Winesburg, Ohio
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barrels filled with torn paper and broken bottles
above which flew a black swarm of flies. Once when
she was alone, and after watching a prolonged and
ineffectual outburst on the part of the baker, Eliza-
beth Willard put her head down on her long white
hands and wept. After that she did not look along
the alleyway any more, but tried to forget the con-
test between the bearded man and the cat. It seemed
like a rehearsal of her own life, terrible in its
vividness.
In the evening when the son sat in the room with
his mother, the silence made them both feel awk-
ward. Darkness came on and the evening train came
in at the station. In the street below feet tramped
up and down upon a board sidewalk. In the station
yard, after the evening train had gone, there was a
heavy silence. Perhaps Skinner Leason, the express
agent, moved a truck the length of the station plat-
form. Over on Main Street sounded a man's voice,
laughing. The door of the express office banged.
George Willard arose and crossing the room fumbled
for the doorknob. Sometimes he knocked against a
chair, making it scrape along the floor. By the win-
dow sat the sick woman, perfectly still, listless. Her
long hands, white and bloodless, could be seen
drooping over the ends of the arms of the chair. "I
think you had better be out among the boys. You
are too much indoors," she said, striving to relieve
the embarrassment of the departure. "I thought I
would take a walk," replied George Willard, who
felt awkward and confused.
One evening in July, when the transient guests
who made the New Willard House their temporary
Home had become scarce, and the hallways, lighted
only by kerosene lamps turned low, were plunged
in gloom, Elizabeth Willard had an adventure. She
had been ill in bed for several days and her son had
not come to visit her. She was alarmed. The feeble
blaze of life that remained in her body was blown
into a flame by her anxiety and she crept out of bed,
dressed and hurried along the hallway toward her
son's room, shaking with exaggerated fears. As she
went along she steadied herself with her hand,
slipped along the papered walls of the hall and
breathed with difficulty. The air whistled through
her teeth. As she hurried forward she thought how
foolish she was. "He is concerned with boyish af-
fairs," she told herself. "Perhaps he has now begun
to walk about in the evening with girls."
Elizabeth Willard had a dread of being seen by
guests in the hotel that had once belonged to her
father and the ownership of which still stood re-
corded in her name in the county courthouse. The
hotel was continually losing patronage because of its
shabbiness and she thought of herself as also shabby.
Her own room was in an obscure corner and when
she felt able to work she voluntarily worked among
the beds, preferring the labor that could be done
when the guests were abroad seeking trade among
the merchants of Winesburg.
By the door of her son's room the mother knelt
upon the floor and listened for some sound from
within. When she heard the boy moving about and
talking in low tones a smile came to her lips. George
Willard had a habit of talking aloud to himself and
to hear him doing so had always given his mother
a peculiar pleasure. The habit in him, she felt,
strengthened the secret bond that existed between
them. A thousand times she had whispered to her-
self of the matter. "He is groping about, trying to
find himself," she thought. "He is not a dull clod, all
words and smartness. Within him there is a secret
something that is striving to grow. It is the thing I
let be killed in myself."
In the darkness in the hallway by the door the
sick woman arose and started again toward her own
room. She was afraid that the door would open and
the boy come upon her. When she had reached a
safe distance and was about to turn a corner into a
second hallway she stopped and bracing herself
with her hands waited, thinking to shake off a
trembling fit of weakness that had come upon her.
The presence of the boy in the room had made her
happy. In her bed, during the long hours alone, the
little fears that had visited her had become giants.
Now they were all gone. "When I get back to my
room I shall sleep," she murmured gratefully.
But Elizabeth Willard was not to return to her bed
and to sleep. As she stood trembling in the darkness
the door of her son's room opened and the boy's
father, Tom Willard, stepped out. In the light that
steamed out at the door he stood with the knob in
his hand and talked. What he said infuriated the
woman.
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