A
little girl, the daughter of a farmer, had been thrown
from a buggy and killed.

On Main Street everyone had become excited and a cry
for doctors had gone up. All three of the active
practitioners of the town had come quickly but had
found the child dead. From the crowd someone had run to
the office of Doctor Parcival who had bluntly refused
to go down out of his office to the dead child. The
useless cruelty of his refusal had passed unnoticed.
Indeed, the man who had come up the stairway to summon
him had hurried away without hearing the refusal.

All of this, Doctor Parcival did not know and when
George Willard came to his office he found the man
shaking with terror. "What I have done will arouse the
people of this town," he declared excitedly. "Do I not
know human nature? Do I not know what will happen? Word
of my refusal will be whispered about. Presently men
will get together in groups and talk of it. They will
come here. We will quarrel and there will be talk of
hanging. Then they will come again bearing a rope in
their hands."

Doctor Parcival shook with fright. "I have a
presentiment," he declared emphatically. "It may be
that what I am talking about will not occur this
morning. It may be put off until tonight but I will be
hanged. Everyone will get excited. I will be hanged to
a lamp-post on Main Street."

Going to the door of his dirty office, Doctor Parcival
looked timidly down the stairway leading to the street.
When he returned the fright that had been in his eyes
was beginning to be replaced by doubt. Coming on tiptoe
across the room he tapped George Willard on the
shoulder. "If not now, sometime," he whispered, shaking
his head. "In the end I will be crucified, uselessly
crucified."

Doctor Parcival began to plead with George Willard.
"You must pay attention to me," he urged. "If something
happens perhaps you will be able to write the book that
I may never get written. The idea is very simple, so
simple that if you are not careful you will forget it.
It is this--that everyone in the world is Christ and
they are all crucified. That's what I want to say.
Don't you forget that. Whatever happens, don't you dare
let yourself forget."

NOBODY KNOWS

Looking cautiously about, George Willard arose from his
desk in the office of the Winesburg Eagle and went
hurriedly out at the back door. The night was warm and
cloudy and although it was not yet eight o'clock, the
alleyway back of the