said as he went through the
streets. "He'll break out some of these days. You wait
and see."

The talk of the town and the respect with which men and
boys instinctively greeted him, as all men greet silent
people, had affected Seth Richmond's outlook on life
and on himself. He, like most boys, was deeper than
boys are given credit for being, but he was not what
the men of the town, and even his mother, thought him
to be. No great underlying purpose lay back of his
habitual silence, and he had no definite plan for his
life. When the boys with whom he associated were noisy
and quarrelsome, he stood quietly at one side. With
calm eyes he watched the gesticulating lively figures
of his companions. He wasn't particularly interested in
what was going on, and sometimes wondered if he would
ever be particularly interested in anything. Now, as he
stood in the half-darkness by the window watching the
baker, he wished that he himself might become
thoroughly stirred by something, even by the fits of
sullen anger for which Baker Groff was noted. "It would
be better for me if I could become excited and wrangle
about politics like windy old Tom Willard," he thought,
as he left the window and went again along the hallway
to the room occupied by his friend, George Willard.

George Willard was older than Seth Richmond, but in the
rather odd friendship between the two, it was he who
was forever courting and the younger boy who was being
courted. The paper on which George worked had one
policy. It strove to mention by name in each issue, as
many as possible of the inhabitants of the village.
Like an excited dog, George Willard ran here and there,
noting on his pad of paper who had gone on business to
the county seat or had returned from a visit to a
neighboring village. All day he wrote little facts upon
the pad. "A. P. Wringlet had received a shipment of
straw hats. Ed Byerbaum and Tom Marshall were in
Cleveland Friday. Uncle Tom Sinnings is building a new
barn on his place on the Valley Road."

The idea that George Willard would some day become a
writer had given him a place of distinction in
Winesburg, and to Seth Richmond he talked continually
of the matter, "It's the easiest of all lives to live,"
he declared, becoming excited and boastful. "Here and
there you go and there is no one to boss you. Though
you are in India or in the South Seas in a boat, you
have but to write and there you are. Wait till I get my
name up and