Book III: Chapter I

by Sherwood Anderson

　　When McGregor had secured the place in the apple-warehouse and wenthome to the house in Wycliff Place with his first week's pay, twelvedollars, in his pocket he thought of his mother, Nance McGregor,working in the mine offices in the Pennsylvania town and folding afive dollar bill sent it to her in a letter. "I will begin to takecare of her now," he thought and with the rough sense of equity insuch matters, common to labouring people, had no intention of givinghimself airs. "She has fed me and now I will begin to feed her," hetold himself.

　　The five dollars came back. "Keep it. I don't want your money," themother wrote. "If you have money left after your expenses are paidbegin to fix yourself up. Better get a new pair of shoes or a hat.Don't try to take care of me. I won't have it. I want you to look outfor yourself. Dress well and hold up your head, that's all I ask. Inthe city clothes mean a good deal. In the long run it will mean moreto me to see you be a real man than to be a good son."

　　Sitting in her rooms over the vacant bake-shop in Coal Creek Nancebegan to get new satisfaction out of the contemplation of herself as awoman with a son in the city. In the evening she thought of him movingalong the crowded thoroughfares among men and women and her bentlittle old figure straightened with pride. When a letter came tellingof his work in the night school her heart jumped and she wrote a longletter filled with talk of Garfield and Grant and of Lincoln lying bythe burning pine knot reading his books. It seemed to her unbelievablyromantic that her son should some day be a lawyer and stand up in acrowded court room speaking thoughts out of his brain to other men.She thought that if this great red-haired boy, who at home had been sounmanageable and so quick with his fists, was to end by being a man ofbooks and of brains then she and her man, Cracked McGregor, had notlived in vain. A sweet new sense of peace came to her. She forgot herown years of toil and gradually her mind went back to the silent boysitting on the steps with her before her house in the year after herhusband's death while she talked to him of the world, and thus shethought of him, a quiet eager boy, going about bravely there in thedistant city.

　　Death caught Nance McGregor off her guard. After one of her long daysof toil in the mine office she awoke to find him sitting grim andexpectant beside her bed. For years she in common with most of thewomen of the coal town had been afflicted with what is called "troublewith the heart." Now and then she had "bad spells." On this springevening she got into bed and sitting propped among the pillows foughtout her fight alone like a worn-out animal that has crept into a holein the woods.

　　In the middle of the night the conviction came to her that she woulddie. Death seemed moving about in the room and waiting for her. In thestreet two drunken men stood talking, their voices concerned withtheir own human affairs coming in through the window and making lifeseem very near and dear to the dying woman. "I've been everywhere,"said one of the men. "I've been in towns and cities I don't evenremember the names of. You ask Alex Fielder who keeps a saloon inDenver. Ask him if Gus Lamont has been there."

　　The other man laughed. "You've been in Jake's drinking too much beer,"he jeered.

　　Nance heard the two men stumble off down the street, the travellerprotesting against the unbelief of his friend. It seemed to her thatlife with all of its colour sound and meaning was running away fromher presence. The exhaust of the engine over at the mine rang in herears. She thought of the mine as a great monster lying asleep belowthe ground, its huge nose stuck into the air, its mouth open to eatmen. In the darkness of the room her coat, flung over the back of achair, took the shape and outline of a face, huge and grotesque,staring silently past her into the sky.

　　Nance McGregor gasped and struggled for breath. She clutched thebedclothes with her hands and fought grimly and silently. She did notthink of the place to which she might go after death. She was tryinghard not to go there. It had been her habit of life to fight not todream dreams.

　　Nance thought of her father, drunk and throwing his money about in theold days before her marriage, of the walks she as a young girl hadtaken with her lover on Sunday afternoons and of the times when theyhad gone together to sit on the hillside overlooking the farmingcountry. As in a vision the dying woman saw the broad fertile landspread out before her and blamed herself that she had not done moretoward helping her man in the fulfilment of the plans she and he hadmade to go there and live. Then she thought of the night when her boycame and of how, when they went to bring her man from the mine, theyfound him apparently dead under the fallen timbers so that she thoughtlife and death had visited her hand in hand in one night.

　　Nance sat stiffly up in bed. She thought she heard the sound of heavyfeet on the stairs. "That will be Beaut coming up from the shop," shemuttered and fell back upon the pillow dead.