought. She imagined herselffalling swiftly and the swifter fall of the birds down out of the sky.They were swooping down to pick up the life she was ready to drop,sweeping swiftly and beautifully down. That was what the song Walterhad sung was about.

　　* * * * *Henry Wescott came home from his evening at Emanuel Wilson's store. Hewent heavily through the house to the back door and the pump. There wasthe slow creaking sound of the pump working and then he came into thehouse and put the pail of water on the box by the kitchen sink. Alittle of the water spilled. There was a soft little slap--like achild's bare feet striking the floor--

　　Rosalind arose. The dead cold weariness that had settled down upon herwent away. Cold dead hands had been gripping her. Now they were sweptaside. Her bag was in a closet but she had forgotten it. Quickly shetook off her shoes and holding them in her hands went out into the hallin her stockinged feet. Her father came heavily up the stairs past heras she stood breathless with her body pressed against the wall in thehallway.

　　How quick and alert her mind had become! There was a train Eastwardbound toward Chicago that passed through Willow Springs at two in themorning. She would not wait for it. She would walk the eight miles tothe next town to the east. That would get her out of town. It wouldgive her something to do. "I need to be moving now," she thought as sheran down the stairs and went silently out of the house.

　　She walked on the grass beside the sidewalk to the gate before MelvilleStoner's house and he came down to the gate to meet her. He laughedmockingly. "I fancied I might have another chance to walk with youbefore the night was gone," he said bowing. Rosalind did not know howmuch of the conversation between herself and her mother he had heard.It did not matter. He knew all Ma Wescott had said, all she could sayand all Rosalind could say or understand. The thought was infinitelysweet to Rosalind. It was Melville Stoner who lifted the town of WillowSprings up out of the shadow of death. Words were unnecessary. With himshe had established the thing beyond words, beyond passion--thefellowship in living, the fellowship in life.

　　They walked in silence to the town's edge and then Melville Stoner putout his hand. "You'll come with me?" she asked, but he shook his headand laughed. "No," he said, "I'll stay here. My time for going passedlong ago. I'll stay here until I die. I'll stay here with my thoughts."

　　He turned and walked away into the darkness beyond the round circle oflight cast by the last street lamp on the street that now became acountry road leading to the next town to the east. Rosalind stood towatch him go and something in his long loping gait again suggested toher mind the figure of a gigantic bird. "He is like the gulls thatfloat above the river in Chicago," she thought. "His spirit floatsabove the town of Willow Springs. When the death in life comes to thepeople here he swoops down, with his mind, plucking out the beauty ofthem."

　　She walked at first slowly along the road between corn fields. Thenight was a vast quiet place into which she could walk in peace. Alittle breeze rustled the corn blades but there were no dreadfulsignificant human sounds, the sounds made by those who lived physicallybut who in spirit were dead, had accepted death, believed only indeath. The corn blades rubbed against each other and there was a lowsweet sound as though something was being born, old dead physical lifewas being torn away, cast aside. Perhaps new life was coming into theland.

　　Rosalind began to run. She had thrown off the town and her father andmother as a runner might throw off a heavy and unnecessary garment. Shewished also to throw off the garments that stood between her body andnudity. She wanted to be naked, new born. Two miles out of town abridge crossed Willow Creek. It was now empty and dry but in thedarkness she imagined it filled with water, swift running water, waterthe color of chrysoprase. She had been running swiftly and now shestopped and stood on the bridge her breath coming in quick littlegasps.

　　After a time she went on again, walking until she had regained herbreath and then running again. Her body tingled with life. She did notask herself what she was going to do, how she was to meet the problemshe had come to Willow Springs half hoping to have solved by a wordfrom her mother. She ran. Before her eyes the dusty road kept coming upto her out of darkness. She ran forward, always forward into a faintstreak of light. The darkness unfolded before her. There was joy in therunning and with every step she took she achieved a new sense ofescape. A delicious notion came into her mind. As she ran she thoughtthe light under her feet became more distinct. It was, she thought, asthough the darkness had grown afraid in her presence and sprang aside,out of her path. There was a sensation of boldness. She had herselfbecome something that within itself contained light. She was a creatorof light. At her approach darkness grew afraid and fled away into thedistance. When that thought came she found herself able to run withoutstopping to rest and half wished she might run on forever, through theland, through towns and cities, driving darkness away with herpresence.

　　I stated it as definitely as I could. I was in a room with them.

　　They had tongues like me, and hair and eyes.

　　I got up out of my chair and said it as definitely as I could.

　　Their eyes wavered. Something slipped out of their grasp. Had I beenwhite and strong and young enough I might have plunged through walls,gone outward into nights and days, gone into prairies, into distances--gone outward to the doorstep of the house of God, gone to God's throneroom with their hands in mine.

　　What I am trying to say is this--

　　By God I made their minds flee out of them.

　　Their minds came out of them as clear and straight as anything couldbe.

　　I said they might build temples to their lives.

　　I threw my words at faces floating in a street.

　　I threw my words like stones, like building stones.

　　I scattered words in alleyways like seeds.

　　I crept at night and threw my words in empty rooms of houses in astreet.

　　I said that life was life, that men in streets and cities might buildtemples to their souls.

　　I whispered words at night into a telephone.

　　I told my people life was sweet, that men might live.

　　I said a million temples might be built, that doorsteps might becleansed.

　　At their fleeing harried minds I hurled a stone.

　　I said they might build temples to themselves.