Sherwood Anderson (1876-1940)
Sherwood Anderson was born at Clyde, Ohio, in 1876. Though he had written stories before, it was not until 1916 that he published his first book, Windy McPherson`s Son. Anderson`s short stories particularly those in the volume Winesburg, Ohio are about as different from the suavely clever products of Harte and O. Henry as anything could be. They are concerned first and last with human beings: plot and technique in short, the framework are almost entirely disregarded in an effort to present what appears to the writer as the truth.
Sophistication is reprinted from Winesburg, Ohio. Copyright by Jonathan Cape, by whose permission it is here used.
Sophistication
It was early evening of a day in the late fall, and the Winesburg County Fair had brought crowds of country people into town. The day had been clear and the night came on warm and pleasant. On the Trunion Pike, where the road after it left town stretched away between berry fields now covered with dry brown leaves, the dust from passing wagons arose in clouds. Children, curled into little balls, slept on the straw scattered on wagon beds. Their hair was full of dust and their fingers black and sticky. The dust rolled away over the fields and the departing sun set it ablaze with colors.
In the main street of Winesburg crowds filled the stores and the sidewalks. Night came on, horses whinnied, the clerks in the stores ran madly about, children became lost and cried lustily, an American town worked terribly at the task of amusing itself.
Pushing his way through the crowds in Main Street, young George Willard concealed himself in the stairway leading to Doctor Reefy`s office and looked at the people. With feverish eyes he watched the faces drifting past under the store lights. Thoughts kept coming into his head and he did not want to think. He stamped impatiently on the wooden steps and looked sharply about. “Well, is she going to stay with him all day? Have I done all this waiting for nothing?” he muttered.
George Willard, the Ohio village boy, was fast growing into manhood and new thoughts had been coming into his mind. All that day, amid the jam of people at the Fair, he had gone about feeling lonely. He was about to leave Winesburg to go away to some city where he hoped to get work on a city newspaper and he felt grown up.
The mood that had taken possession of him was a thing known to men and unknown to boys. He felt old and a little tired. Memories awoke in him. To his mind his new sense of maturity set him apart, made of him a half-tragic figure. He wanted someone to understand the feeling that had taken possession of him after his mother`s death.
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