Complete Works of Sherwood Anderson

by Sherwood Anderson

  “Ah, nothing.” It may have been that his mother was a little puzzled by his state. She however said nothing. Tar was glad of that.

  In the beech woods he lay on his back and closed his eyes. Then he opened them slowly. The beech trees near the foot of the ravine were heavy-bodied great fellows. Their coats were patched with color, the white bark alternating with torn brown places. Up the side of the hill, in one spot, there was a group of young beech trees. Tar could imagine the forest above going on and on indefinitely.

  In books things were always happening in forests. A young girl got lost in such a place. She was very beautiful, like the new girl in town. Well, there she was in the forest alone and night came on. She had to sleep in a hollow tree, or in a place among tree roots. As she lay there and just as darkness was coming she saw something. Some men rode into the forest and stopped near her. She kept very still. One of the men got off his horse and said strange words— “Open Sesame” — and the ground opened at his feet. There was a great door, so cleverly covered with leaves sticks [stones] and earth that you would never guess it was there.

  The men went down a stairway and stayed a long time. When they came out they got on their horses and the leader — a strangely handsome man — just such a man as Tar felt he would be when he grew up — said some more strange words. “Close Sesame,” he said and the door closed and all was as before.

  Then the girl tried it. She went to the place and said the words and the door opened. Many strange adventures followed. Tar remembered them dimly from a book Dick Moorehead read aloud to the children on winter evenings.

  There were other stories, other things always happening in forests. Sometimes boys or girls got changed into birds or trees or animals. The young beech trees that grew on the side of the ravine had bodies like the bodies of young girls. When a little wind blew they swayed slightly. Tar, when he kept his eyes closed, could fancy the trees were beckoning to him. There was one young [beech] — he never knew why he singled out just that one — that might just have been Colonel Farley’s granddaughter.

  Once Tar went to where it stood and touched it with his finger. The feeling he had was at the moment so real that he blushed when he did it.

  He became obsessed with the notion of going out to the beech grove at night and one night he did it.

  He had picked out a moonlit night. Well, a neighbor was at the Mooreheads’ and Dick was talking on the front porch. Mary Moorehead was there but not saying much as usual. Tar’s papers were all sold. If he stayed away for a time his mother would not [care]. She was sitting silently in a rocking chair. Everyone was listening to Dick. He usually managed to make them do that.

  Tar lit out the back way and hurried around through back streets to the railroad tracks. When he had got out of town a freight train came along. A lot of tramps were in an empty coal car. Tar saw them as plain as day. One of them was singing.

  He got to the place where he had to turn off the tracks and without [any] trouble found his way to the beech grove.

  [It was all different than in the daytime.] [It was all strange.] Everything was still and spooky. He found a place where he could lie comfortably, and waited.

  [For what?] What did he expect? He did not know. Perhaps he thought the girl might come to him, that she might have got lost and would be somewhere in the woods when he got there. In the darkness he wouldn’t be so embarrassed when she was near.

  She wasn’t there of course. [He didn’t really expect it.] No one was there. No robbers came on horseback, nothing happened. He kept perfectly still for a long time and there wasn’t a sound.

  Then little sounds began. He could see things more clearly as his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light. A squirrel or a rabbit ran down along the bottom of the ravine. He saw a flash of something white. There was a sound back of him, one of the little soft sounds made by tiny animals when they move about at night. His body trembled. It was as though something was running over his body, under his clothes.

  It might have been an ant. He wondered whether or not ants went out at night.

  The wind blew a little stronger and a little stronger — not a gale, just blowing steadily, up the ravine from the creek. He could hear the creek chattering. There was a place near where it had to run over stones.

  Tar closed his eyes and held them closed a long time. Afterwards he wondered if he slept. If he did it couldn’t have been long.

  When he opened his eyes again he was looking right at the place where the young beeches grew. He could see the one young beech tree he had gone across the ravine to touch that time, standing out from all the others.

  That time when he was sick things — trees houses and people — were always leaving the ground and floating away from him. He had to hold onto something inside himself. If he hadn’t he might have died. No one else understood about that but he did.

  Now the white young beech tree was coming toward him. It might have had something to do with the light and the wind blowing and the young beech trees swaying in the wind.

  He did not know. The one tree just seemed to leave the others and come toward him. He was as scared as when Colonel Farley’s granddaughter spoke to him when he took the paper to their house but in a different way.

  He was so scared that he jumped up and ran and when he ran he got more scared. How he got out of the woods and back to the railroad track without being hurt he never knew. He kept running after he got up onto the tracks. He was in his bare feet and the cinders hurt and once he stubbed his toe so that it bled but he never stopped running or being afraid until he got back into town, and to his own house.

  He couldn’t have been gone long. When he got back Dick was still going it on the front porch and the others were still listening. Tar stood out back by the woodshed a long time to get his breath and let his heart stop pounding. Then he had to wash his feet and get the dried blood off his hurt toe before he went sneaking off upstairs and to bed. He did not want to get blood on the sheets.

  And after he got upstairs and into bed and after the neighbors went home and his mother came upstairs to see if he and the others were all right he could not sleep.

  There were a lot of nights that summer when Tar could not sleep much.

  CHAPTER XV

  ANOTHER ADVENTURE OF quite another sort one afternoon later during that same summer. Tar could not keep off Maumee Street. In the morning he got through selling his papers by nine o’clock. Sometimes he had a job, mowing someone’s lawn. There were plenty of other boys after such jobs. They didn’t come any too thick.

  No good fooling around home. When Tar was with his friend Jim Moore during that summer he was likely to be silent. Jim didn’t like it and found someone else [with whom to go adventuring] to the woods or to the swimming hole.

  Tar went to the fair ground and watched the men work the race horses, he hung around the Whitehead barn.

  There were always some old newspapers that hadn’t been sold, in the woodshed at home. Tar took several under his arm and went out along Maumee Street just to be going past the Farley house. Sometimes he saw the girl, sometimes he did not. When he did, when she was on the porch with her grandmother or in the yard or the orchard, he did not dare look.

  The papers under his arm were to create the impression he had business out that way.

  It was pretty thin. Who was there to take a paper out that way? No one but the Thompsons.

  They take a paper — huh!

  Now old Boss Thompson and the boys were out somewhere with a circus. It would be fun to do that when [Tar] grew up but circuses certainly carried a tough lot of men with them. When a circus came to the town where Tar lived he got up early and went down to the ground and saw everything, right from the start, saw the tent go up, the animals fed, everything. He saw the men get ready for the parade on Main Street. They put the bright red and purple coats on right over their old horsey, manurey clothes. The men didn’t even bother to wash their hands and faces. Some of them looked at though they h
ad never washed.

  The women in the circus and the child actors were pretty near the same way. They looked grand in the parade but you ought to see how they live. The Thompson [women] never were with a circus that came to their own town but [they were like that].

  Tar thought that since the Farley girl had come to town he knew something of what a real swell looked like. She was always dressed in clean clothes, no matter what time of day Tar saw her. He would have wagered anything she was all washed up fresh every day. Maybe she took a bath, all over, every day. The Farleys had a bathtub, one of the few in town.

  The Mooreheads were pretty clean, especially Margaret, but you can’t expect too much. Ill the winter it’s a lot of trouble to be always washing.

  It’s nice though when you see someone else do it — a girl you’re crazy about especially.

  It was a wonder Mame Thompson, old Boss Thompson’s one daughter, didn’t go off to the circus with her father and brothers. She might have learned to ride a horse standing up or perform on a trapeze. The young girls who did such things in circuses weren’t so much. Well they rode a horse standing up. What of it? It was an old steady horse usually, anyone could ride that way. Hal Brown whose father had a grocery, and cows in the barn, had to go to a field for the cows every night. He was a friend of Tar’s and sometimes Tar went with him and then later he went around with Tar delivering the papers. Hal could ride a horse standing up. He could ride a cow that way. He did it lots of times.

  Tar began thinking about Mame Thompson, at about the same time she began paying attention to him. [He] may have been to her what the Farley girl was to him, someone to think about. The Thompsons, in spite of old Boss Thompson’s splurging around and showing his money, didn’t stand so well in town. The old woman didn’t go anywhere hardly. She stayed at home like Tar’s mother but not for the same reason. Mary Moorehead had a lot to do — so many children — but what did old Mrs. Thompson have to do? No one at home all summer but the girl Mame and she was big enough to help with the work. The old Thompson woman looked all fagged out. She always had on dirty clothes and so did Mame, when she was at home.

  Tar began seeing a good deal of her. Two or three times a week, sometimes every day, he sneaked out that way and he couldn’t help going on past the Farleys’ and to their house.

  When he got past the Farleys’ there was a drop in the road and a bridge across a ditch that was dry all summer. Then he came to the Thompsons’ barn. It stood close beside the road and the house was on the opposite side [of the road], a little farther along, right near the cemetery gate.

  They had a general buried in the cemetery and a stone monument. He was standing with one foot on a cannon and with a finger pointed right at the Thompsons’ [house].

  You’d have thought the town, if it was so blamed proud of its dead general, would have set up something fancier for him to point at.

  The house was one of the small unpainted kind with a lot of the shingles gone out of the roof. It looked like the Old Harry. There had been a front porch but most of the floor was all rotted away.

  The Thompsons had a barn but there wasn’t a horse, not even a cow. There was just a little old half rotten hay upstairs and some chickens scratching around downstairs. The hay must have been in the barn a long time. Some of it stuck out through an open door. It was all black and mouldy looking.

  Mame Thompson was a year or two older than Tar. She had had more experience. At first, when he began going out that way, Tar did not think about her at all and then he did. She began to notice him.

  She had begun to wonder what he was up to, always coming out that way. He didn’t blame her but what was he to do? He might have turned back at the bridge but if he did his going along the street wouldn’t have had any sense to it. He always carried a few papers, for a bluff. Well, he [thought he] had to keep up the bluff if he could.

  Mame got so, when she saw him coming, she would cross the road and stand in the open barn door. Tar hardly ever saw old Mrs. Thompson. He had to walk right past the barn or turn back. There was Mame standing inside the barn door and pretending not to see him just as he was always pretending not to see her.

  It got worse and worse.

  Mame wasn’t slender like the Farley girl. She was a little fat and had big legs. Nearly always she had on a dirty dress and sometimes her face was dirty. Her hair was red and she had freckles on her face.

  Another boy in town, named Pete Welsh, had gone right into a barn with a girl. He had told Tar and Jim Moore about it, had bragged about it.

  In spite of himself Tar began thinking about Mame Thompson. That was a fine how-de-do but how could he help it? Some of the boys at school had girls. They gave them things and when they were walking home from school some of the bold[er] ones even walked with their girls a little ways. It took nerve. When a boy did it the others came along behind shouting and making fun.

  Tar might have done that with the Farley girl if he ever had the chance. He never would have. In the first place she would be going away before school began and, even if she stayed, she maybe wouldn’t want him.

  He wouldn’t dare ever let it be known if it happened that Mame Thompson had become his girl. What an ideal That would be just nuts for Pete Welsh and Hal Brown and Jim Moore. They would never let up.

  O, Lord. Tar had begun to think of Mame Thompson at night now, had got her all mixed up with his thoughts of the Farley girl, but his thoughts about her didn’t get mixed up with any beech trees or clouds in the sky or anything like that.

  His thoughts got pretty definite, sometimes. Would he ever have the nerve? O, Lord. What a question to ask himself. Of course he wouldn’t.

  After all she wasn’t so bad. He got to looking at her when he went past. Sometimes she put her hands over her face and giggled and sometimes she pretended not to see him.

  One day it happened. Well, he hadn’t ever intended it should. He had got clear up to the barn and hadn’t seen her [at all]. She might have gone away. The Thompsons’ house, across the way, looked as it always did, all closed up and dark, no wash hanging out in the yard, no cats or dogs around, no smoke going up out of a kitchen chimney. You might have thought that, when the old man and the boys were away, old Mrs. Thompson and Mame didn’t ever eat — or wash either.

  Tar had not seen Mame as he came along the road and over the bridge. She was always standing in the barn, pretending to do something in there. What was she pretending to do?

  He stopped by the barn door and looked in. Then, hearing and seeing nothing, he went in. What made him do it he did not know. He walked half way into the barn and then, when he turned to go out [again], there she was. She had been hiding behind a door [or something].

  She didn’t say anything and neither did Tar. They stood looking at each other and then she went to where there was a rickety old ladder leading up to the loft.

  It was up to Tar whether or not he would follow. That was what she meant all right, all right. When she had got almost up she turned and looked at him but she didn’t say anything. There was something in her eyes. O, Lordy.

  Tar never dreamed he could be so bold. Well, he wasn’t bold. With trembling legs he went across the barn floor to the foot of the ladder. There didn’t seem enough strength in his arms and legs to climb [up. In such a situation a boy is terribly frightened.] There may be boys who are naturally bold, as Pete Welsh said he was, who do not care. All they want is a chance. Tar wasn’t like that.

  He felt as though he had died. It couldn’t be himself, Tar Moorehead, doing what he was doing. It was too bold and terrible — wonderful too.

  When Tar got up into the barn loft there was Mame sitting on the little pile of black old hay near the door. The loft door was open. You could see a long ways. Tar could see along the road right into the yard of the Farley place. His legs were so weak that he sat down at once, right near the girl, but he didn’t look at her, didn’t dare. He looked out through the barn door. A grocery boy came with things for the Farleys. He
went around the house to the back door with a basket in his hand. When he came back around the house he turned the horse [around] and drove away. It was Cal Sleshinger, who drove the delivery wagon for Wagner’s store. He had red hair.

  So did Mame. Well, her hair wasn’t exactly red. It was sandy. Her eyebrows were sandy [too].

  Now Tar wasn’t thinking of the fact that her dress was dirty, her fingers dirty, her face perhaps dirty. He didn’t dare look at her [face]. He was thinking. What was he thinking?

  “If you saw me on Main Street I bet you wouldn’t speak to me. You’re too stuck up.”

  Mame wanted to be reassured. Tar wanted to answer but couldn’t. He was right near her, could have put out his hand and touched her.

  She said one or two things. “Why do you keep coming out this way if you’re so stuck on yourself?” Her voice was a little harsh [now].

  It was evident she did not know about Tar and the Farley girl, had not connected them in her mind. She thought his coming out that way had been to see her.

  That time Pete Welsh went into a barn with a girl her mother came. Pete ran and the girl got a whipping. Tar wondered if they had gone up into [a] bam loft. He looked down through the loft door to see how far he would have to jump. Pete hadn’t said anything about jumping. He had just bragged. Jim Moore had kept saying, “I bet you never did. I bet you never did,” and Pete had answered sharply, “We did too. I tell you we did.”

  Tar could, maybe, if he had the nerve. If you have had the nerve once then maybe you have it naturally the next time. Some boys are born with nerve [others aren’t]. Everything is easy for them.

  [Now] Tar’s silence and fear had infected Mame. They sat staring out through the barn door.

  Something [else] happened. Old Mrs. Thompson came into the barn and called Mame. Had she seen Tar go in? Both children sat in silence. The old woman stood downstairs. The Thompsons kept a few hens. Mame reassured Tar. “She’s looking for eggs,” she whispered softly. Tar could scarcely hear her voice [now].