Complete Works of Sherwood Anderson

by Sherwood Anderson

  Henry ran against the fence full tilt, then he ran again. The board had begun to give a little. It began to creak. The girls on their side knew what was going on and all the boys were gathered around. Tar was so jealous of Henry that it made him ache inside.

  Bang, Henry’s head went against the fence and then he drew back and, bang, it went again. He said it didn’t hurt at all. Maybe he lied, still his head must have been tough. Other boys went up to feel of it. There wasn’t any bump raised at all.

  And then the board gave way. It was a wide board and Henry had knocked it right out of the fence. You could have crawled right through to the girls’ side.

  Afterwards when they were all back in the room the superintendent of the school came to the door of the room in which both Tar and Henry sat. He, the superintendent, was a large man with a black beard and he admired Tar. All the older Mooreheads, John, Margaret and Tar, had a record for being smart and that is what a man like a superintendent [“admires].

  “Another one of Mary Moorehead’s children. And you jumped a grade. Well, you’re a smart lot.”

  The whole school room had heard him say that. It put a boy in bad. Why didn’t the man keep his mouth shut?

  He, the superintendent, was always lending books to John and Margaret. He told all three of the older Moorehead children to come to his house anytime and get any book they wanted.

  It was fun to read books all right. Rob Roy, Robinson Crusoe, The Swiss Family Robinson. Margaret read the Elsie Books but she did not get them from the superintendent. A dark pale woman who clerked in the post office started lending them to her. They made her cry but she liked it. Girls like nothing better than crying. In the Elsie Books a girl, about Margaret’s age, was sitting at a piano. Her mother was dead and she was afraid her papa was going to marry another woman, an adventuress, who was sitting right in the room. She, the adventuress, was the kind of woman who would make a fuss over a little girl, kiss her and pet her when her father was around, and then maybe hit her a clip over the head when her papa wasn’t looking, that is to say after she’d married the papa.

  Margaret read that part of one of the Elsie Books to Tar. She just had to read it to someone. “It was so full of feeling,” she said. She cried when she read it.

  Books are all right but it’s better not to let other boys know you like them. It’s all right to be smart but when the superintendent of the school gives you away, right before everyone, what fun is there in that?

  That day when Henry Fulton butted the board out of the fence at the recess time the superintendent came to the door of the room with a whip in his hand and called Henry Fulton out. There was a dead silence in the room.

  Henry was going to get a beating and Tar was glad. At the same time he wasn’t glad.

  What would happen would be that Henry would walk right out and take it as cool as you please.

  He would get a lot of credit he did not deserve. If Tar’s head had been made like that he could have butted a board out of the fence too. If they would whip a boy for being smart, for having his lessons so he could reel them right off, he’d get as many lickings as any boy in school.

  In the school room the woman teacher was silent, all the children were silent while Henry got up and went to the door. He made a loud clattering sound with his feet.

  Tar could not help hating him because he was so brave. He wanted to lean over to the boy who sat in the next seat and ask a question. “Do you suppose...?”

  What Tar wanted to ask the boy was rather hard to put into words. There was a hypothetical question to be asked. “If you were a boy, born with a thick head and could knock boards out of fences and if the superintendent found you out (probably because some girl told ) and you were going to be whipped and were in a hall alone with the superintendent, would the same kind of nerve that led you not to let on it hurt your head to the other boys when you butted a fence, would the same kind of nerve you had then lead you to butt the superintendent?”

  Standing up and just taking a licking without crying wasn’t anything. Even Tar could do that, maybe.

  Now Tar had got himself into one of his thinking times, one of his questioning moods. One of the reasons it was fun to read books was that while you were reading, if the book was any good and had any good exciting places in it, you did not think or ask questions while you were reading. At other times — oh well.

  Tar now was in one of his bad times. What he did when he was in such times was to make himself do, in imagination, what maybe he never would do if he had the chance. Then sometimes he was betrayed into telling others what he had imagined as a fact. That was all right too but nearly every time someone caught him. It was the kind of thing Tar’s father was always doing but his mother did not do it. That was why nearly everyone respected his mother so much while they liked his father and did not respect him hardly at all. Even Tar knew the difference.

  Tar wanted to be like his mother but had a secret fear he was growing more like his father all the time. It made him sick inside to realize it sometimes and still he could not help being as he was.

  He was doing the thing now. Instead of Henry Fulton, he, Tar Moorehead, had just marched out of the room. He was not born to be a butter, try as hard as he might, he never could knock a board out of a fence with his head but here he was pretending he could.

  He had in fancy just been marched out of the school room and was alone with the superintendent in a hall where the children hung up their hats and coats.

  There was a stairway leading down. Tar’s room was on the second floor.

  The superintendent went along as cool as you please. It was all [a] part of the day’s work with him. You caught a boy doing something and whipped him. If he cried all right. If he did not cry, was one of the stubborn kind that would not cry, you just hit him a few extra clips for good luck and let him go. What else could you do?

  There was a place right at the head of the stairs, an open space. That was where the superintendent did the whipping.

  All right for Henry Fulton but what about Tar?

  When he, Tar, was out there, in fancy, what a difference. What he did was to walk along, just as Henry would have done, but he was thinking and planning. Here’s where smartness comes in. If you’ve got a thick head that will knock boards out of fences you get credit all right but you can’t think.

  Tar was thinking about the time when the superintendent went and called the attention of the whole room to his Moorehead smartness. Now was the time to get even.

  The superintendent wouldn’t be expecting nothing at all, not from a Moorehead. He would be thinking, because they were smart, they were a lot of sissies. Well, they weren’t. Maybe Margaret was one but John wasn’t. You ought to see him clip Elmer Cowley on the chin.

  If you can’t butt fences that doesn’t mean you can’t butt people. People are pretty soft, right in the middle. What made Napoleon Bonaparte such a great man, Dick said, was that he was always doing what no one expected.

  What Tar did, in fancy, was to walk along before the superintendent right to that place at the head of the stairs. He had got a little ahead, just enough to give him a flying start, and then he turned. He used just the technique Henry used on fences. Well, he had watched often enough. He knew how it was done.

  He took a flying start and aimed right for the soft place in the superintendent’s middle and he hit it too.

  He knocked the superintendent down a flight of stairs. It made a racket. People, women teachers and scholars, came running into the hall from all the rooms. Tar was trembling all over. Imaginative people, when they do anything like that, always tremble afterward.

  Tar was trembling as he sat in the school room, having done nothing. When he got through thinking a thing like that out he was trembling so that when he tried to write something on a slate he couldn’t. His hand trembled so he could hardly hold a pencil. If anyone wanted to know why he was so sick that time Dick came home drunk there it was. If you’re made that way you are.r />
  Henry Fulton had come back into the room as cool as you please. Of course all the others were looking at him.

  What had he done? He had taken a licking without crying. People thought he was brave.

  Had he knocked a superintendent down a flight of stairs as Tar had? Had he used his brains? What was the good having a head that was good for butting boards out of fences when you didn’t know enough to butt the right thing at the right time?

  CHAPTER VII

  WHAT WAS REALLY hardest for Tar, the bitterest thing of all to face, was that a fellow like himself hardly ever worked any of his fine schemes out into facts. Tar did once.

  He was coming home from school and Robert was with him. It was spring and there was a flood. Over by the Fulton house the creek was full and was tearing under the bridge that stood right near the house.

  Tar had not wanted to go home that way but Robert was with him. You can’t be always explaining.

  The two boys went along the street down through the little valley that led up to the part of the town where they lived and there was Henry Fulton with two other boys, Tar did not know, standing on the bridge and throwing sticks into the creek.

  They threw them in on the upside and then ran across the bridge to see them shoot out. Maybe, that time, Henry never intended to take after Tar and show him up for a coward.

  Who knows what anyone thinks, what they intend? How can you tell?

  What Tar did was to walk along with Robert as though there wasn’t any such person as Henry. Robert was talking and chattering away. One of the boys threw a large stick into the creek and it went bounding under the bridge. Suddenly all three of the boys turned and looked at Tar and Robert. Robert was all for joining in the fun, getting some sticks and throwing them in.

  Tar was in one of his bad times again. If you are the kind that has such times you are always thinking— “Now so and so is going to do so and so.” Maybe they aren’t at all. How do you know? If you are that kind what you think people are going to do is just as bad as what they do. Henry, when he saw Tar alone, was always putting down his head, squinting up his eyes and taking after him. Tar ran like a scared cat and then Henry stopped running and laughed. Everyone who saw it laughed. He couldn’t catch Tar running and knew he couldn’t.

  At the edge of the bridge Tar stopped. The other boys were not looking and Robert wasn’t paying any attention but Henry was looking. What funny eyes he had. He was leaning against the railing of the bridge.

  The two boys stood looking at each other. What a situation! Tar was then as he was all through his life. Let him alone, let him think and have fancies and he could work you out a perfect scheme for anything. That’s what later made him able to tell stories. When you write or tell stories you can make things come out just fine. What do you suppose Dick would have done if he had been compelled to stay around where General Grant was after the Civil War? It would have crabbed his style something awful.

  A writer is all right writing and a story teller is all right telling stories but what if you put him in a position where he has to act? Such a person is always doing either the right thing at the wrong time or the wrong thing at the right time.

  Maybe, that time, Henry Fulton did not intend to take after Tar and show him up for a coward before Robert and the two strange boys. Maybe Henry wasn’t thinking of anything but throwing sticks in the creek.

  How was Tar to know? He was thinking, “Now he is going to put down his head and butt me. If I run Robert and the others will begin to laugh. Like as not Robert will go home and tell John.” Robert was a pretty good sport, for a kid, but you can’t expect a young kid to use good judgment. You can’t expect him to know when to keep his mouth shut.

  Tar moved a few steps across the bridge toward Henry. Pshaw, now he was trembling again. What was the matter with him? What was he going to do?

  It all came of being smart, of thinking you are going to do something when you aren’t. At school Tar had been thinking about that soft spot in people’s middle, about butting the superintendent down [the] stairs — a thing he would never have the nerve to try to do really — and now.

  Was he going to try to butt the champion butter? What a foolish notion. Tar almost felt like laughing at himself. Of course Henry did not expect any such thing. He would have had to be pretty smart to ever expect any boy to butt him and he wasn’t smart. That wasn’t his line.

  Another step, another and another. Tar was in the middle of the bridge. He made a quick dive and — great Scott — he had done it. He had butted Henry, had hit him right in the middle.

  The worse time came when it was done. What happened was that Henry, expecting nothing, was caught off guard. He doubled up and went right through the bridge railing into the creek. He was on the up[stream] side of the bridge and at once his body disappeared. Whether he could swim or not Tar did not know. As there was a flood the creek was fairly raging along.

  As it turned out it was one of the few times in his life Tar ever did anything that really turned out pretty well. At first he just stood trembling. All the other boys were struck dumb with amazement and did not do a thing. Henry had disappeared. It may have been that only a second passed before he appeared again but it seemed to Tar hours. He ran to the railing of the bridge as did all the others. One of the strange boys ran toward the Fulton house to tell Henry’s mother. In another minute or two Henry’s dead body would be dragged ashore. Henry’s mother would be leaning over it and crying.

  What would Tar do? Of course the town marshal would come for him.

  After all it might not be so bad — if he kept his nerve and did not run or cry. He would be led right up through town, everyone looking, everyone pointing. “That’s Tar Moorehead, the murderer. He murdered Henry Fulton, the champion butter. He butted him to his death.”

  It would not be half bad if it weren’t for the hanging in the end.

  What happened was that Henry got out of the creek by himself. It wasn’t nearly as deep as it looked and he could swim.

  The whole thing would have turned out fine for Tar if he hadn’t been so trembly. Instead of staying where the two strange boys could see how cool and collected he was he had to [leave].

  He did not even want to be with Robert, not for a time. “You cut on home and you keep your mouth shut,” he managed to say. He hoped Robert would not know how upset he was, would not notice how his voice trembled.

  Tar went over by the waterworks pond and sat under a tree. He was disgusted with himself. Henry Fulton had a scared look on his face when he crawled out of the creek and Tar thought maybe now Henry would be scared of him all the time. For just a second Henry had stood on the bank of the creek looking at Tar. [Tar] wasn’t crying [anyway]. What Henry’s eyes were saying was this— “You’re crazy. Sure I’m afraid of you. You’re crazy. A fellow can’t tell what you’ll do.”

  “It was all right and a gain,” Tar thought. Ever since he had been going to school he had been planning something and now he had done it.

  If you are a boy and read aren’t you always reading about such things? There is a bully in the school and a smart boy, who is pale and not very well. One day, to everyone’s surprise, he licks the bully of the school. What he has is a thing called “moral courage.” It’s like “suction.” That’s what carries him through. He uses his head, learns to box. When the two boys meet it is a contest between brains and brawn and brains win.

  That was all right, Tar thought. It was just the sort of thing he was always planning to do and never doing.

  What it came down to was this — if he had planned in advance to out-butt Henry Fulton, if he had practised up, say on Robert or Elmer Cowley, and then if, in front of everyone in school, during the recess time, he had walked right up to Henry and had challenged him....

  What was the use? Tar stayed over by the waterworks pond a while, until his nerves got less trembly, and then went home. Robert was there and so was John and Robert had told John.

  It was pretty fi
ne. Tar was a hero after all. John made a fuss over him and wanted him to tell about it and he did.

  When he told he was all right. Well, he could put in certain flourishes. The thoughts he had been having when he was alone went away. He could make it sound pretty good.

  After all the story would get around. If Henry Fulton thought he, Tar, was a little crazy and a desperate fellow he would keep his hands off. Older boys who did not know what Tar knew would think he, Tar, had planned it all out and had done it all with cool determination. Bigger boys would begin to want to be his friend. That’s the way boys are.

  It was pretty good after all, Tar thought, and he began to strut a little. Not too much. He had to be careful now. John was pretty foxy. If he put it on too thick he would be found out.

  Doing a thing is one thing and telling about it is another.

  At the telling Tar thought he wasn’t so bad.

  Anyway, when you tell about it you can use your brains. The trouble with Dick Moorehead, Tar had even then begun to suspect, was that when he told his stories he laid it on a little too thick. Better let others do most of the talking. If others lay it on a little thick, as Robert was now doing, shrug your shoulders. Deny it. Pretend not to want any credit. “Ah, I never did nothing.”

  That was the way. Tar had now got ground under his feet. The story of what had happened at the bridge, when he had done something without thinking, in a crazy kind of way, had begun to re-shape itself in his fancy. If he could keep the truth down for a time it would be all right. He could reconstruct the whole thing to his liking.

  There were only John and his mother to fear. If his mother heard of the story she might smile one of her smiles.

  Tar thought he would be all right if only Robert would keep still. If Robert would not get too excited and just because, temporarily, he thought Tar a hero, would not talk too much.