Winesburg, Ohio
| 载入中... |
who talked to them.
Wing Biddlebaum became wholly inspired. For
once he forgot the hands. Slowly they stole forth
and lay upon George Willard's shoulders. Some-
thing new and bold came into the voice that talked.
"You must try to forget all you have learned," said
the old man. "You must begin to dream. From this
time on you must shut your ears to the roaring of
the voices."
Pausing in his speech, Wing Biddlebaum looked
long and earnestly at George Willard. His eyes
glowed. Again he raised the hands to caress the boy
and then a look of horror swept over his face.
With a convulsive movement of his body, Wing
Biddlebaum sprang to his feet and thrust his hands
deep into his trousers pockets. Tears came to his
eyes. "I must be getting along Home. I can talk no
more with you," he said nervously.
Without looking back, the old man had hurried
down the hillside and across a meadow, leaving
George Willard perplexed and frightened upon the
grassy slope. With a shiver of dread the boy arose
and went along the road toward town. "I'll not ask
him about his hands," he thought, touched by the
memory of the terror he had seen in the man's eyes.
"There's something wrong, but I don't want to
know what it is. His hands have something to do
with his fear of me and of everyone."
And George Willard was right. Let us look briefly
into the story of the hands. Perhaps our talking of
them will arouse the poet who will tell the hidden
wonder story of the influence for which the hands
were but fluttering pennants of promise.
In his youth Wing Biddlebaum had been a school
teacher in a town in Pennsylvania. He was not then
known as Wing Biddlebaum, but went by the less
euphonic name of Adolph Myers. As Adolph Myers
he was much loved by the boys of his school.
Adolph Myers was meant by nature to be a
teacher of youth. He was one of those rare, little-
understood men who rule by a power so gentle that
it passes as a lovable weakness. In their feeling for
the boys under their charge such men are not unlike
the finer sort of women in their love of men.
And yet that is but crudely stated. It needs the
poet there. With the boys of his school, Adolph
Myers had walked in the evening or had sat talking
until dusk upon the schoolhouse steps lost in a kind
of dream. Here and there went his hands, caressing
the shoulders of the boys, playing about the tousled
heads. As he talked his voice became soft and musi-
cal. There was a caress in that also. In a way the
voice and the hands, the stroking of the shoulders
and the touching of the hair were a part of the
schoolmaster's effort to carry a dream into the young
minds. By the caress that was in his fingers he ex-
pressed himself. He was one of those men in whom
the force that creates life is diffused, not centralized.
Under the caress of his hands doubt and disbelief
went out of the minds of the boys and they began
also to dream.
And then the tragedy. A half-witted boy of the
school became enamored of the young master. In
his bed at night he imagined unspeakable things and
in the morning went forth to tell his dreams as facts.
Strange, hideous accusations fell from his loose-
hung lips. Through the Pennsylvania town went a
shiver. Hidden, shadowy doubts that had been in
men's minds concerning Adolph Myers were galva-
nized into beliefs.
The tragedy did not linger. Trembling lads were
jerked out of bed and questioned. "He put his arms
about me," said one. "His fingers were always play-
ing in my hair," said another.
One afternoon a man of the town, Henry Brad-
ford, who kept a saloon, came to the schoolhouse
door. Calling Adolph Myers into the school yard he
began to beat him with his fists. As his hard knuck-
les beat down into the frightened face of the school-
master, his wrath became more and more terrible.
Screaming with dismay, the children ran here and
there like disturbed insects. "I'll teach you to put
your hands on my boy, you beast," roared the sa-
loon keeper, who, tired of beating the master, had
begun to kick him about the yard.
Adolph Myers was driven from the Pennsylvania
town in the night. With lanterns in their hands a
dozen men came to the door of the house where he
lived alone and commanded that he dress and come
forth. It was raining and one of the men had a rope
in his hands. They had intended to hang the school-
master, but something in his figure, so small, white,
and pitiful, touched their hearts and they let him
escape. As he ran away into the darkness they re-
pented of their weakness and ran after him, swear-
ing and throwi
PrevPage [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] ... NextPage >>
推荐阅读
载入中...
相关阅读
No Correlative 小说