Book III: Chapter II

by Sherwood Anderson

　　Beaut McGregor went home to Pennsylvania to bury his mother and on asummer afternoon walked again on the streets of his native town. Fromthe station he went at once to the empty bake-shop, above which he hadlived with his mother but he did not stay there. For a moment he stoodbag in hand listening to the voices of the miners' wives in the roomabove and then put the bag behind an empty box and hurried away. Thevoices of women broke the stillness of the room in which he stood.Their thin sharpness hurt something within him and he could not bearthe thought of the equally thin sharp silence he knew would fall uponthe women who were attending his mother's body in the room above whenhe came into the presence of the dead.

　　Along Main Street he went to a hardware store and from there went tothe mine office. Then with a pick and shovel on his shoulder he beganto climb the hill up which he had walked with his father when he was alad. On the train homeward bound an idea had come to him. "I will heramong the bushes on the hillside that looks down into the fruitfulvalley," he told himself. The details of a religious discussionbetween two labourers that had gone on one day during the noon hour atthe warehouse had come into his mind and as the train ran eastward hefor the first time found himself speculating on the possibility of alife after death. Then he brushed the thoughts aside. "Anyway ifCracked McGregor does come back it is there you will find him, sittingon the log on the hillside," he thought.

　　With the tools on his shoulder McGregor climbed the long hillsideroad, now deep with black dust. He was going to dig the grave for theburial of Nance McGregor. He did not glare at the miners who passedswinging their dinner-pails as they had done in the old days butlooked at the ground and thought of the dead woman and a littlewondered what place a woman would yet come to occupy in his own life.On the hillside the wind blew sharply and the great boy just emerginginto manhood worked vigorously making the dirt fly. When the hole hadgrown deep he stopped and looked to where in the valley below a manwho was hoeing corn shouted to a woman who stood on the porch of afarm house. Two cows that stood by a fence in a field lifted up theirheads and bawled lustily. "It is the place for the dead to lie,"whispered McGregor. "When my own time comes I shall be brought uphere." An idea came to him. "I will have father's body moved," he toldhimself. "When I have made some money I will have that done. Here weshall all lie in the end, all of us McGregors."

　　The thought that had come to McGregor pleased him and he was pleasedalso with himself for thinking the thought. The male in him made himthrow back his shoulders. "We are two of a feather, father and me," hemuttered, "two of a feather and mother has not understood either ofus. Perhaps no woman was ever intended to understand us."

　　Jumping out of the hole he strode over the crest of the hill and beganthe descent toward the town. It was late afternoon and the sun hadgone down behind clouds. "I wonder if I understand myself, if any oneunderstands," he thought as he went swiftly along with the toolsclanking on his shoulder.

　　McGregor did not want to go back to the town and to the dead woman inthe little room. He thought of the miners' wives, attendants to thedead, who would sit with crossed hands looking at him and turned outof the road to sit on the fallen log where once on a Sunday afternoonhe had sat with the black-haired boy who worked in the poolroom andwhere the daughter of the undertaker had come to sit beside him.

　　And then up the long hill came the woman herself. As she drew near herecognised her tall figure and for some reason a lump came into histhroat She had seen him depart from the town with the pick and shovelon his shoulder and after waiting what she thought an interval longenough to still the tongues of gossip had followed. "I wanted to talkwith you," she said, climbing over logs and coming to sit beside him.

　　For a long time the man and woman sat in silence and stared at thetown in the valley below. McGregor thought she had grown more palethan ever and looked at her sharply. His mind, more accustomed to lookcritically at women than had been the mind of the boy who had once sattalking to her on the same log, began to inventory her body. "She isalready becoming stooped," he thought. "I would not want to make loveto her now."

　　Along the log toward him moved the undertaker's daughter and with aswift impulse toward boldness slipped a thin hand into his. She beganto talk of the dead woman lying in the upstairs room in the town. "Wehave been friends since you went away," she explained. "She liked totalk of you and I liked that too."

　　Made bold by her own boldness the woman hurried on. "I do not want youto misunderstand me," she said. "I know I can't get you. I'm notthinking of that."

　　She began to talk of her own affairs and of the dreariness of lifewith her father but McGregor's mind could not centre itself on hertalk. When they started down the hill he had the impulse to take herin his arms and carry her as Cracked McGregor had once carried him butwas so embarrassed that he did not offer to help her. He thought thatfor the first time some one from his native town had come close to himand he watched her stooped figure with an odd new feeling oftenderness. "I won't be alive long, maybe not a year. I've got theconsumption," she whispered softly as he left her at the entrance tothe hallway leading up to her home, and McGregor was so stirred by herwords that he turned back and spent another hour wandering alone onthe hillside before he went to see the body of his mother.

　　* * * * *In the room above the bakery McGregor sat at an open window and lookeddown into the dimly lighted street. In a corner of the room lay hismother in a coffin and two miners' wives sat in the darkness behindhim. All were silent and embarrassed.

　　McGregor leaned out of the window and watched a group of miners whogathered at a corner. He thought of the undertaker's daughter, nownearing death, and wondered why she had suddenly come so close to him."It is not because she is a woman, I know that," he told himself andtried to dismiss the matter from his mind by watching the people inthe street below.

　　In the mining town a meeting was being held. A box lay at the edge ofthe sidewalk and upon it climbed that same young Hartnet who had oncetalked to McGregor and who made his living by gathering birds' eggsand trapping squirrels in the hills. He was frightened and talkedrapidly. Presently he introduced a large man with a flat nose who,when he had in turn climbed upon the box, began to tell stories andanecdotes designed to make the miners laugh.

　　McGregor listened. He wished the undertaker's daughter were there tosit in the darkened room beside him. He thought he would like to tellher of his life in the city and of how disorganised and ineffectiveall modern life seemed to him. Sadness invaded his mind and he thoughtof his dead mother and of how this other woman would presently die."It's just as well. Perhaps there is no other way, no orderly marchtoward an orderly end. Perhaps one has to die and return to nature toachieve that," he whispered to himself.

　　In the street below the man upon the box, who was a travellingsocialist orator, began to talk of the coming social revolution. As hetalked it seemed to McGregor that his jaw had become loose from muchwagging and that his whole body was loosely put together and withoutforce. The speaker danced up and down on the box and his arms flappedabout and these also seemed loose, not a part of the body.

　　"Vote with us and the thing is done," he shouted. "Are you going tolet a few men run things forever? Here you live like beasts payingtribute to your masters. Arouse yourselves. Join us in the struggle.You yourselves can be masters if you will only think so."

　　"You will have to do something more than think," roared McGregor, ashe leaned far out at the window. Again as always when he had heard mensaying words he was blind with anger. Sharply he remembered the walkshe had sometimes taken at night in the city streets and the air ofdisorderly ineffectiveness all about him. And here in the mining townit was the same. On every side of him appeared blank empty faces andloose badly knit bodies.

　　"Mankind should be like a great fist ready to smash and to strike. Itshould be ready to knock down what stands in its way," he cried,astonishing the crowd in the street and frightening into somethinglike hysterics the two women who sat with him beside the dead woman inthe darkened room.