Poor White: A Novel

by Sherwood Anderson

  BOOK TWO

  CHAPTER III

  Bidwell, Ohio, was an old town as the ages of towns go in the CentralWest, long before Hugh McVey, in his search for a place where he couldpenetrate the wall that shut him off from humanity, went there to liveand to try to work out his problem. It is a busy manufacturing town nowand has a population of nearly a hundred thousand people; but the timefor the telling of the story of its sudden and surprising growth has notyet come.

  From the beginning Bidwell has been a prosperous place. The town liesin the valley of a deep, rapid-flowing river that spreads out justabove the town, becomes for the time wide and shallow, and goes singingswiftly along over stones. South of the town the river not only spreadsout, but the hills recede. A wide flat valley stretches away to thenorth. In the days before the factories came the land immediately abouttown was cut up into small farms devoted to fruit and berry raising,and beyond the area of small farms lay larger tracts that were immenselyproductive and that raised huge crops of wheat, corn, and cabbage.

  When Hugh was a boy sleeping away his days in the grass beside hisfather's fishing shack by the Mississippi River, Bidwell had alreadyemerged out of the hardships of pioneer days. On the farms that lay inthe wide valley to the north the timber had been cut away and the stumpshad all been rooted out of the ground by a generation of men that hadpassed. The soil was easy to cultivate and had lost little of its virginfertility. Two railroads, the Lake Shore and Michigan Central--latera part of the great New York Central System--and a less importantcoal-carrying road, called the Wheeling and Lake Erie, ran through thetown. Twenty-five hundred people lived then in Bidwell. They were forthe most part descendants of the pioneers who had come into the countryby boat through the Great Lakes or by wagon roads over the mountainsfrom the States of New York and Pennsylvania.

  The town stood on a sloping incline running up from the river, and theLake Shore and Michigan Central Railroad had its station on the riverbank at the foot of Main Street. The Wheeling Station was a mile away tothe north. It was to be reached by going over a bridge and along a pikedroad that even then had begun to take on the semblance of a street. Adozen houses had been built facing Turner's Pike and between these wereberry fields and an occasional orchard planted to cherry, peach or appletrees. A hard path went down to the distant station beside the road,and in the evening this path, wandering along under the branches ofthe fruit trees that extended out over the farm fences, was a favoritewalking place for lovers.

  The small farms lying close about the town of Bidwell raised berriesthat brought top prices in the two cities, Cleveland and Pittsburgh,reached by its two railroads, and all of the people of the town whowere not engaged in one of the trades--in shoe making, carpentry, horseshoeing, house painting or the like--or who did not belong to the smallmerchant and professional classes, worked in summer on the land. Onsummer mornings, men, women and children went into the fields. In theearly spring when planting went on and all through late May, June andearly July when berries and fruit began to ripen, every one was rushedwith work and the streets of the town were deserted. Every one went tothe fields. Great hay wagons loaded with children, laughing girls, andsedate women set out from Main Street at dawn. Beside them walked tallboys, who pelted the girls with green apples and cherries from the treesalong the road, and men who went along behind smoking their morningpipes and talking of the prevailing prices of the products of theirfields. In the town after they had gone a Sabbath quiet prevailed. Themerchants and clerks loitered in the shade of the awnings before thedoors of the stores, and only their wives and the wives of the two orthree rich men in town came to buy and to disturb their discussions ofhorse racing, politics and religion.

  In the evening when the wagons came home, Bidwell awoke. The tired berrypickers walked home from the fields in the dust of the roads swingingtheir dinner pails. The wagons creaked at their heels, piled high withboxes of berries ready for shipment. In the stores after the eveningmeal crowds gathered. Old men lit their pipes and sat gossiping alongthe curbing at the edge of the sidewalks on Main Street; women withbaskets on their arms did the marketing for the next day's living;the young men put on stiff white collars and their Sunday clothes, andgirls, who all day had been crawling over the fields between the rowsof berries or pushing their way among the tangled masses of raspberrybushes, put on white dresses and walked up and down before the men.Friendships begun between boys and girls in the fields ripened intolove. Couples walked along residence streets under the trees and talkedwith subdued voices. They became silent and embarrassed. The bolderones kissed. The end of the berry picking season brought each year a newoutbreak of marriages to the town of Bidwell.

  In all the towns of mid-western America it was a time of waiting. Thecountry having been cleared and the Indians driven away into a vastdistant place spoken of vaguely as the West, the Civil War having beenfought and won, and there being no great national problems that touchedclosely their lives, the minds of men were turned in upon themselves.The soul and its destiny was spoken of openly on the streets. RobertIngersoll came to Bidwell to speak in Terry's Hall, and after he hadgone the question of the divinity of Christ for months occupied theminds of the citizens. The ministers preached sermons on the subjectand in the evening it was talked about in the stores. Every one hadsomething to say. Even Charley Mook, who dug ditches, who stuttered sothat not a half dozen people in town could understand him, expressed hisopinion.

  In all the great Mississippi Valley each town came to have a characterof its own, and the people who lived in the towns were to each otherlike members of a great family. The individual idiosyncrasies of eachmember of the great family stood forth. A kind of invisible roof beneathwhich every one lived spread itself over each town. Beneath the roofboys and girls were born, grew up, quarreled, fought, and formedfriendships with their fellows, were introduced into the mysteries oflove, married, and became the fathers and mothers of children, grew old,sickened, and died.

  Within the invisible circle and under the great roof every one knew hisneighbor and was known to him. Strangers did not come and go swiftly andmysteriously and there was no constant and confusing roar of machineryand of new projects afoot. For the moment mankind seemed about to taketime to try to understand itself.

  In Bidwell there was a man named Peter White who was a tailor and workedhard at his trade, but who once or twice a year got drunk and beat hiswife. He was arrested each time and had to pay a fine, but there was ageneral understanding of the impulse that led to the beating. Most ofthe women knowing the wife sympathized with Peter. "She is a noisy thingand her jaw is never still," the wife of Henry Teeters, the grocer, saidto her husband. "If he gets drunk it's only to forget he's married toher. Then he goes home to sleep it off and she begins jawing at him. Hestands it as long as he can. It takes a fist to shut up that woman. Ifhe strikes her it's the only thing he can do."

  Allie Mulberry the half-wit was one of the highlights of life in thetown. He lived with his mother in a tumble-down house at the edge oftown on Medina Road. Beside being a half-wit he had something the matterwith his legs. They were trembling and weak and he could only movethem with great difficulty. On summer afternoons when the streets weredeserted, he hobbled along Main Street with his lower jaw hanging down.Allie carried a large club, partly for the support of his weak legs andpartly to scare off dogs and mischievous boys. He liked to sit in theshade with his back against a building and whittle, and he liked to benear people and have his talent as a whittler appreciated. He made fansout of pieces of pine, long chains of wooden beads, and he once achieveda singular mechanical triumph that won him wide renown. He made a shipthat would float in a beer bottle half filled with water and laid onits side. The ship had sails and three tiny wooden sailors who stoodat attention with their hands to their caps in salute. After it wasconstructed and put into the bottle it was too large to be taken outthrough the neck. How Allie got it in no one ever knew. The clerks andmerchants who crowded about to watch him at work discussed the
matterfor days. It became a never-ending wonder among them. In the eveningthey spoke of the matter to the berry pickers who came into the stores,and in the eyes of the people of Bidwell Allie Mulberry became a hero.The bottle, half-filled with water and securely corked, was laid on acushion in the window of Hunter's Jewelry Store. As it floated about onits own little ocean crowds gathered to look at it. Over the bottlewas a sign with the words--"Carved by Allie Mulberry ofBidwell"--prominently displayed. Below these words a query had beenprinted. "How Did He Get It Into The Bottle?" was the question asked.The bottle stayed in the window for months and merchants took thetraveling men who visited them, to see it. Then they escorted theirguests to where Allie, with his back against the wall of a building andhis club beside him, was at work on some new creation of the whittler'sart. The travelers were impressed and told the tale abroad. Allie's famespread to other towns. "He has a good brain," the citizen of Bidwellsaid, shaking his head. "He don't appear to know very much, but lookwhat he does! He must be carrying all sorts of notions around inside ofhis head."

  Jane Orange, widow of a lawyer, and with the single exception of ThomasButterworth, a farmer who owned over a thousand acres of land and livedwith his daughter on a farm a mile south of town, the richest personin town, was known to every one in Bidwell, but was not liked. She wascalled stingy and it was said that she and her husband had cheated everyone with whom they had dealings in order to get their start in life. Thetown ached for the privilege of doing what they called "bringing themdown a peg." Jane's husband had once been the Bidwell town attorney andlater had charge of the settlement of an estate belonging to Ed Lucas, afarmer who died leaving two hundred acres of land and two daughters. Thefarmer's daughters, every one said, "came out at the small end of thehorn," and John Orange began to grow rich. It was said he was worthfifty thousand dollars. All during the latter part of his life thelawyer went to the city of Cleveland on business every week, and when hewas at home and even in the hottest weather he went about dressed ina long black coat. When she went to the stores to buy supplies forher house Jane Orange was watched closely by the merchants. She wassuspected of carrying away small articles that could be slipped intothe pockets of her dress. One afternoon in Toddmore's grocery, when shethought no one was looking, she took a half dozen eggs out of a basketand looking quickly around to be sure she was unobserved, put them intoher dress pocket. Harry Toddmore, the grocer's son who had seen thetheft, said nothing, but went unobserved out at the back door. He gotthree or four clerks from other stores and they waited for Jane Orangeat a corner. When she came along they hurried out and Harry Toddmorefell against her. Throwing out his hand he struck the pocket containingthe eggs a quick, sharp blow. Jane Orange turned and hurried away towardhome, but as she half ran through Main Street clerks and merchants cameout of the stores, and from the assembled crowd a voice called attentionto the fact that the contents of the stolen eggs having run down theinside of her dress and over her stockings began to make a stream on thesidewalk. A pack of town dogs excited by the shouts of the crowd ran ather heels, barking and sniffing at the yellow stream that dripped fromher shoes.

  An old man with a long white beard came to Bidwell to live. He had beena carpet-bag Governor of a southern state in the reconstruction daysafter the Civil War and had made money. He bought a house on Turner'sPike close beside the river and spent his days puttering about in asmall garden. In the evening he came across the bridge into Main Streetand went to loaf in Birdie Spink's drug store. He talked with greatfrankness and candor of his life in the South during the terrible timewhen the country was trying to emerge from the black gloom of defeat,and brought to the Bidwell men a new point of view on their old enemies,the "Rebs."

  The old man--the name by which he had introduced himself in Bidwell wasthat of Judge Horace Hanby--believed in the manliness and honesty ofpurpose of the men he had for a time governed and who had fought along grim war with the North, with the New Englanders and sons of NewEnglanders from the West and Northwest. "They're all right," he saidwith a grin. "I cheated them and made some money, but I liked them. Oncea crowd of them came to my house and threatened to kill me and I toldthem that I did not blame them very much, so they let me alone." Thejudge, an ex-politician from the city of New York who had been involvedin some affair that made it uncomfortable for him to return to livein that city, grew prophetic and philosophic after he came to live inBidwell. In spite of the doubt every one felt concerning his past, hewas something of a scholar and a reader of books, and won respect by hisapparent wisdom. "Well, there's going to be a new war here," he said."It won't be like the Civil War, just shooting off guns and killingpeoples' bodies. At first it's going to be a war between individualsto see to what class a man must belong; then it is going to be a long,silent war between classes, between those who have and those who can'tget. It'll be the worst war of all."

  The talk of Judge Hanby, carried along and elaborated almost everyevening before a silent, attentive group in the drug store, began tohave an influence on the minds of Bidwell young men. At his suggestionseveral of the town boys, Cliff Bacon, Albert Small, Ed Prawl, and twoor three others, began to save money for the purpose of going east tocollege. Also at his suggestion Tom Butterworth the rich farmer senthis daughter away to school. The old man made many prophecies concerningwhat would happen in America. "I tell you, the country isn't going tostay as it is," he said earnestly. "In eastern towns the change hasalready come. Factories are being built and every one is going to workin the factories. It takes an old man like me to see how that changestheir lives. Some of the men stand at one bench and do one thing notonly for hours but for days and years. There are signs hung up sayingthey mustn't talk. Some of them make more money than they did before thefactories came, but I tell you it's like being in prison. What wouldyou say if I told you all America, all you fellows who talk so big aboutfreedom, are going to be put in a prison, eh?

  "And there's something else. In New York there are already a dozenmen who are worth a million dollars. Yes, sir, I tell you it's true, amillion dollars. What do you think of that, eh?"

  Judge Hanby grew excited and, inspired by the absorbed attention of hisaudience, talked of the sweep of events. In England, he explained, thecities were constantly growing larger, and already almost every oneeither worked in a factory or owned stock in a factory. "In New Englandit is getting the same way fast," he explained. "The same thing'llhappen here. Farming'll be done with tools. Almost everything now doneby hand'll be done by machinery. Some'll grow rich and some poor. Thething is to get educated, yes, sir, that's the thing, to get ready forwhat's coming. It's the only way. The younger generation has got to besharper and shrewder."

  The words of the old man, who had been in many places and had seen menand cities, were repeated in the streets of Bidwell. The blacksmith andthe wheelwright repeated his words when they stopped to exchange news oftheir affairs before the post-office. Ben Peeler, the carpenter, whohad been saving money to buy a house and a small farm to which hecould retire when he became too old to climb about on the framework ofbuildings, used the money instead to send his son to Cleveland to a newtechnical school. Steve Hunter, the son of Abraham Hunter the Bidwelljeweler, declared that he was going to get up with the times, and whenhe went into a factory, would go into the office, not into the shop. Hewent to Buffalo, New York, to attend a business college.

  The air of Bidwell began to stir with talk of new times. The evilthings said of the new life coming were soon forgotten. The youth andoptimistic spirit of the country led it to take hold of the hand of thegiant, industrialism, and lead him laughing into the land. The cry,"get on in the world," that ran all over America at that period and thatstill echoes in the pages of American newspapers and magazines, rang inthe streets of Bidwell.

  In the harness shop belonging to Joseph Wainsworth it one day struck anew note. The harness maker was a tradesman of the old school and wasvastly independent. He had learned his trade after five years' serviceas apprentice, and had spent an ad
ditional five years in going fromplace to place as a journeyman workman, and felt that he knew hisbusiness. Also he owned his shop and his home and had twelve hundreddollars in the bank. At noon one day when he was alone in the shop, TomButterworth came in and told him he had ordered four sets of farm workharness from a factory in Philadelphia. "I came in to ask if you'llrepair them if they get out of order," he said.

  Joe Wainsworth began to fumble with the tools on his bench. Then heturned to look the farmer in the eye and to do what he later spoke of tohis cronies as "laying down the law." "When the cheap things begin togo to pieces take them somewhere else to have them repaired," he saidsharply. He grew furiously angry. "Take the damn things to Philadelphiawhere you got 'em," he shouted at the back of the farmer who had turnedto go out of the shop.

  Joe Wainsworth was upset and thought about the incident all theafternoon. When farmer-customers came in and stood about to talk oftheir affairs he had nothing to say. He was a talkative man and hisapprentice, Will Sellinger, son of the Bidwell house painter, waspuzzled by his silence.

  When the boy and the man were alone in the shop, it was Joe Wainsworth'scustom to talk of his days as a journeyman workman when he had gone fromplace to place working at his trade. If a trace were being stitched or abridle fashioned, he told how the thing was done at a shop where he hadworked in the city of Boston and in another shop at Providence, RhodeIsland. Getting a piece of paper he made drawings illustrating thecuts of leather that were made in the other places and the methodsof stitching. He claimed to have worked out his own method for doingthings, and that his method was better than anything he had seen in allhis travels. To the men who came into the shop to loaf during winterafternoons he presented a smiling front and talked of their affairs, ofthe price of cabbage in Cleveland or the effect of a cold snap on thewinter wheat, but alone with the boy, he talked only of harness making."I don't say anything about it. What's the good bragging? Just the same,I could learn something to all the harness makers I've ever seen, andI've seen the best of them," he declared emphatically.

  During the afternoon, after he had heard of the four factory-made workharnesses brought into what he had always thought of as a trade thatbelonged to him by the rights of a first-class workman, Joe remainedsilent for two or three hours. He thought of the words of old JudgeHanby and the constant talk of the new times now coming. Turningsuddenly to his apprentice, who was puzzled by his long silence and whoknew nothing of the incident that had disturbed his employer, he brokeforth into words. He was defiant and expressed his defiance. "Well,then, let 'em go to Philadelphia, let 'em go any damn placethey please," he growled, and then, as though his own words hadre-established his self-respect, he straightened his shoulders andglared at the puzzled and alarmed boy. "I know my trade and do not haveto bow down to any man," he declared. He expressed the old tradesman'sfaith in his craft and the rights it gave the craftsman. "Learn yourtrade. Don't listen to talk," he said earnestly. "The man who knows histrade is a man. He can tell every one to go to the devil."