I pay? Why should Hal pay? Why should anyone
pay? I don't want Hal to become old and worn out. I'll
tell him. I won't let it go on. I'll catch Hal before
he gets to town and I'll tell him."

Ray ran clumsily and once he stumbled and fell down.
"I must catch Hal and tell him," he kept thinking, and
although his breath came in gasps he kept running
harder and harder. As he ran he thought of things that
hadn't come into his mind for years--how at the time he
married he had planned to go west to his uncle in
Portland, Oregon--how he hadn't wanted to be a farm
hand, but had thought when he got out West he would go
to sea and be a sailor or get a job on a ranch and ride
a horse into Western towns, shouting and laughing and
waking the people in the houses with his wild cries.
Then as he ran he remembered his children and in fancy
felt their hands clutching at him. All of his thoughts
of himself were involved with the thoughts of Hal and
he thought the children were clutching at the younger
man also. "They are the accidents of life, Hal," he
cried. "They are not mine or yours. I had nothing to do
with them."

Darkness began to spread over the fields as Ray Pearson
ran on and on. His breath came in little sobs. When he
came to the fence at the edge of the road and
confronted Hal Winters, all dressed up and smoking a
pipe as he walked jauntily along, he could not have
told what he thought or what he wanted.

Ray Pearson lost his nerve and this is really the end
of the story of what happened to him. It was almost
dark when he got to the fence and he put his hands on
the top bar and stood staring. Hal Winters jumped a
ditch and coming up close to Ray put his hands into his
pockets and laughed. He seemed to have lost his own
sense of what had happened in the corn field and when
he put up a strong hand and took hold of the lapel of
Ray's coat he shook the old man as he might have shaken
a dog that had misbehaved.

"You came to tell me, eh?" he said. "Well, never mind
telling me anything. I'm not a coward and I've already
made up my mind." He laughed again and jumped back
across the ditch. "Nell ain't no fool," he said. "She
didn't ask me to marry her. I want to marry her. I want
to settle down and have kids."

Ray Pearson also laughed. He felt like laughing at
himself and all the world.

As the form of Hal Winters disappeared in the dusk that
lay over the road that led to Winesburg, he turned and
walked slowly back