Marching Men

Marching Men

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Marching Men, by Sherwood
Anderson #2 in our series by Sherwood Anderson
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: Marching Men
Author: Sherwood Anderson
Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7045] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on February 27,
2003]
Edition: 10

Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
MARCHING MEN ***

This eBook was provided by Juliet Sutherland


MARCHING MEN
BY
SHERWOOD ANDERSON Author of "Windy Mcpherson's Son"
MCMXVII

TO AMERICAN WORKINGMEN

BOOK I

CHAPTER I
Uncle Charlie Wheeler stamped on the steps before Nance McGregor's
bake-shop on the Main Street of the town of Coal Creek Pennsylvania
and then went quickly inside. Something pleased him and as he stood
before the counter in the shop he laughed and whistled softly. With a
wink at the Reverend Minot Weeks who stood by the door leading to
the street, he tapped with his knuckles on the showcase.
"It has," he said, waving attention to the boy, who was making a mess
of the effort to arrange Uncle Charlie's loaf into a neat package, "a
pretty name. They call it Norman--Norman McGregor." Uncle Charlie
laughed heartily and again stamped upon the floor. Putting his finger to
his forehead to suggest deep thought, he turned to the minister. "I am
going to change all that," he said.
"Norman indeed! I shall give him a name that will stick! Norman! Too

soft, too soft and delicate for Coal Creek, eh? It shall be rechristened.
You and I will be Adam and Eve in the garden naming things. We will
call it Beaut--Our Beautiful One--Beaut McGregor."
The Reverend Minot Weeks also laughed. He thrust four ringers of
each hand into the pockets of his trousers, letting the extended thumbs
lie along the swelling waist line. From the front the thumbs looked like
two tiny boats on the horizon of a troubled sea. They bobbed and
jumped about on the rolling shaking paunch, appearing and
disappearing as laughter shook him. The Reverend Minot Weeks went
out at the door ahead of Uncle Charlie, still laughing. One fancied that
he would go along the street from store to store telling the tale of the
christening and laughing again. The tall boy could imagine the details
of the story.
It was an ill day for births in Coal Creek, even for the birth of one of
Uncle Charlie's inspirations. Snow lay piled along the sidewalks and in
the gutters of Main Street--black snow, sordid with the gathered grime
of human endeavour that went on day and night in the bowels of the
hills. Through the soiled snow walked miners, stumbling along silently
and with blackened faces. In their bare hands they carried dinner pails.
The McGregor boy, tall and awkward, and with a towering nose, great
hippopotamus-like mouth and fiery red hair, followed Uncle Charlie,
Republican politician, postmaster and village wit to the door and
looked after him as with the loaf of bread under his arm he hurried
along the street. Behind the politician went the minister still enjoying
the scene in the bakery. He was preening himself on his nearness to life
in the mining town. "Did not Christ himself laugh, eat and drink with
publicans and sinners?" he thought, as he waddled through the snow.
The eyes of the McGregor boy, as they followed the two departing
figures, and later, as he stood in the door of the bake- shop watching
the struggling miners, glistened, with hatred. It was the quality of
intense hatred for his fellows in the black hole between the
Pennsylvania hills that marked the boy and made him stand forth
among his fellows.
In a country of so many varied climates and occupations as America it

is absurd to talk of an American type. The country is like a vast
disorganised undisciplined army, leaderless, uninspired, going in