LOOKING CAUTIOUSLY ABOUT, George Willard arose
from his desk in the office of the Winesburg Eagle
and went hurriedly out at the back door. The night
was warm and cloudy and although it was not yet
eight o'clock, the alleyway back of the Eagle office
was pitch dark. A team of horses tied to a post
somewhere in the darkness stamped on the hard-
baked ground. A cat sprang from under George Willard's feet and ran away into the night. The young
man was nervous. All day he had gone about his
work like one dazed by a blow. In the alleyway he
trembled as though with fright.
In the darkness George Willard walked along the
alleyway, going carefully and cautiously. The back
doors of the Winesburg stores were open and he
could see men sitting about under the store lamps.
In Myerbaum's Notion Store Mrs. Willy the saloon
keeper's wife stood by the counter with a basket on
her arm. Sid Green the clerk was waiting on her.
He leaned over the counter and talked earnestly.
George Willard crouched and then jumped
through the path of light that came out at the door.
He began to run forward in the darkness. Behind
Ed Griffith's saloon old Jerry Bird the town drunkard
lay asleep on the ground. The runner stumbled over
the sprawling legs. He laughed brokenly.
George Willard had set forth upon an adventure.
All day he had been trying to make up his mind to
go through with the adventure and now he was acting. In the office of the Winesburg Eagle he had been
sitting since six o'clock trying to think.
There had been no decision. He had just jumped
to his feet, hurried past Will Henderson who was
reading proof in the printshop and started to run
along the alleyway.
Through street after street went George Willard,
avoiding the people who passed. He crossed and
recrossed the road. When he passed a street lamp
he pulled his hat down over his face. He did not
dare think. In his mind there was a fear but it was
a new kind of fear. He was afraid the adventure on
which he had set out would be spoiled, that he
would lose courage and turn back.
George Willard found Louise Trunnion in the
kitchen of her father's house. She was washing
dishes by the light of a kerosene lamp. There she
stood behind the screen door in the little shedlike
kitchen at the back of the house. George Willard
stopped by a picket fence and tried to control the
shaking of his body. Only a narrow potato patch
separated him from the adventure. Five minutes
passed before he felt sure enough of himself to call
to her. "Louise! Oh, Louise!" he called. The cry
stuck in his throat. His voice became a hoarse
whisper.
Louise Trunnion came out across the potato patch
holding the dish cloth in her hand. "How do you
know I want to go out with you," she said sulkily.
"What makes you so sure?"
George Willard did not answer. In silence the two
stood in the darkness with the fence between them.
"You go on along," she said. "Pa's in there. I'll
come along. You wait by Williams' barn."
The young newspaper reporter had received a letter from Louise Trunnion. It had come that morning
to the office of the Winesburg Eagle. The letter was
brief. "I'm yours if you want me," it said. He
thought it annoying that in the darkness by the
fence she had pretended there was nothing between
them. "She has a nerve! Well, gracious sakes, she
has a nerve," he muttered as he went along the
street and passed a row of vacant lots where corn
grew. The corn was shoulder high and had been
planted right down to the sidewalk.
When Louise Trunnion came out of the front door
of her house she still wore the gingham dress in
which she had been washing dishes. There was no
hat on her head. The boy could see her standing
with the doorknob in her hand talking to someone
within, no doubt to old Jake Trunnion, her father.
Old Jake was half deaf and she shouted. The door
closed and everything was dark and silent in the
little side street. George Willard trembled more violently than ever.
In the shadows by Williams' barn George and
Louise stood, not daring to talk. She was not particularly comely and there was a black smudge on the
side of her nose. George thought she must have
rubbed her nose with her finger after she had been
handling some of the kitchen pots.
The young man began to laugh nervously. "It's
warm," he said. He wanted to touch her with his
hand. "I'm not very bold," he thought. Just to touch
the folds of the soiled gingham dress would, he decided, be an exquisite pleasure. She began to quibble. "You think you're better than I am. Don't tell
me, I guess I know," she said drawing closer to him.
A flood of words burst from George Willard. He
remembered the look that had lurked in the girl's
eyes when they had met on the streets and thought
of the note she had written. Doubt left him. The
whispered tales concerning her that had gone about
town gave him confidence. He became wholly the
male, bold and aggressive. In his heart there was no
sympathy for her. "Ah, come on, it'll be all right.
There won't be anyone know anything. How can
they know?" he urged.
They began to walk along a narrow brick sidewalk
between the cracks of which tall weeds grew. Some
of the bricks were missing and the sidewalk was
rough and irregular. He took hold of her hand that
was also rough and thought it delightfully small.
"I can't go far," she said and her voice was quiet,
unperturbed.
They crossed a bridge that ran over a tiny stream
and passed another vacant lot in which corn grew.
The street ended. In the path at the side of the road
they were compelled to walk one behind the other.
Will Overton's berry field lay beside the road and
there was a pile of boards. "Will is going to build a
shed to store berry crates here," said George and
they sat down upon the boards.
***
When George Willard got back into Main Street it
was past ten o'clock and had begun to rain. Three
times he walked up and down the length of Main
Street. Sylvester West's Drug Store was still open
and he went in and bought a cigar. When Shorty
Crandall the clerk came out at the door with him he
was pleased. For five minutes the two stood in the
shelter of the store awning and talked. George Willard felt satisfied. He had wanted more than anything else to talk to some man. Around a corner
toward the New Willard House he went whistling
softly.
On the sidewalk at the side of Winney's Dry
Goods Store where there was a high board fence
covered with circus pictures, he stopped whistling
and stood perfectly still in the darkness, attentive,
listening as though for a voice calling his name.
Then again he laughed nervously. "She hasn't got
anything on me. Nobody knows," he muttered doggedly and went on his way.
The Philosopher