ite it
up in the paper and make a fuss. I never intended to do
anything of the kind.

"Anyway, in I went to the room where my father lay dead
and blessed the dead body. I wonder what put that
notion into my head. Wouldn't my brother, the painter,
have laughed, though. There I stood over the dead body
and spread out my hands. The superintendent of the
asylum and some of his helpers came in and stood about
looking sheepish. It was very amusing. I spread out my
hands and said, 'Let peace brood over this carcass.'
That's what I said."

Jumping to his feet and breaking off the tale, Doctor
Parcival began to walk up and down in the office of the
Winesburg Eagle where George Willard sat listening. He
was awkward and, as the office was small, continually
knocked against things. "What a fool I am to be
talking," he said. "That is not my object in coming
here and forcing my acquaintanceship upon you. I have
something else in mind. You are a reporter just as I
was once and you have attracted my attention. You may
end by becoming just such another fool. I want to warn
you and keep on warning you. That's why I seek you
out."

Doctor Parcival began talking of George Willard's
attitude toward men. It seemed to the boy that the man
had but one object in view, to make everyone seem
despicable. "I want to fill you with hatred and
contempt so that you will be a superior being," he
declared. "Look at my brother. There was a fellow, eh?
He despised everyone, you see. You have no idea with
what contempt he looked upon mother and me. And was he
not our superior? You know he was. You have not seen
him and yet I have made you feel that. I have given you
a sense of it. He is dead. Once when he was drunk he
lay down on the tracks and the car in which he lived
with the other painters ran over him."

* * *

One day in August Doctor Parcival had an adventure in
Winesburg. For a month George Willard had been going
each morning to spend an hour in the doctor's office.
The visits came about through a desire on the part of
the doctor to read to the boy from the pages of a book
he was in the process of writing. To write the book
Doctor Parcival declared was the object of his coming
to Winesburg to live.

On the morning in August before the coming of the boy,
an incident had happened in the doctor's office. There
had been an accident on Main Street. A team of horses
had been frightened by a train and had run away.