Winesburg, Ohio: The Thinker

He regretted that he also could not laugh boisterously, shout meaningless jokes and make of himself a figure in the endless stream of moving, giggling activity that went up and down the road.

Already time had begun a little to color the stone, lending a golden richness to its surface and in the evening or on dark days touching the shaded places beneath the eaves with wavering patches of browns and blacks.

The house had been built by Seth's grandfather, a stone quarryman, and it, together with the stone quarries on Lake Erie eighteen miles to the north, had been left to his son, Clarence Richmond, Seth's father.

After the quarryman's death it was found that much of the money left to him had been squandered in speculation and in insecure investments made through the influence of friends.

After the quarryman's death it was found that much of the money left to him had been squandered in speculation and in insecure investments made through the influence of friends.

She had learned stenography and through the influence of her husband's friends got the position of court stenographer at the county seat.

She expected from all people certain conventional reactions to life.

After the severest reprimand, he did not tremble and look at the floor but instead looked steadily at her, causing uneasy doubts to invade her mind.

So determined was she that the boy should this time feel the weight of her wrath that, although she would not allow the marshal to interfere with his adventure, she got out a pencil and paper and wrote down a series of sharp, stinging reproofs she intended to pour out upon him.

And when, at the end of the week, Seth returned, a little weary and with coal soot in his ears and about his eyes, she again found herself unable to reprove him.

Tom Willard was berating the traveling men.

The baker had an empty milk bottle in his hand and an angry sullen look in his eyes.

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.

With calm eyes he watched the gesticulating lively figures of his companions.

"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.

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.

George Willard, who had been sitting for an hour idly playing with a lead pencil, greeted him effusively.

George Willard, who had been sitting for an hour idly playing with a lead pencil, greeted him effusively.

George Willard he thought a profound fool, and he wished that he had said so more vigorously.

George Willard he thought a profound fool, and he wished that he had said so more vigorously.

In the dim light the figures of the men standing upon the express truck and pitching the boxes in at the doors of the cars were but dimly discernible.

In the tops of the trees the wind began to play, disturbing the sleeping birds so that they flew about calling plaintively.

Seth had not answered them, although he had been moved and flattered by some of the sentences scrawled in pencil upon the stationery of the banker's wife.

The building had once been a factory for the making of barrel staves but was now vacant.

A wave of sentiment swept over Helen.