Her eyes glowed and she clenched her fists. "Even though I die, I will in some way keep defeat from you," she cried, and so deep was her determination that her whole body shook. In the boyish figure she yearned to see something half forgotten that had once been a part of herself recreated. In the room by the desk she went through a ceremony that was half a prayer, half a demand, addressed to the skies. In the son's presence she was timid and reserved, but sometimes while he hurried about town intent upon his duties as a reporter, she went into his room and closing the door knelt by a little desk, made of a kitchen table, that sat near a window. In the old days they fairly hunted us with guns."īetween Elizabeth and her one son George there was a deep unexpressed bond of sympathy, based on a girlhood dream that had long ago died. "What do you know of service? What are you but a boy? Look at what I've done here! I was a Democrat here in Winesburg when it was a crime to be a Democrat. "Shut up, you," he roared, glaring about. Once when a younger member of the party arose at a political conference and began to boast of his faithful service, Tom Willard grew white with fury. He dreamed of going to Congress and even of becoming governor. Some day, he told himself, the fide of things political will turn in my favor and the years of ineffectual service count big in the bestowal of rewards. Tom Willard had a passion for village politics and for years had been the leading Democrat in a strongly Republican community. "Damn such a life, damn it!" he sputtered aimlessly.
As he went spruce and business-like through the streets of Winesburg, he sometimes stopped and turned quickly about as though fearing that the spirit of the hotel and of the woman would follow him even into the streets. The hotel in which he had begun life so hopefully was now a mere ghost of what a hotel should be. He thought of the old house and the woman who lived there with him as things defeated and done for. The hotel was unprofitable and forever on the edge of failure and he wished himself out of it. When he thought of her he grew angry and swore. The presence of the tall ghostly figure, moving slowly through the halls, he took as a reproach to himself. Her husband, Tom Willard, a slender, graceful man with square shoulders, a quick military step, and a black mustache trained to turn sharply up at the ends, tried to put the wife out of his mind. Listlessly she went about the disorderly old hotel looking at the faded wall-paper and the ragged carpets and, when she was able to be about, doing the work of a chambermaid among beds soiled by the slumbers of fat traveling men. Although she was but forty-five, some obscure disease had taken the fire out of her figure. ELIZABETH WILLARD, the mother of George Willard, was tall and gaunt and her face was marked with smallpox scars.
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