Winesburg, Ohio
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some obscure disease had taken the fire out of her
figure. Listlessly she went about the disorderly old
hotel looking at the faded wall-paper and the ragged
carpets and, when she was able to be about, doing
the work of a chambermaid among beds soiled by
the slumbers of fat traveling men. Her husband,
Tom Willard, a slender, graceful man with square
shoulders, a quick military step, and a black mus-
tache trained to turn sharply up at the ends, tried
to put the wife out of his mind. The presence of the
tall ghostly figure, moving slowly through the halls,
he took as a reproach to himself. When he thought
of her he grew angry and swore. The hotel was un-
profitable and forever on the edge of failure and he
wished himself out of it. He thought of the old
house and the woman who lived there with him as
things defeated and done for. The hotel in which he
had begun life so hopefully was now a mere ghost
of what a hotel should be. As he went spruce and
Business-like through the streets of Winesburg, he
sometimes stopped and turned quickly about as
though fearing that the spirit of the hotel and of
the woman would follow him even into the streets.
"Damn such a life, damn it!" he sputtered aimlessly.
Tom Willard had a passion for village politics and
for years had been the leading Democrat in a
strongly Republican community. Some day, he told
himself, the fide of things political will turn in my
favor and the years of ineffectual service count big
in the bestowal of rewards. He dreamed of going to
Congress and even of becoming governor. Once
when a younger member of the party arose at a
political conference and began to boast of his faithful
service, Tom Willard grew white with fury. "Shut
up, you," he roared, glaring about. "What do you
know of service? What are you but a boy? Look at
what I've done here! I was a Democrat here in
Winesburg when it was a crime to be a Democrat.
In the old days they fairly hunted us with guns."
Between Elizabeth and her one son George there
was a deep unexpressed bond of sympathy, based
on a girlhood dream that had long ago died. In the
son's presence she was timid and reserved, but
sometimes while he hurried about town intent upon
his duties as a reporter, she went into his room and
closing the door knelt by a little desk, made of a
kitchen table, that sat near a window. In the room
by the desk she went through a ceremony that was
half a prayer, half a demand, addressed to the skies.
In the boyish figure she yearned to see something
half forgotten that had once been a part of herself re-
created. The prayer concerned that. "Even though I
die, I will in some way keep defeat from you," she
cried, and so deep was her determination that her
whole body shook. Her eyes glowed and she clenched
her fists. "If I am dead and see him becoming a
meaningless drab figure like myself, I will come
back," she declared. "I ask God now to give me that
privilege. I demand it. I will pay for it. God may
beat me with his fists. I will take any blow that may
befall if but this my boy be allowed to express some-
thing for us both." Pausing uncertainly, the woman
stared about the boy's room. "And do not let him
become smart and successful either," she added
vaguely.
The communion between George Willard and his
mother was outwardly a formal thing without mean-
ing. When she was ill and sat by the window in her
room he sometimes went in the evening to make
her a visit. They sat by a window that looked over
the roof of a small frame building into Main Street.
By turning their heads they could see through an-
other window, along an alleyway that ran behind
the Main Street stores and into the back door of
Abner Groff's bakery. Sometimes as they sat thus a
picture of village life presented itself to them. At the
back door of his shop appeared Abner Groff with a
stick or an empty milk bottle in his hand. For a long
time there was a feud between the baker and a grey
cat that belonged to Sylvester West, the druggist.
The boy and his mother saw the cat creep into the
door of the bakery and presently emerge followed
by the baker, who swore and waved his arms about.
The baker's eyes were small and red and his black
hair and beard were filled with flour dust. Some-
times he was so angry that, although the cat had
disappeared, he hurled sticks, bits of broken glass,
and even some of the tools of his trade about. Once
he broke a window at the back of Sinning's Hard-
ware Store. In the alley the grey&nb
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