Young George Willard got out of bed at four in the morning. It was
April and the young tree leaves were just coming out of their buds. The
trees along the residence streets in Winesburg are maple and the seeds
are winged. When the wind blows they whirl crazily about, filling the
air and making a carpet underfoot.
George came downstairs into the hotel office carrying a brown leather
bag. His trunk was packed for departure. Since two o’clock he had been
awake thinking of the journey he was about to take and wondering what
he would find at the end of his journey. The boy who slept in the hotel
office lay on a cot by the door. His mouth was open and he snored
lustily. George crept past the cot and went out into the silent
deserted main street. The east was pink with the dawn and long streaks
of light climbed into the sky where a few stars still shone.
Beyond the last house on Trunion Pike in Winesburg there is a great
stretch of open fields. The fields are owned by farmers who live in
town and drive homeward at evening along Trunion Pike in light creaking
wagons. In the fields are planted berries and small fruits. In the late
afternoon in the hot summers when the road and the fields are covered
with dust, a smoky haze lies over the great flat basin of land. To look
across it is like looking out across the sea. In the spring when the
land is green the effect is somewhat different. The land becomes a wide
green billiard table on which tiny human insects toil up and down.
All through his boyhood and young manhood George Willard had been in
the habit of walking on Trunion Pike. He had been in the midst of the
great open place on winter nights when it was covered with snow and
only the moon looked down at him; he had been there in the fall when
bleak winds blew and on summer evenings when the air vibrated with the
song of insects. On the April morning he wanted to go there again, to
walk again in the silence. He did walk to where the road dipped down by
a little stream two miles from town and then turned and walked silently
back again. When he got to Main Street clerks were sweeping the
sidewalks before the stores. “Hey, you George. How does it feel to be
going away?” they asked.
The westbound train leaves Winesburg at seven forty-five in the
morning. Tom Little is conductor. His train runs from Cleveland to
where it connects with a great trunk line railroad with terminals in
Chicago and New York. Tom has what in railroad circles is called an
“easy run.” Every evening he returns to his family. In the fall and
spring he spends his Sundays fishing in Lake Erie. He has a round red
face and small blue eyes. He knows the people in the towns along his
railroad better than a city man knows the people who live in his
apartment building.
George came down the little incline from the New Willard House at seven
o’clock. Tom Willard carried his bag. The son had become taller than
the father.
On the station platform everyone shook the young man’s hand. More than
a dozen people waited about. Then they talked of their own affairs.
Even Will Henderson, who was lazy and often slept until nine, had got
out of bed. George was embarrassed. Gertrude Wilmot, a tall thin woman
of fifty who worked in the Winesburg post office, came along the
station platform. She had never before paid any attention to George.
Now she stopped and put out her hand. In two words she voiced what
everyone felt. “Good luck,” she said sharply and then turning went on
her way.
When the train came into the station George felt relieved. He scampered
hurriedly aboard. Helen White came running along Main Street hoping to
have a parting word with him, but he had found a seat and did not see
her. When the train started Tom Little punched his ticket, grinned and,
although he knew George well and knew on what adventure he was just
setting out, made no comment. Tom had seen a thousand George Willards
go out of their towns to the city. It was a commonplace enough incident
with him. In the smoking car there was a man who had just invited Tom
to go on a fishing trip to Sandusky Bay. He wanted to accept the
invitation and talk over details.
George glanced up and down the car to be sure no one was looking, then
took out his pocket-book and counted his money. His mind was occupied
with a desire not to appear green. Almost the last words his father had
said to him concerned the matter of his behavior when he got to the
city. “Be a sharp one,” Tom Willard had said. “Keep your eyes on your
money. Be awake. That’s the ticket. Don’t let anyone think you’re a
greenhorn.”
After George counted his money he looked out of the window and was
surprised to see that the train was still in Winesburg.
The young man, going out of his town to meet the adventure of life,
began to think but he did not think of anything very big or dramatic.
Things like his mother’s death, his departure from Winesburg, the
uncertainty of his future life in the city, the serious and larger
aspects of his life did not come into his mind.
He thought of little things—Turk Smollet wheeling boards through the
main street of his town in the morning, a tall woman, beautifully
gowned, who had once stayed overnight at his father’s hotel, Butch
Wheeler the lamp lighter of Winesburg hurrying through the streets on a
summer evening and holding a torch in his hand, Helen White standing by
a window in the Winesburg post office and putting a stamp on an
envelope.
The young man’s mind was carried away by his growing passion for
dreams. One looking at him would not have thought him particularly
sharp. With the recollection of little things occupying his mind he
closed his eyes and leaned back in the car seat. He stayed that way for
a long time and when he aroused himself and again looked out of the car
window the town of Winesburg had disappeared and his life there had
become but a background on which to paint the dreams of his manhood.