Windy McPhersons Son

Windy McPherson's Son, by
Sherwood Anderson

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Title: Windy McPherson's Son
Author: Sherwood Anderson

Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7443] [This file was first
posted on April 30, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, WINDY
MCPHERSON'S SON ***

Anne Soulard, Eric Eldred, John R. Bilderback, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team

WINDY MCPHERSON'S SON
BY
SHERWOOD ANDERSON

TO THE LIVING MEN AND WOMEN OF MY OWN MIDDLE
WESTERN HOME TOWN THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

WINDY MCPHERSON'S SON

BOOK I
CHAPTER I
At the beginning of the long twilight of a summer evening, Sam

McPherson, a tall big-boned boy of thirteen, with brown hair, black
eyes, and an amusing little habit of tilting his chin in the air as he
walked, came upon the station platform of the little corn-shipping town
of Caxton in Iowa. It was a board platform, and the boy walked
cautiously, lifting his bare feet and putting them down with extreme
deliberateness on the hot, dry, cracked planks. Under one arm he
carried a bundle of newspapers. A long black cigar was in his hand.
In front of the station he stopped; and Jerry Donlin, the baggage-man,
seeing the cigar in his hand, laughed, and slowly drew the side of his
face up into a laboured wink.
"What is the game to-night, Sam?" he asked.
Sam stepped to the baggage-room door, handed him the cigar, and
began giving directions, pointing into the baggage-room, intent and
business- like in the face of the Irishman's laughter. Then, turning, he
walked across the station platform to the main street of the town, his
eyes bent on the ends of his fingers on which he was making
computations with his thumb. Jerry looked after him, grinning so that
his red gums made a splash of colour on his bearded face. A gleam of
paternal pride lit his eyes and he shook his head and muttered
admiringly. Then, lighting the cigar, he went down the platform to
where a wrapped bundle of newspapers lay against the building, under
the window of the telegraph office, and taking it in his arm disappeared,
still grinning, into the baggage-room.
Sam McPherson walked down Main Street, past the shoe store, the
bakery, and the candy store kept by Penny Hughes, toward a group
lounging at the front of Geiger's drug store. Before the door of the shoe
store he paused a moment, and taking a small note-book from his
pocket ran his finger down the pages, then shaking his head continued
on his way, again absorbed in doing sums on his fingers.
Suddenly, from among the men by the drug store, a roaring song broke
the evening quiet of the street, and a voice, huge and guttural, brought a
smile to the boy's lips:

"He washed the windows and he swept the floor, And he polished up
the handle of the big front door. He polished that handle so carefullee,
That now he's the ruler of the queen's navee."
The singer, a short man with grotesquely wide shoulders, wore a long
flowing moustache, and a black coat, covered with dust, that reached to
his knees. He held a smoking briar pipe in his hand, and with it beat
time for a row of men sitting on a long stone under the store window
and pounding on the sidewalk with their heels to make a chorus for the
song. Sam's smile broadened into a grin as he looked at the singer,
Freedom Smith, a buyer of butter and eggs, and past him at John Telfer,
the orator, the dandy, the only man in town, except Mike McCarthy,
who kept his trousers creased. Among all the men of Caxton, Sam most
admired John Telfer and in his admiration had struck upon the town's
high light. Telfer loved good clothes and wore