s fancy came to him. Wash Williams talked
in low even tones that made his words seem the more
terrible. In the darkness the young reporter found
himself imagining that he sat on the railroad ties
beside a comely young man with black hair and black
shining eyes. There was something almost beautiful in
the voice of Wash Williams, the hideous, telling his
story of hate.

The telegraph operator of Winesburg, sitting in the
darkness on the railroad ties, had become a poet.
Hatred had raised him to that elevation. "It is because
I saw you kissing the lips of that Belle Carpenter that
I tell you my story," he said. "What happened to me may
next happen to you. I want to put you on your guard.
Already you may be having dreams in your head. I want
to destroy them."

Wash Williams began telling the story of his married
life with the tall blonde girl with the blue eyes whom
he had met when he was a young operator at Dayton,
Ohio. Here and there his story was touched with moments
of beauty intermingled with strings of vile curses. The
operator had married the daughter of a dentist who was
the youngest of three sisters. On his marriage day,
because of his ability, he was promoted to a position
as dispatcher at an increased salary and sent to an
office at Columbus, Ohio. There he settled down with
his young wife and began buying a house on the
installment plan.

The young telegraph operator was madly in love. With a
kind of religious fervor he had managed to go through
the pitfalls of his youth and to remain virginal until
after his marriage. He made for George Willard a
picture of his life in the house at Columbus, Ohio,
with the young wife. "In the garden back of our house
we planted vegetables," he said, "you know, peas and
corn and such things. We went to Columbus in early
March and as soon as the days became warm I went to
work in the garden. With a spade I turned up the black
ground while she ran about laughing and pretending to
be afraid of the worms I uncovered. Late in April came
the planting. In the little paths among the seed beds
she stood holding a paper bag in her hand. The bag was
filled with seeds. A few at a time she handed me the
seeds that I might thrust them into the warm, soft
ground."

For a moment there was a catch in the voice of the man
talking in the darkness. "I loved her," he said. "I
don't claim not to be a fool. I love her yet. There in
the dusk in the spring evening I crawled along the
bl