“But sometimes I think I would like a woman
to live with, you know, just to sit and talk with
me,” said McGregor.
The barber laughed. Puffing at his pipe he walked
down the street. “To be sure! To be
sure!” he said. “I would. Any
man would. I like to sit in the room for a spell
in the evening talking to you but I would hate to
give up violin making and be bound all my life to serve
you and your purposes just the same.”
In the hallway of their own house the barber spoke
to McGregor as he looked down the hallway to where
the door of the black eyed girl’s room had just
crept open. “You let women alone,”
he said; “when you feel you can’t stay
away from them any longer you come and talk it over
with me.”
McGregor nodded and went along the hallway to his
own room. In the darkness he stood by the window
and looked down into the court. The feeling of
hidden power, the ability to rise 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 put his head in his hands he felt like one
who has started on a long journey through a strange
and dangerous country and who has unexpectedly come
upon a friend going the same way.
The people of Chicago go home from their work at evening—drifting
they go in droves, hurrying along. It is a startling
thing to look closely at them. The people have
bad mouths. Their mouths are slack and the jaws
do not hang right. The mouths are like the shoes
they wear. The shoes have become run down at
the corners from too much pounding on the hard pavements
and the mouths have become crooked from too much weariness
of soul.
Something is wrong with modern American life and we
Americans do not want to look at it. We much
prefer to call ourselves a great people and let it
go at that.
It is evening and the people of Chicago go home from
work. Clatter, clatter, clatter, go the heels
on the hard pavements, jaws wag, the wind blows and
dirt drifts and sifts through the masses of the people.
Every one has dirty ears. The stench in the street
cars is horrible. The antiquated bridges over
the rivers are packed with people. The suburban
trains going away south and west are cheaply constructed
and dangerous. A people calling itself great
and living in a city also called great go to their
houses a mere disorderly mass of humans cheaply equipped.
Everything is cheap. When the people get home
to their houses they sit on cheap chairs before cheap
tables and eat cheap food. They have given their
lives for cheap things. The poorest peasant of
one of the old countries is surrounded by more beauty.
His very equipment for living has more solidity.
