Book I: Chapter IV

by Sherwood Anderson

　　In a cellar-like house driven like a stake into the hillside aboveCoal Creek lived Kate Hartnet with her son Mike. Her man had died withthe others during the fire in the mine. Her son like Beaut McGregordid not work in the mine. He hurried through Main Street or went halfrunning among the trees on the hills. Miners seeing him hurrying alongwith white intense face shook their heads. "He's cracked," they said."He'll hurt some one yet."

　　Beaut saw Mike hurrying about the streets. Once encountering him inthe pine woods above the town he walked with him and tried to get himto talk. In his pockets Mike carried books and pamphlets. He set trapsin the woods and brought home rabbits and squirrels. He got togethercollections of birds' eggs which he sold to women in the trains thatstopped at Coal Creek and when he caught birds he stuffed them, putbeads in their eyesockets and sold them also. He proclaimed himself ananarchist and like Cracked McGregor muttered to himself as he hurriedalong.

　　One day Beaut came upon Mike Hartnet reading a book as he sat on a logoverlooking the town. A shock ran through McGregor when he looked overthe shoulder of the man and saw what book he read. "It is strange," hethought, "that this fellow should stick to the same book that fat oldWeeks makes his living by."

　　Beaut sat on the log beside Hartnet and watched him. The reading manlooked up and nodded nervously then slid along the log to the fartherend. Beaut laughed. He looked down at the town and then at thefrightened nervous book-reading man on the log. An inspiration came tohim.

　　"If you had the power, Mike, what would you do to Coal Creek?" heasked.

　　The nervous man jumped and tears came into his eyes. He stood beforethe log and spread out his hands. "I would go among men like Christ,"he cried, pitching his voice forward like one addressing an audience."Poor and humble, I would go teaching them of love." Spreading out hishands like one pronouncing a benediction he shouted, "Oh men of CoalCreek, I would teach you love and the destruction of evil."

　　Beaut jumped up from the log and strode before the trembling figure.He was strangely moved. Grasping the man he thrust him back upon thelog. His own voice rolled down the hillside in a great roaring laugh."Men of Coal Creek," he shouted, mimicking the earnestness of Hartnet,"listen to the voice of McGregor. I hate you. I hate you because youjeered at my father and at me and because you cheated my mother, NanceMcGregor. I hate you because you are weak and disorganised likecattle. I would like to come among you teaching the power of force. Iwould like to slay you one by one, not with weapons but with my nakedfists. If they have made you work like rats buried in a hole they areright. It is man's right to do what he can. Get up and fight. Fightand I'll get on the other side and you can fight me. I'll help driveyou back into your holes."

　　Beaut ceased speaking and jumping over the logs ran down the road.Among the first of the miner's houses he stopped and laughedawkwardly. "I am cracked also," he thought, "shouting at emptiness ona hillside." He went on in a reflective mood, wondering what power hadtaken hold of him. "I would like a fight--a fight against odds," hethought. "I will stir things up when I am a lawyer in the city."

　　Mike Hartnet came running down the road at the heels of McGregor."Don't tell," he plead trembling. "Don't tell about me in the town.They will laugh and call names after me. I want to be let alone."

　　Beaut shook himself loose from the detaining hand and went on down thehill. When he had passed out of sight of Hartnet he sat down on theground. For an hour he looked at the town in the valley and thought ofhimself. He was half proud, half ashamed of the thing that hadhappened.

　　* * * * *In the blue eyes of McGregor anger flashed quick and sudden. Upon thestreets of Coal Creek he walked, swinging along, his great bodyinspiring fear. His mother grown grave and silent worked in theoffices of the mines. Again she had a habit of silence in her own homeand looked at her son, half fearing him. All day she worked in themine offices and in the evening sat silently in a chair on the porchbefore her house and looked down into Main Street.

　　Beaut McGregor did nothing. He sat in the dingy little pool room andtalked with the black-haired boy or walked over the hills swinging astick in his hand and thinking of the city to which he would presentlygo to start his career. As he walked in the streets women stopped tolook at him, thinking of the beauty and strength of his maturing body.The miners passed him in silence hating him and dreading his wrath.Walking among the hills he thought much of himself. "I am capable ofanything," he thought, lifting his head and looking at the toweringhills, "I wonder why I stay on here."

　　When he was eighteen Beaut's mother fell ill. All day she lay on herback in bed in the room above the empty bakery. Beaut shook himselfout of his waking stupor and went about seeking work. He had not feltthat he was indolent. He had been waiting. Now he bestirred himself."I'll not go into the mines," he said, "nothing shall get me downthere."

　　He got work in a livery stable cleaning and feeding the horses. Hismother got out of bed and began going again to the mine offices.Having started to work Beaut stayed on, thinking it but a way stationto the position he would one day achieve in the city.

　　In the stable worked two young boys, sons of coal miners. They drovetravelling men from the trains to farming towns in valleys back amongthe hills and in the evening with Beaut McGregor they sat on a benchbefore the barn and shouted at people going past the stable up thehill.

　　The livery stable in Coal Creek was owned by a hunchback named Wellerwho lived in the city and went home at night. During the day he satabout the stable talking to red-haired McGregor. "You're a big beast,"he said laughing. "You talk about going away to the city and makingsomething of yourself and still you stay on here doing nothing. Youwant to quit this talking about being a lawyer and become a prizefighter. Law is a place for brains not muscles." He walked through thestables leaning his head to one side and looking up at the big fellowwho brushed the horses. McGregor watched him and grinned. "I'll showyou," he said.

　　The hunchback was pleased when he strutted before McGregor. He hadheard men talk of the strength and the evil temper of his stablemanand it pleased him to have so fierce a fellow cleaning the horses. Atnight in the city he sat under the lamp with his wife and boasted. "Imake him step about," he said.

　　In the stable the hunchback kept at the heels of McGregor. "Andthere's something else," he said, putting his hand in his pockets andraising himself on his toes. "You look out for that undertaker'sdaughter. She wants you. If she gets you there will be no law studybut a place in the mines for you. You let her alone and begin takingcare of your mother."

　　Beaut went on cleaning the horses and thinking of what the hunchbackhad said. He thought there was sense to it. He also was afraid of thetall pale girl. Sometimes when he looked at her a pain shot throughhim and a combination of fear and desire gripped him. He walked awayfrom it and went free as he went free from the life in the darknessdown in the mine. "He has a kind of genius for keeping away from thethings he don't like," said the liveryman, talking to Uncle CharlieWheeler in the sun before the door of the post office.

　　One afternoon the two boys who worked in the livery stable withMcGregor got him drunk. The affair was a rude joke, elaboratelyplanned. The hunchback had stayed in the city for the day and notravelling men got off the trains to be driven over the hills. In theafternoon hay brought over the hill from the fruitful valley was beingput into the loft of the barn and between loads McGregor and the twoboys sat on the bench by the stable door. The two boys went to thesaloon and brought back beer, paying for it from a fund kept for thatpurpose. The fund was the result of a system worked out by the twodrivers. When a passenger gave one of them a coin at the end of a dayof driving he put it into the common fund. When the fund had grown tosome size the two went to the saloon and stood before the bar drinkinguntil it was spent and then came back to sleep off their stupor on thehay in the barn. After a prosperous week the hunchback occasionallygave them a dollar for the fund.

　　Of the beer McGregor drank but one foaming glass. For all his idlingabout Coal Creek he had never before tasted beer and it was strong andbitter in his mouth. He threw up his head and gulped it then turnedand walked toward the rear of the stable to conceal the tears that thetaste of the stuff had forced into his eyes.

　　The two drivers sat on the bench and laughed. The drink they had givenBeaut was a horrible mess concocted by the laughing bartender at theirsuggestion. "We will get the big fellow drunk and hear him roar," thebartender had said.

　　As he walked toward the back of the stable a convulsive nausea seizedBeaut. He stumbled and pitched forward, cutting his face on the floor.Then he rolled over on his back and groaned and a little stream ofblood ran down his cheek.

　　The two boys jumped up from the bench and ran toward him. They stoodlooking at his pale lips. Fear seized them. They tried to lift him buthe fell from their arms and lay again on the stable floor, white andmotionless. Filled with fright they ran from the stable and throughMain Street. "We must get a doctor," they said as they hurried along,"He is mighty sick--that fellow."

　　In the doorway leading to the rooms over the undertaker's shop stoodthe tall pale girl. One of the running boys stopped and addressed her,"Your red-head," he shouted, "is blind drunk lying on the stablefloor. He has cut his head and is bleeding."

　　The tall girl ran down the street to the offices of the mine. WithNance McGregor she hurried to the stable. The store keepers along MainStreet looked out of their doors and saw the two women pale and withset faces half-carrying the huge form of Beaut McGregor along thestreet and in at the door of the bakery.

　　* * * * *At eight o'clock that evening Beaut McGregor, his legs still unsteady,his face white, climbed aboard a passenger train and passed out of thelife of Coal Creek. On the seat beside him a bag contained all hisclothes. In his pocket lay a ticket to Chicago and eighty-fivedollars, the last of Cracked McGregor's savings. He looked out of thecar window at the little woman thin and worn standing alone on thestation platform and a great wave of anger passed through him. "I'llshow them," he muttered. The woman looked at him and forced a smile toher lips. The train began to move into the west. Beaut looked at hismother and at the deserted streets of Coal Creek and put his head downupon his hands and in the crowded car before the gaping people weptwith joy that he had seen the last of youth. He looked back at CoalCreek, full of hate. Like Nero he might have wished that all of thepeople of the town had but one head so that he might have cut it offwith a sweep of a sword or knocked it into the gutter with oneswinging blow.