Book Three: Chapter X

by Sherwood Anderson

　　Clara Butterworth left Bidwell, Ohio, in September of the year in whichSteve Hunter's plant-setting machine company went into the hands of areceiver, and in January of the next year that enterprising young man,together with Tom Butterworth, bought the plant. In March a new company wasorganized and at once began making Hugh's corn-cutting machine, a successfrom the beginning. The failure of the first company and the sale of theplant had created a furor in the town. Both Steve and Tom Butterworthcould, however, point to the fact that they had held on to their stock andlost their money in common with every one else. Tom had indeed sold hisstock because he needed ready money, as he explained, but had shown hisgood faith by buying again just before the failure. "Do you suppose I wouldhave done that had I known what was up?" he asked the men assembled in thestores. "Go look at the books of the company. Let's have an investigationhere. You will find that Steve and I stuck to the rest of the stockholders.We lost our money with the rest. If any one was crooked and when they saw afailure coming went and got out from under at the expense of some one else,it wasn't Steve and me. The books of the company will show we were game. Itwasn't our fault the plant-setting machine wouldn't work."

　　In the back room of the bank, John Clark and young Gordon Hart cursed Steveand Tom, who, they declared, had sold them out. They had lost no money bythe failure, but on the other hand they had gained nothing. The four menhad sent in a bid for the plant when it was put up for sale, but as theyexpected no competition, they had not bid very much. It had gone to a firmof Cleveland lawyers who bid a little more, and later had been resold atprivate sale to Steve and Tom. An investigation was started and it wasfound that Steve and Tom held large blocks of stock in the defunct company,while the bankers held practically none. Steve openly said that he hadknown of the possibility of failure for some time and had warned the largerstock-holders and asked them not to sell their stock. "While I was workingmy head off trying to save the company, what were they up to?" he askedsharply, and his question was repeated in the stores and in the homes ofthe people.

　　The truth of the matter, and the thing the town never found out, was thatfrom the beginning Steve had intended to get the plant for himself, but atthe last had decided it would be better to take some one in with him. Hewas afraid of John Clark. For two or three days he thought about the matterand decided that the banker was not to be trusted. "He's too good a friendto Tom Butterworth," he told himself. "If I tell him my scheme, he'll tellTom. I'll go to Tom myself. He's a money maker and a man who knows thedifference between a bicycle and a wheelbarrow when you put one of theminto bed with him."

　　Steve drove out to Tom's house late one evening in September. He hated togo but was convinced it would be better to do so. "I don't want to burnall my bridges behind me," he told himself. "I've got to have at least onefriend among the solid men here in town. I've got to do business with theserubes, maybe all my life. I can't shut myself off too much, at least notyet a while."

　　When Steve got to the farm he asked Tom to get into his buggy, and the twomen went for a long drive. The horse, a gray gelding with one blind eyehired for the occasion from liveryman Neighbors, went slowly along throughthe hill country south of Bidwell. He had hauled hundreds of young men withtheir sweethearts. Ambling slowly along, thinking perhaps of his own youthand of the tyranny of man that had made him a gelding, he knew that as longas the moon shone and the intense voiceless quiet continued to reign overthe two people in the buggy, the whip would not come out of its socket andhe would not be expected to hurry.

　　On the September evening, however, the gray gelding had behind him such aload as he had never carried before. The two people in the buggy on thatevening were not foolish, meandering sweethearts, thinking only of love,and allowing themselves to be influenced in their mood by the beauty of thenight, the softness of the black shadows in the road, and the gentle nightwinds that crept down over the crests of hills. They were solid businessmen, mentors of the new age, the kind of men who, in the future of Americaand perhaps of the whole world, were to be the makers of governments, themolders of public opinion, the owners of the press, the publishers ofbooks, buyers of pictures, and in the goodness of their hearts, the feedersof an occasional starving and improvident poet, lost on other roads. In anyevent the two men sat in the buggy and the gray gelding meandered alongthrough the hills. Great splashes of moonlight lay in the road. By chanceit was on the same evening that Clara Butterworth left home to become astudent in the State University. Remembering the kindness and tenderness ofthe rough old farm hand, Jim Priest, who had brought her to the station,she lay in her berth in the sleeping car and looked out at the roads,washed with moonlight, that slid away into the distance like ghosts. Shethought of her father on that night and of the misunderstanding that hadgrown up between them. For the moment she was tender with regrets. "Afterall, Jim Priest and my father must be a good deal alike," she thought."They have lived on the same farm, eaten the same food; they both lovehorses. There can't be any great difference between them." All night shethought of the matter. An obsession, that the whole world was aboard themoving train and that, as it ran swiftly along, it was carrying the peopleof the world into some strange maze of misunderstanding, took possessionof her. So strong was it that it affected her deeply buried unconsciousself and made her terribly afraid. It seemed to her that the walls of thesleeping-car berth were like the walls of a prison that had shut her awayfrom the beauty of life. The walls seemed to close in upon her. The walls,like life itself, were shutting in upon her youth and her youthful desireto reach a hand out of the beauty in herself to the buried beauty inothers. She sat up in the berth and forced down a desire in herself tobreak the car window and leap out of the swiftly moving train into thequiet night bathed with moonlight. With girlish generosity she took uponher own shoulders the responsibility for the misunderstanding that hadgrown up between herself and her father. Later she lost the impulse thatled her to come to that decision, but during that night it persisted. Itwas, in spite of the terror caused by the hallucination regarding themoving walls of the berth that seemed about to crush her and that came backtime after time, the most beautiful night she had ever lived through, andit remained in her memory throughout her life. She in fact came to thinklater of that night as the time when, most of all, it would have beenbeautiful and right for her to have been able to give herself to a lover.Although she did not know it, the kiss on the cheek from the bewhiskeredlips of Jim Priest had no doubt something to do with that thought when itcame.

　　And while the girl fought her battle with the strangeness of life and triedto break through the imaginary walls that shut her off from the opportunityto live, her father also rode through the night. With a shrewd eye hewatched the face of Steve Hunter. It had already begun to get a little fat,but Tom realized suddenly that it was the face of a man of ability. Therewas something about the jowls that made Tom, who had dealt much in livestock, think of the face of a pig. "The man goes after what he wants. He'sgreedy," the farmer thought. "Now he's up to something. To get what hewants he'll give me a chance to get something I want. He's going to makesome kind of proposal to me in connection with the factory. He's hatched upa scheme to shut Gordon Hart and John Clark out because he doesn't want toomany partners. All right, I'll go in with him. Either one of them wouldhave done the same thing had they had the chance."

　　Steve smoked a black cigar and talked. As he grew more sure of himself andthe affairs that absorbed him, he also became more smooth and persuasive inthe matter of words. He talked for a time of the necessity of certain men'ssurviving and growing constantly stronger and stronger in the industrialworld. "It's necessary for the good of the community," he said. "A fewfairly strong men are a good thing for a town, but if they are fewerand relatively stronger it's better." He turned to look sharply at hiscompanion. "Well," he exclaimed, "we talked there in the bank of what wewould do when things went to pieces down at the factory, but there were toomany men in the scheme. I didn't realize it at the time, but I do now." Heknocked the ashes off his cigar and laughed. "You know what they did, don'tyou?" he asked. "I asked you all not to sell any of your stock. I didn'twant to get the whole town bitter. They wouldn't have lost anything. Ipromised to see them through, to get the plant for them at a low price,to put them in the way to make some real money. They played the game in asmall-town way. Some men can think of thousands of dollars, others have tothink of hundreds. It's all their minds are big enough to comprehend. Theysnatch at a little measly advantage and miss the big one. That's what thesemen have done."

　　For a long time the two rode in silence. Tom, who had also sold his stock,wondered if Steve knew. He decided he did. "However, he's decided to dealwith me. He needs some one and has chosen me," he thought. He made up hismind to be bold. After all, Steve was young. Only a year or two before hewas nothing but a young upstart and the very boys in the street laughed athim. Tom grew a little indignant, but was careful to take thought beforehe spoke. "Perhaps, although he's young and don't look like much, he's afaster and shrewder thinker than any of us," he told himself.

　　"You do talk like a fellow who has something up his sleeve," he saidlaughing. "If you want to know, I sold my stock the same as the others. Iwasn't going to take a chance of being a loser if I could help it. It maybe the small-town way, but you know things maybe I don't know. You can'tblame me for living up to my lights. I always did believe in the survivalof the fittest and I got a daughter to support and put through college. Iwant to make a lady of her. You ain't got any kids yet and you're younger.Maybe you want to take chances I don't want to take. How do I know whatyou're up to?"

　　Again the two rode in silence. Steve had prepared himself for the talk. Heknew there was a chance that, in its turn, the corn-cutting machine Hughhad invented might not prove practical and that in the end he might beleft with a factory on his hands and with nothing to manufacture in it. Hedid not, however, hesitate. Again, as on the day in the bank when he wasconfronted by the two older men, he made a bluff. "Well, you can come in orstay out, just as you wish," he said a little sharply. "I'm going to gethold of that factory, if I can, and I'm going to manufacture corn-cuttingmachines. Already I have promises of orders enough to keep running for ayear. I can't take you in with me and have it said around town you wereone of the fellows who sold out the small investors. I've got a hundredthousand dollars of stock in the company. You can have half of it. I'lltake your note for the fifty thousand. You won't ever have to pay it. Theearnings of the new factory will clean you up. You got to come clean,though. Of course you can go get John Clark and come out and make an openfight to get the factory yourselves, if you want to. I own the rights tothe corn-cutting machine and will take it somewhere else and manufactureit. I don't mind telling you that, if we split up, I will pretty welladvertise what you three fellows did to the small investors after I askedyou not to do it. You can all stay here and own your empty factory and getwhat satisfaction you can out of the love and respect you'll get from thepeople. You can do what you please. I don't care. My hands are clean. Iain't done anything I'm ashamed of, and if you want to come in with me, youand I together will pull off something in this town we don't neither one ofus have to be ashamed of."

　　The two men drove back to the Butterworth farm house and Tom got out of thebuggy. He intended to tell Steve to go to the devil, but as they drovealong the road, he changed his mind. The young school teacher from Bidwell,who had come on several occasions to call on his daughter Clara, was onthat night abroad with another young woman. He sat in a buggy with his armaround her waist and drove slowly through the hill country. Tom and Stevedrove past them and the farmer, seeing in the moonlight the woman in thearms of the man, imagined his daughter in her place. The thought made himfurious. "I'm losing the chance to be a big man in the town here in orderto play safe and be sure of money to leave to Clara, and all she caresabout is to galavant around with some young squirt," he thought bitterly.He began to see himself as a wronged and unappreciated father. When hegot out of the buggy, he stood for a moment by the wheel and looked hardat Steve. "I'm as good a sport as you are," he said finally. "Bringaround your stock and I'll give you the note. That's all it will be, youunderstand: just my note. I don't promise to back it up with any collateraland I don't expect you to offer it for sale." Steve leaned out of the buggyand took him by the hand. "I won't sell your note, Tom," he said. "I'llput it away. I want a partner to help me. You and I are going to do thingstogether."

　　The young promoter drove off along the road, and Tom went into the houseand to bed. Like his daughter he did not sleep. For a time he thought ofher and in imagination saw her again in the buggy with the school teacherwho had her in his arms. The thought made him stir restlessly about beneaththe sheets. "Damn women anyway," he muttered. To relieve his mind hethought of other things. "I'll make out a deed and turn three of my farmsover to Clara," he decided shrewdly. "If things go wrong we won't beentirely broke. I know Charlie Jacobs in the court-house over at the countyseat. I ought to be able to get a deed recorded without any one knowing itif I oil Charlie's hand a little."

　　* * * * *Clara's last two weeks in the Woodburn household were spent in the midst ofa struggle, no less intense because no words were said. Both HendersonWood, burn and his wife felt that Clara owed them an explanation of thescene at the front door with Frank Metcalf. When she did not offer it theywere offended. When he threw open the door and confronted the two people,the plow manufacturer had got an impression that Clara was trying to escapeFrank Metcalf's embraces. He told his wife that he did not think she wasto blame for the scene on the front porch. Not being the girl's father hecould look at the matter coldly. "She's a good girl," he declared. "Thatbeast of a Frank Metcalf is all to blame. I daresay he followed her home.She's upset now, but in the morning she'll tell us the story of whathappened."

　　The days went past and Clara said nothing. During her last week in thehouse she and the two older people scarcely spoke. The young woman was inan odd way relieved. Every evening she went to dine with Kate Chancellerwho, when she heard the story of the afternoon in the suburb and theincident on the porch, went off without Clara's knowing of it and had atalk with Henderson Woodburn in his office. After the talk the manufacturerwas puzzled and just a little afraid of both Clara and her friend. He triedto tell his wife about it, but was not very clear. "I can't make it out,"he said. "She is the kind of woman I can't understand, that Kate. She saysClara wasn't to blame for what happened between her and Frank Metcalf, butdon't want to tell us the story, because she thinks young Metcalf wasn't toblame either." Although he had been respectful and courteous as he listenedto Kate's talk, he grew angry when he tried to tell his wife what she hadsaid. "I'm afraid it was just a lot of mixed up nonsense," he declared."It makes me glad we haven't a daughter. If neither of them were to blamewhat were they up to? What's getting the matter with the women of thenew generation? When you come down to it what's the matter with KateChanceller?"

　　The plow manufacturer advised his wife to say nothing to Clara. "Let's washour hands of it," he suggested. "She'll go home in a few days now and wewill say nothing about her coming back next year. Let's be polite, but actas though she didn't exist."

　　Clara accepted the new attitude of her uncle and aunt without comment. Inthe afternoon she did not come home from the University but went to Kate'sapartment. The brother came home and after dinner played on the piano. Atten o'clock Clara started home afoot and Kate accompanied her. The twowomen went out of their way to sit on a bench in a park. They talked ofa thousand hidden phases of life Clara had hardly dared think of before.During all the rest of her life she thought of those last weeks in Columbusas the most deeply satisfactory time she ever lived through. In theWoodburn house she was uncomfortable because of the silence and the hurt,offended look on her aunt's face, but she did not spend much time there.In the morning Henderson Woodburn ate his breakfast alone at seven, andclutching his ever present portfolio of papers, was driven off to the plowfactory. Clara and her aunt had a silent breakfast at eight, and thenClara also hurried away. "I'll be out for lunch and will go to Kate's fordinner," she said as she went out of her aunt's presence, and she said it,not with the air of one asking permission as had been her custom before theFrank Metcalf incident, but as one having the right to dispose of her owntime. Only once did her aunt break the frigid air of offended dignity shehad assumed. One morning she followed Clara to the front door, and as shewatched her go down the steps from the front porch to the walk that led tothe street, called to her. Some faint recollection of a time of revolt inher own youth perhaps came to her. Tears came into her eyes. To her theworld was a place of terror, where wolf-like men prowled about seekingwomen to devour, and she was afraid something dreadful would happen to herniece. "If you don't want to tell me anything, it's all right," she saidbravely, "but I wish you felt you could." When Clara turned to look at her,she hastened to explain. "Mr. Woodburn said I wasn't to bother you about itand I won't," she added quickly. Nervously folding and unfolding her arms,she turned to stare up the street with the air of a frightened child thatlooks into a den of beasts. "O Clara, be a good girl," she said. "I knowyou're grown up now, but, O Clara, do be careful! Don't get into trouble."

　　The Woodburn house in Columbus, like the Butterworth house in the countrysouth of Bidwell, sat on a hill. The street fell away rather sharply as onewent toward the business portion of the city and the street car line, andon the morning when her aunt spoke to her and tried with her feeble handsto tear some stones out of the wall that was being built between them,Clara hurried along the street under the trees, feeling as though she wouldlike also to weep. She saw no possibility of explaining to her aunt the newthoughts she was beginning to have about life and did not want to hurt herby trying. "How can I explain my thoughts when they're not clear in my ownmind, when I am myself just groping blindly about?" she asked herself. "Shewants me to be good," she thought. "What would she think if I told her thatI had come to the conclusion that, judging by her standards, I have beenaltogether too good? What's the use trying to talk to her when I would onlyhurt her and make things harder than ever?" She got to a street crossingand looked back. Her aunt was still standing at the door of her house andlooking at her. There was something soft, small, round, insistent, bothterribly weak and terribly strong about the completely feminine thing shehad made of herself or that life had made of her. Clara shuddered. She didnot make a symbol of the figure of her aunt and her mind did not forma connection between her aunt's life and what she had become, as KateChanceller's mind would have done. She saw the little, round, weeping womanas a boy, walking in the tree-lined streets of a town, sees suddenly thepale face and staring eyes of a prisoner that looks out at him throughthe iron bars of a town jail. Clara was startled as the boy would bestartled and, like the boy, she wanted to run quickly away. "I must thinkof something else and of other kinds of women or I'll get things terriblydistorted," she told herself. "If I think of her and women like her I'llgrow afraid of marriage, and I want to be married as soon as I can find theright man. It's the only thing I can do. What else is there a woman cando?"

　　As Clara and Kate walked about in the evening, they talked continually ofthe new position Kate believed women were on the point of achieving in theworld. The woman who was so essentially a man wanted to talk of marriageand to condemn it, but continually fought the impulse in herself. She knewthat were she to let herself go she would say many things that, while theymight be true enough as regards herself, would not necessarily be true ofClara. "Because I do not want to live with a man or be his wife is not verygood proof that the institution is wrong. It may be that I want to keepClara for myself. I think more of her than of any one else I've ever met.How can I think straight about her marrying some man and becoming dulled tothe things that mean most to me?" she asked herself. One evening, when thewomen were walking from Kate's apartment to the Woodburn house, they wereaccosted by two men who wanted to walk with them. There was a small parknearby and Kate led the men to it. "Come," she said, "we won't walk withyou, but you may sit with us here on a bench." The men sat down beside themand the older one, a man with a small black mustache, made some remarkabout the fineness of the night. The younger man who sat beside Claralooked at her and laughed. Kate at once got down to business. "Well, youwanted to walk with us: what for?" she asked sharply. She explained whatthey had been doing. "We were walking and talking of women and what theywere to do with their lives," she explained. "We were expressing opinions,you see. I don't say either of us had said anything that was very wise, butwe were having a good time and trying to learn something from each other.Now what have you to say to us? You interrupted our talk and wanted to walkwith us: what for? You wanted to be in our company: now tell us what you'vegot to contribute. You can't just come and walk with us like dumb things.What have you got to offer that you think will make it worth while for usto break up our conversation with each other and spend the time talkingwith you?"

　　The older man, he of the mustache, turned to look at Kate, then got up fromthe bench. He walked a little away and then turned and made a sign with hishand to his companion. "Come on," he said, "let's get out of here. We'rewasting our time. It's a cold trail. They're a couple of highbrows. Comeon, let's be on our way."

　　The two women again walked along the street. Kate could not help feelingsomewhat proud of the way in which she had disposed of the men. She talkedof it until they got to the door of the Woodburn house, and, as she wentaway along the street Clara thought she swaggered a little. She stood bythe door and watched her friend until she had disappeared around a corner.A flash of doubt of the infallibility of Kate's method with men crossed hermind. She remembered suddenly the soft brown eyes of the younger of the twomen in the park and wondered what was back of the eyes. Perhaps after all,had she been alone with him, the man might have had something to say quiteas much to the point as the things she and Kate had been saying to eachother. "Kate made the men look like fools, but after all she wasn't veryfair," she thought as she went into the house.

　　* * * * *Clara was in Bidwell for a month before she realized what a change hadtaken place in the life of her home town. On the farm things went on verymuch as always, except that her father was very seldom there. He had gonedeeply into the project of manufacturing and selling corn-cutting machineswith Steve Hunter, and attended to much of the selling of the output of thefactory. Almost every month he went on trips to cities of the West. Evenwhen he was in Bidwell, he had got into the habit of staying at the townhotel for the night. "It's too much trouble to be always running back andforth," he explained to Jim Priest, whom he had put in charge of the farmwork. He swaggered before the old man who for so many years had been almostlike a partner in his smaller activities. "Well, I wouldn't like to haveanything said, but I think it just as well to have an eye on what's goingon," he declared. "Steve's all right, but business is business. We'redealing in big affairs, he and I. I don't say he would try to get the bestof me; I'm just telling you that in the future I'll have to be in town mostof the time and can't think of things out here. You look out for the farm.Don't bother me with details. You just tell me about it when there is anybuying or selling to do."

　　Clara arrived in Bidwell in the early afternoon of a warm day in June. Thehill country through which her train came into town was in the full flushof its summer beauty. In the little patches of level land between the hillsgrain was ripening in the fields. Along the streets of the tiny towns andon dusty country roads farmers in overalls stood up in their wagons andscolded at the horses, rearing and prancing in half pretended fright of thepassing train. In the forests on the hillsides the open places among thetrees looked cool and enticing. Clara put her cheek against the car windowand imagined herself wandering in cool forests with a lover. She forgotthe words of Kate Chanceller in regard to the independent future of women.It was, she thought vaguely, a thing to be thought about only after somemore immediate problem was solved. Just what the problem was she didn'tdefinitely know, but she did know that it concerned some close warm contactwith life that she had as yet been unable to make. When she closed hereyes, strong warm hands seemed to come out of nothingness and touch herflushed cheeks. The fingers of the hands were strong like the branches oftrees. They touched with the firmness and gentleness of the branches oftrees nodding in a summer breeze.

　　Clara sat up stiffly in her seat and when the train stopped at Bidwell gotoff and went to her waiting father with a firm, business-like air. Comingout of the land of dreams, she took on something of the determined airof Kate Chanceller. She stared at her father and an onlooker might havethought them two strangers, meeting for the purpose of discussing somebusiness arrangement. A flavor of something like suspicion hung over them.They got into Tom's buggy, and as Main Street was torn up for the purposeof laying a brick pavement and digging a new sewer, they drove by aroundabout way through residence streets until they got into Medina Road.Clara looked at her father and felt suddenly very alert and on her guard.It seemed to her that she was far removed from the green, unsophisticatedgirl who had so often walked in Bidwell's streets; that her mind and spirithad expanded tremendously in the three years she had been away; and shewondered if her father would realize the change in her. Either one of tworeactions on his part might, she felt, make her happy. The man might turnsuddenly and taking her hand receive her into fellowship, or he mightreceive her as a woman and his daughter by kissing her.

　　He did neither. They drove in silence through the town and passed overa small bridge and into the road that led to the farm. Tom was curiousabout his daughter and a little uncomfortable. Ever since the eveningon the porch of the farmhouse, when he had accused her of some unnamedrelationship with John May, he had felt guilty in her presence but hadsucceeded in transferring the notion of guilt to her. While she was awayat school he had been comfortable. Sometimes he did not think of her fora month at a time. Now she had written that she did not intend to go back.She had not asked his advice, but had said positively that she was cominghome to stay. He wondered what was up. Had she got into another affair witha man? He wanted to ask, had intended to ask, but in her presence foundthat the words he had intended to say would not come to his lips. Aftera long silence Clara began to ask questions about the farm, the men whoworked there, her aunt's health, the usual home-coming questions. Herfather answered with generalities. "They're all right," he said, "every oneand everything's all right."

　　The road began to lift out of the valley in which the town lay, and Tomstopped the horse and pointing with the whip talked of the town. He wasrelieved to have the silence broken, and decided not to say anything aboutthe letter announcing the end of her school life. "You see there," he said,pointing to where the wall of a new brick factory arose above the treesthat grew beside the river. "That's a new factory we're building. We'regoing to make corn-cutting machines there. The old factory's already toosmall. We've sold it to a new company that's going to manufacture bicycles.Steve Hunter and I sold it. We got twice what we paid for it. When thebicycle factory's started, he and I'll own the control in that too. I tellyou the town's on the boom."

　　Tom boasted of his new position in the town and Clara turned and lookedsharply at him and then looked quickly away. He was annoyed by the actionand a flush of anger came to his cheeks. A side of his character hisdaughter had never seen before came to the surface. When he was a simplefarmer he had been too shrewd to attempt to play the aristocrat with hisfarm hands, but often, as he went about the barns and as he drove alongcountry roads and saw men at work in his fields, he had felt like a princein the presence of his vassals. Now he talked like a prince. It was thatthat had startled Clara. There was about him an indefinable air of princelyprosperity. When she turned to look at him she noticed for the first timehow much his person had also changed. Like Steve Hunter he was beginningto grow fat. The lean hardness of his cheeks had gone, his jaws seemedheavier, even his hands had changed their color. He wore a diamond ring onthe left hand and it glistened in the sunlight. "Things have changed," hedeclared, still pointing at the town. "Do you want to know who changed it?Well, I had more to do with it than any one else. Steve thinks he did itall, but he didn't. I'm the man who has done the most. He put through theplant-setting machine company, but that was a failure. When you come rightdown to it, things would have gone to pieces again if I hadn't gone to JohnClark and talked and bluffed him into giving us money when we wanted it. Ihad most to do with finding the big market for our corn-cutters, too. Stevelied to me and said he had 'em all sold for a year. He didn't have any soldat all."

　　Tom struck the horse with the whip and drove rapidly along the road. Evenwhen the climb became difficult he would not let the horse walk, but keptcracking the whip over his back. "I'm a different man than I was when youwent away," he declared. "You might as well know it, I'm the big man inthis town. It comes pretty near being my town when you come right down toit. I'm going to take care of every one in Bidwell and give every one achance to make money, but it's my town now pretty near and you might aswell know it."

　　Embarrassed by his own words, Tom talked to cover his embarrassment.Something he wanted very much to say got itself said. "I'm glad you wentto school and fitted yourself to be a lady," he began. "I want you shouldmarry pretty soon now. I don't know whether you met any one at school thereor not. If you did and he's all right, it's all right with me. I don'twant you should marry an ordinary man, but a smart one, an educated man, agentleman. We Butterworths are going to be bigger and bigger people here.If you get married to a good man, a smart one, I'll build a house for you;not just a little house but a big place, the biggest place Bidwell everseen." They came to the farm and Tom stopped the buggy in the road. Heshouted to a man in the barnyard who came running for her bags. When shehad got out of the buggy he immediately turned the horse about and droverapidly away. Her aunt, a large, moist woman, met her on the steps leadingto the front door, and embraced her warmly. The words her father had justspoken ran a riotous course through Clara's brain. She realized that fora year she had been thinking of marriage, had been wanting some man toapproach and talk of marriage, but she had not thought of the matter in theway her father had put it. The man had spoken of her as though she were apossession of his that must be disposed of. He had a personal interest inher marriage. It was in someway not a private matter, but a family affair.It was her father's idea, she gathered, that she was to go into marriageto strengthen what he called his position in the community, to help himbe some vague thing he called a big man. She wondered if he had some onein mind and could not avoid being a little curious as to who it could be.It had never occurred to her that her marriage could mean anything to herfather beyond the natural desire of the parent that his child make a happymarriage. She began to grow angry at the thought of the way in which herfather had approached the subject, but was still curious to know whetherhe had gone so far as to have some one in mind for the role of husband,and thought she would try to find out from her aunt. The strange farm handcame into the house with her bags and she followed him upstairs to what hadalways been her own room. Her aunt came puffing at her heels. The farm handwent away and she began to unpack, while the older woman, her face veryred, sat on the edge of the bed. "You ain't been getting engaged to a mandown there where you been to school, have you, Clara?" she asked.

　　Clara looked at her aunt and blushed; then became suddenly and furiouslyangry. Dropping the bag she had opened to the floor, she ran out of theroom. At the door she stopped and turned on the surprised and startledwoman. "No, I haven't," she declared furiously. "It's nobody's businesswhether I have or not. I went to school for an education. I didn't go toget me a man. If that's what you sent me for, why didn't you say so?"

　　Clara hurried out of the house and into the barnyard. She went into allof the barns, but there were no men about. Even the strange farm hand whohad carried her bags into the house had disappeared, and the stalls inthe horse and cattle barns were empty. Then she went into the orchard andclimbing a fence went through a meadow and into the wood to which she hadalways fled, when as a girl on the farm she was troubled or angry. Fora long time she sat on a log beneath a tree and tried to think her waythrough the new idea of marriage she had got from her father's words. Shewas still angry and told herself that she would leave home, would go tosome city and get work. She thought of Kate Chanceller who intended to bea doctor, and tried to picture herself attempting something of the kind.It would take money for study. She tried to imagine herself talking to herfather about the matter and the thought made her smile. Again she wonderedif he had any definite person in mind as her husband, and who it couldbe. She tried to check off her father's acquaintances among the young menof Bidwell. "It must be some new man who has come here, some one havingsomething to do with one of the factories," she thought.

　　After sitting on the log for a long time, Clara got up and walked underthe trees. The imaginary man, suggested to her mind by her father's words,became every moment more and more a reality. Before her eyes danced thelaughing eyes of the young man who for a moment had lingered beside herwhile Kate Chanceller talked to his companion that evening when they hadbeen challenged on the streets of Columbus. She remembered the young schoolteacher, who had held her in his arms through a long Sunday afternoon, andthe day when, as an awakening maiden, she had heard Jim Priest talking tothe laborers in the barn about the sap that ran up the tree. The afternoonslipped away and the shadows of the trees lengthened. On such a day andalone there in the quiet wood, it was impossible for her to remain in theangry mood in which she had left the house. Over her father's farm broodedthe passionate fulfillment of summer. Before her, seen through the trees,lay yellow wheat fields, ripe for the cutting; insects sang and danced inthe air about her head; a soft wind blew and made a gentle singing noisein the tops of the trees; at her back among the trees a squirrel chattered;and two calves came along a woodland path and stood for a long time staringat her with their large gentle eyes. She arose and went out of the wood,crossed a falling meadow and came to a rail fence surrounding a corn field.Jim Priest was cultivating corn and when he saw her left his horses andcame to her. He took both her hands in his and pumped her arms up anddown. "Well, Lord A'mighty, I'm glad to see you," he said heartily. "LordA'mighty, I'm glad to see you." The old farm hand pulled a long blade ofgrass out of the ground beneath the fence and leaning against the top railbegan to chew it. He asked Clara the same question her aunt had asked, buthis asking did not annoy her. She laughed and shook her head. "No, Jim,"she said, "I seem to have made a failure of going away to school. I didn'tget me a man. No one asked me, you see."

　　Both the woman and the old man became silent. Over the tops of the youngcorn they could see down the hillside into the distant town. Clara wonderedif the man she was to marry was there. The idea of a marriage with herhad perhaps been suggested to his mind also. Her father, she decided, wascapable of that. He was evidently ready to go to any length to see hersafely married. She wondered why. When Jim Priest began to talk, strivingto explain his question, his words fitted oddly into the thoughts she washaving in regard to herself. "Now about marriage," he began, "you see now,I never done it. I didn't get married at all. I don't know why. I wanted toand I didn't. I was afraid to ask, maybe. I guess if you do it you're sorryyou did and if you don't you're sorry you didn't."

　　Jim went back to his team, and Clara stood by the fence and watched himgo down the long field and turn to come back along another of the pathsbetween the corn rows. When the horses came to where she stood, he stoppedagain and looked at her. "I guess you'll get married pretty soon now,"he said. The horses started on again and he held the cultivating machinewith one hand and looked back over his shoulder at her. "You're one of themarrying kind," he called. "You ain't like me. You don't just think aboutthings. You do 'em. You'll be getting yourself married before very long.You are one of the kind that does."