Willard

“ All night the north wind shouted, and, as the next day waned with its violence undiminished, the frost crept in upon them till they rolled and tossed shivering. Twice they essayed to crawl out, but were driven back to cower for endless, hopeless hours.
It is in such black, aimless times that thought becomes distorted. Willard felt his mind wandering through bleak dreams and tortured fancies, always to find himself harping on his early argument with Pierre: "It's the mind that counts." ”

“ Two elegant young gentlemen, week-end guests of Willard's and duly presented to Neil the night before, ignored his existence, perusing a gaudily covered series of topical songs with exaggerated attention on the rear seat of the car, but Willard greeted him exuberantly:
"Ah, there, Murph. You don't look like the morning after. Sorry I haven't got room for you. We've got other plans. We love the ladies." ”

“ One conceals oneself standing silently beside the trunk of a tree and what there is of a reflective tendency in his nature is intensified. One shudders at the thought of the meaninglessness of life while at the same instant, and if the people of the town are his people, one loves life so intensely that tears come into the eyes.
In the darkness under the roof of the grandstand, George Willard sat beside Helen White and felt very keenly his own insignificance in the scheme of existence. ”

“ George Willard had a habit of talking aloud to himself and to hear him doing so had always given his mother a peculiar pleasure. The habit in him, she felt, strengthened the secret bond that existed between them. A thousand times she had whispered to herself of the matter. “He is groping about, trying to find himself,” she thought. “He is not a dull clod, all words and smartness. Within him there is a secret something that is striving to grow. It is the thing I let be killed in myself.”
In the darkness in the hallway by the door the sick woman arose and started again toward her own room. ”

“ There was a stir, and Schuyler Carleton rushed forward to Willard’s assistance if need be. But the man had not fainted, and, raising his white face, he squared his shoulders, clenched his hands, and, again fixing his eyes on those of Fleming Stone, said in a desperate voice, “Go on.”
“I must go on,” said Stone, gently. “I know each one of you is thinking that it is absurd to imagine a man of Mr. Willard’s weight and girth climbing up through the seemingly small opening in the fireplace. ”

“ Blandhorn....
But the market-place seemed suddenly empty, as though the throng of their assailants had been demons of the desert, the thin spirits of evil that dance on the noonday heat. Now the dusk seemed to have dispersed them, and Willard looked up and saw a quiet star above a wall, and heard the cry of the muezzin dropping down from a near-by minaret: “Allah—Allah—only Allah is great!”
Willard closed his eyes, and in his great weakness felt the tears run down between his lids. A hand wiped them away, and he looked again, and saw the face of Harry Spink stooping over him. ”

“ Mile after mile was passed; but, to the excited mind of Willard, they seemed going at a snail's pace. Did the sun ever rise so rapidly any morning before as it did on that? Eight o'clock, and still ten miles from Westport.
"Faster—faster! A thousand—two thousand—three thousand dollars, if we only reach Westport before nine," shouted Willard, almost maddened. "A human life depends on it—I have a reprieve." ”

“ Once out of the shelter of the house, the storm struck them with full force, and Willard realised that he was well-nigh strangled in the clutches of a genuine Maine gale.
"What folly!" he gasped, crowding his hat over his eyes and struggling to gain his wonted consciousness of superiority. "Come back instantly, Miss Storrs! Your mother——"
"Come! come!" she interrupted, pulling him along.
He stared at her in amazement. Her eyes were wide open and almost black with excitement. Her face gleamed like ivory in the cold light. Her lips were parted and curved in a happy smile. ”

“ He thinks he knows it all and is working the stock market at arm’s length. I know, myself, that one bucket shop let him down for sixteen thousand in a single blind pool. Willard seems to have played fox with you folks in Palermo through it all, and, of course, he’s had a great start of you with his reputation and all that. But if he’s your town treasurer, as I hear he is, and custodian of about all the funds of widows and orphans and old codgers in your town, give him a looking over and do it right away. ”

“ And thus the days pass by, each one stealing a hope from the watcher's heart, and so many hours from Willard's life. Their patience does not waver, nor does his quiet courage. He knows that the world is fair outside, that the Southern sky is blue and bright—that flowers are blossoming, that birds are singing—knows, too, that all "Creation's deep musical chorus, unintermitting, goes up into Heaven," and is fain to go with it. Very bravely and contentedly he breasts the dark waters, knowing that a strong arm upholds him, even His who said to the ocean's tumult ”

“ Out of the dream Wing Biddlebaum made a picture for George Willard. In the picture men lived again in a kind of pastoral golden age. Across a green open country came clean-limbed young men, some afoot, some mounted upon horses. In crowds the young men came to gather about the feet of an old man who sat beneath a tree in a tiny garden and who talked to them.
Wing Biddlebaum became wholly inspired. For once he forgot the hands. Slowly they stole forth and lay upon George Willard's shoulders. ”

“ Willard, a noted American educator, historian, and poet, was born at New Berlin, Conn., February 23, 1787, and died at Troy, N. Y., April 15, 1870. She has written: “A History of the United States,” “Universal History in Perspective,” etc. She also wrote: “Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep,” and much other verse.
By one great Heart, the Universe is stirred:
By Its strong pulse, stars climb the darkening blue ”

“ On his hands and knees in the bushes George Willard stared at the scene before him and tried hard to think. He prepared to spring at the man who had humiliated him. To be beaten seemed infinitely better than to be thus hurled ignominiously aside.
Three times the young reporter sprang at Ed Handby and each time the bartender, catching him by the shoulder, hurled him back into the bushes. The older man seemed prepared to keep the exercise going indefinitely but George Willard's head struck the root of a tree and he lay still. Then Ed Handby took Belle Carpenter by the arm and marched her away. ”

“ And of all his foes, himself is the worst, the most inveterate. That wise and noble woman, Frances E. Willard, condensed the question of progression when she said, "Our problem consists in saving man from himself." That has ever been the problem whether undertaken designedly by such superior characters as Miss Willard or the spontaneous operation of the postulated forces of evolution. ”

“ In the hallway there was the sound of footsteps and George Willard came in at the door. Sitting in a chair beside his mother he began to talk. "I'm going to get out of here," he said. "I don't know where I shall go or what I shall do but I am going away."
The woman in the chair waited and trembled. An impulse came to her. "I suppose you had better wake up," she said. "You think that? You will go to the city and make money, eh? It will be better for you, you think, to be a business man, to be brisk and smart and alive?" ”

“ All afternoon Wing Biddlebaum had talked as one inspired. By a fence he had stopped and beating like a giant woodpecker upon the top board had shouted at George Willard, condemning his tendency to be too much influenced by the people about him. "You are destroying yourself," he cried. "You have the inclination to be alone and to dream and you are afraid of dreams. You want to be like others in town here. You hear them talk and you try to imitate them." ”

“ He was much in public life, and a reputation for high and honorable principle was all the religion to which he aspired. It is not strange therefore that Willard was ignorant of those consoling truths which formed the support of Eliza in her dark hour of trial.
In his view, she was a perfect being. He questioned the justice of the decree which was about to consign her to an early grave. He questioned the right of the Great Disposer to take from him his portion and destroy his hope. ”

“ It was a striking picture this meeting of the pioneer man and woman; and, poor as I am, I would give a hundred dollars for a snapshot of it.
On many occasions I saw instances of Miss Anthony's prescience—and one of these was connected with the death of Frances E. Willard. "Aunt Susan" had called on Miss Willard, and, coming to me from the sick-room, had walked the floor, beating her hands together as she talked of the visit.
"Frances Willard is dying," she exclaimed, passionately. "She is dying, and she doesn't know it, and no one around her realizes it. ”

“ Willard detached himself from the railings and regarded his friend, suddenly breathless with surprise, and deeply grieved. Nothing. The word, harmless in itself, had been spoken so that it hit [Pg 309] him like an actual blow, straight from the shoulder. Neil, shifting so that the light showed his face, was returning his look with the sudden, unreasoning anger that we feel toward little sounds that beat their slow way into our consciousness at night, to irritate us unendurably at last. ”

“ He was a grandson of Bray Wilkins; and the mind of the old man became prejudiced against him, and most of his family connections and neighbors partook of the feeling. When Willard discovered that such rumors were in circulation against him, he went to his grandfather for counsel and the aid of his prayers. He met with a cold reception, as appears by the deposition of the old man as follows:—
"When John Willard was first complained of by the afflicted persons for afflicting of them, he came to my house, greatly troubled, desiring me, with some other neighbors, to pray for him. ”

“ When George Willard went to work for the Winesburg Eagle he was besieged by Joe Welling. Joe envied the boy. It seemed to him that he was meant by Nature to be a reporter on a newspaper. “It is what I should be doing, there is no doubt of that,” he declared, stopping George Willard on the sidewalk before Daugherty’s Feed Store. ”

“ Her long hands, white and bloodless, could be seen drooping over the ends of the arms of the chair. “I think you had better be out among the boys. You are too much indoors,” she said, striving to relieve the embarrassment of the departure. “I thought I would take a walk,” replied George Willard, who felt awkward and confused.
One evening in July, when the transient guests who made the New Willard House their temporary home had become scarce, and the hallways, lighted only by kerosene lamps turned low, were plunged in gloom, Elizabeth Willard had an adventure. ”

“ My diary records the fact that I saw Captain Willard, of the Fourteenth Connecticut, fall as we passed their line on our way to the rear; that he appeared to have been hit by a grape-shot or piece of shell. I did not know him, only heard that he was a brother of E. N. Willard, of Scranton. The Fourteenth Connecticut men said he was a fine man and splendid officer. ”

“ The idea that George Willard would some day become a writer had given him a place of distinction in Winesburg, and to Seth Richmond he talked continually of the matter. "It's the easiest of all lives to live," he declared, becoming excited and boastful. "Here and there you go and there is no one to boss you. ”

“ Willard, his prayer ended, looked up, and saw that the old man’s garments were stirred as if by a ripple of air. But the air was quite still, and the disciple perceived that the tremor of the muslin was communicated to it by Mr. Blandhorn’s body.
“He’s trembling—trembling all over. He’s afraid of something. What’s he afraid of?” And in the same breath Willard had answered his own question: “He’s afraid of what he’s made up his mind to do.”
V Two days later Willard Bent sat in the shade of a ruined tomb outside the Gate of the Graves, and watched the people streaming in to Eloued. ”

“ His heart for once failed him, for there seemed no earthly hope of escape. There was no time to spring off, even if the speed at which he was going would have permitted him to do so, for in a shorter time than it has taken to describe the scene, the shed was reached, bang went the mare's head against the opposite end, and at the same instant Willard felt a dull thud against his person, realized the fact that he was being thrown into the air, and then came darkness and unconsciousness. ”

“ He is the most accomplished murderer on the modern stage, and really, if one were forced to die a violent death, Mr. Willard seems to be the individual one would naturally select to perform the necessary, but unpleasant, operation. It does not in [Pg 137] the least matter to an Olympic audience how he comes to be the proprietor of a low Thames-side tavern when he seems better qualified to lead a cotillon in quite a fashionable West-End Square. ”

“ Mr. Willard kissed her. "Well, Nelly," he said, "I promise. The work-people shall have their own way, and Bill shall go unpunished. Now what shall I give you?"
"Nothing, thank you," answered Nelly, slipping from his arms. "I must go home, for mamma doesn't know where I am. Good-by, Mr. Willard; I thank you ever so much for your promise."
"Good-by, Nelly. Now kiss me, and take care of yourself until I see you again."
Next morning when the factory bells rang out, it was known all over Windham that the working people were to go to work on their own terms. Mr. Willard had given in. ”