Marching Men

grating forces that attack strong natures, striving to scatter their force in the back current

cal student. Down the hall a pretty girl with large black eyes who worked in a department store down town dreamed of him at night. When in the evening he banged the door to his room and strode down the hallway g

e reading. He felt as he had felt with the pale girl on the hillside beyond Coal Creek. With her as with the

house who wore a Panama hat came from the floor above and, putting his hands on the door frames of her room, stood look

he doings of red-haired McGregor. Begun by the young man, who hated him because of

theatre. One night in the summer when they had returned to the front of the

ood in the little dirty court looking up at McGregor who, with his feet i

g of McGregor. In her room later she lay abed dreaming. She imagined herself assaulted by the young man who had cre

in a town in Ohio and to prevent recognition had grown a black beard. Between this man and McGregor a companionship had s

f varnishes. When he got hold of a piece of wood that seemed an answer to his prayers he took it to McGregor's room and holding it up to the light talked of what he would do with it. Sometimes he brought a violin and sitting

he man who dreamed of the rediscovery of the varnish of Cr

eethearts and fathers with families at their heels. Now at the end of the day they continued to come, a steady stream of humanity flowing along the gravel walk past the bench where the two men sat

s. His contempt of men and of the lives lived by men reinforced his native boldness. The odd little rounding of the shoulders of even the athletic young men made him stra

ead up and down and ran his hand nervously up and down the legs of his trousers. Into his mind came the desire to boast to the barber, telling of the things he meant to do in the world, but he put the desire away. Instead he sat silently blinking his eyes and wondering at the persistent air of ineffectiveness in the people who passed. When a band went by playing march music and followed by some fifty men wearing white plumes in their hats and walking with self-conscious awkwardness, he was startled. Among the

back from the gravel driveways filled with moving carriages. Beaut saw a girl throw an egg shell and hit a young fellow between the eyes, and then run laughing away along the shore of the pond. Under a tree a woman nursed a babe, covering her breasts with a shawl

nd shook himself like one awakening from a dream. Then he began looking at the ground and kicking up the gravel with his foo

le. It was then he told McGregor of the wife and four children in the Ohio town, describing the little brick house and the garden and the

was something messy and disorderly about it all, about my life with her and with them. I couldn't stand it. I felt myself being submerged by somethin

blacksmith shop. During the day I stood by the chair in my shop talking to men being shaved about the love of women and a man's duty to his fa

family but of working undisturbed as I do now here in

enough sort," he said. "I suppose loving is an art like writing a book or drawing pictures or making violins. People try to do it and don't

along the keys. When she read a book at home she didn't think the writer amounted to much if he made mistakes about punctuation. Her boss was

together on Sunday evenings and standing under the trees on side streets, kissing and looking at each other.

know why. I thought I was the same as I had been and I think she was. We used to

I dreaming of quietude and a chance to work on the violins. I thought I knew a way to increase the quality and beauty of tone an

e the children after they came. Once she said that she didn't see how it would matter if no violins had ever been made and that night I dreamed of choking her in bed. I woke

st in each other. I would be proud of the work she had done in the factory and would brag of it to men coming into the shop.

t had been said and play a sort of game, chasing each other about the room in the darkness and knocking against t

ive. I came away. The children are in a state institution and she has gone back to her work in the office. The town hates me. They have made a heroine of her. I'm here talking

eminded him of something in the eyes of the pale daughter of the undertaker of Coal

t I want to do. There are plenty of women for that, women who are good for that only. When I first came here I used to wander about at night, wanting to go to my room and work but with my mind and my will

something going on in modern life," he said, talking rapidly and excitedly. "It used to touch only the men higher up, now it reaches down to men like me-barbers and workingmen. Men know about

d what's going on and don't care," he said. "They are too busy gett

ad. They pay for what they want as they would pay for a dinner, thinking no more of the women who serve them than they do of the waitresses who serve them in the restaurants. They refuse to think of the new kind of woman that is growing up. They know that if they get sentimental about her they'll get into trouble or ge

en. It seemed to him that a road was being built by his companion along which he might travel with safety. He wanted the man to go on talking. Into his brai

iolins and don't think of women. I've been in Chicago two years and I've spent just eleven dollars. I would like to know what the average ma

black-eyed girl in the hall is after you," he said. "You'd better look out. You let her alone. Stick to your law books.

that a brain could think a thing out so clearly and words express thoughts so lucidly. His eagerness to follow the pa

n his eyes and a suppressed eager quality in his voice. "I'm going t

tarted to speak he put his hand up as though to ward off a new thought or another question. "I'm not trying to dodge," he said. "I'm trying to get thoughts that have been in my head day after day in shape to tell. I haven't tried to express them b

wasn't intended to stay. Some men are intended to work and take care of children and serve women perhaps but others have to keep trying fo

an ever really understands a man caring for anyt

at McGregor. "Do you thin

"I don't know," he said. "Go on

tain kind of men-the ones that have work they want to get on with. Children and work are the only things that kind care about. If they have a sentiment about women it's on

ntil my beard grew. Women used to come there to receptions and to meetings in the afternoon to talk about reforms they were interested in--Bah! They work and scheme trying to get at men. They are at it all their lives, flattering, diverting us, gi

hing. You try being open and frank and square with a woman-any woman-as you would with a man. Let h

!" he said. "I'm making a muddle of this and I wanted to tell you. Oh, how I wanted to tell you!

dly and deeply moved and interested as he had

rber smiled and raised his hat. When they smiled back at him he rose and started to

look of half-guilty innocence on the faces of all of them, stirred a blind fury in his brain. He sprang forward, clutching the shoulder of Turner with hi

rubbed his hands together to brush the bits of gravel

what was in his mind. "Everything in its place,"

f the park. The two men sat on the b

ogether the two men walked along the street. "Look here," said McGregor. "I didn't mean to hurt

the sexes. "If a lot of women fall in the fight with us men and become our slaves-serving us as the paid women do-need they fuss about i

pensions and room to work out their own problem in the world or anything else that they really want. They can stand up face to face with men. They don't want to. They want to enslave us with their faces and their bodi

woman to live with, you know, just t

"I would. Any man would. I like to sit in the room for a spell in the evening talking to you but I wou

where the door of the black eyed girl's room had just crept open. "You let women alone," he sa

above the mess into which modern life had sunk that had come to him in the park, returned and he walked nervously about. When finally he sat down upon a chair and leaning forward