The Egg, by Sherwood Anderson, 1. Until he was thirty- four years old he worked as a. Thomas Butterworth whose place. Bidwell, Ohio. He had then a horse of his. Saturday evenings drove into town to spend a few. In town he drank.
Ben Head's. saloon- -crowded on Saturday evenings with visiting farmhands. Songs. were sung and glasses thumped on the bar. At ten o'clock father. He had at that time no notion of trying to rise in. Something. happened to the two people. They became ambitious. The American. passion for getting up in the world took possession of them. Being a. schoolteacher she had no doubt read books and magazines. She. had, I presume, read of how Garfield, Lincoln, and other. Americans rose from poverty to fame and greatness and as I lay beside. I. would someday rule men and cities. At any rate she induced father. She was a tall silent woman. For herself she wanted. For father and myself she was incurably ambitious. They rented ten acres of poor stony land on Griggs's Road. Bidwell, and launched into chicken raising. I. grew into boyhood on the place and got my first impressions of. From the beginning they were impressions of disaster. I am a gloomy man inclined to see the darker. I attribute it to the fact that what should have been. It is born out of. Easter cards, then becomes hideously naked, eats. A few. hens and now and then a rooster, intended to serve God's. The hens lay eggs out of. It is all unbelievably complex. Most philosophers must. August Krogh - Biographical. Schack August Steenberg Krogh was born at Grenaa, Jutland, Denmark, on November 15, 1874. He was the son of Viggo Krogh, shipbuilder. The future as they saw it in the 1920's. Followed with predictions from the 1930's. One hopes for so much from. Small chickens, just. They are so much like people. If disease does not kill. Vermin infest their youth, and fortunes. In later life I have seen how a. It is intended to be read by the. It is a hopeful literature and declares that much may be. Do not be. led astray by it. It was not written for you. Go hunt for gold on. Alaska, put your faith in the honesty of a politician. It was not written for you. My tale does not primarily concern itself. If correctly told it will center on the egg. For ten. years my father and mother struggled to make our chicken farm. They. moved into the town of Bidwell, Ohio and embarked in the. After ten years of worry with incubators that. Griggs's Road toward Bidwell. Mother and I walked in the. The wagon that contained our goods had been borrowed. Mr. Albert Griggs, a neighbor. Out of its sides. I had. been wheeled about in my infancy. Why we stuck to the baby. I don't know. It was unlikely other children would be. People who have few possessions. That is one of the facts that make. He was then a bald- headed. There were two little patches of hair on. I remember that as a child I used. Sunday afternoons in the winter. I had at that rime. I fancied, something. Caesar might have made on. Rome and into the wonders of an. The tufts of hair that grew above father's ears. I thought, like forests. I fell into a half- sleeping, half- waking. I was a tiny thing going along the road into a. Mother and I walked the entire eight miles- -she. I to see the. wonders of the world. On the seat of the wagon beside father was his. I will tell you of that. The accident. does not often occur- -perhaps once in a thousand births. A chicken. is, you see, born that has four legs, two pairs of wings, two heads. The things do not live. They go quickiy back to the. The fact. that the poor little things could not live was one of the tragedies. He had some sort of notion that if he could but. He dreamed of taking. They were preserved in alcohol. These he had carefully put. He drove the horses with one hand and. When we got to our destination. All. during our days as keepers of a restaurant in the town of Bidwell. Ohio, the grotesques in their little glass bottles sat on a shelf back. Mother sometimes protested but father was a rock. The grotesques were, he declared. People, he said, liked to look at strange and wonderful. I exaggerated a little. The town itself lay. The. railroad did not run through the town and the station was a mile. Pickleville. There had been a. In the morning. and in the evening busses came down to the station along a road. Turner's Pike from the hotel on the main street of Bidwell. She talked of it for a year and then. It was her idea that the restaurant would be. Travelling men, she said, would be always waiting around. They would come to the restaurant. Now that I am older I know. She was ambitious for me. At first there was the necessity of putting our place. Father built a. shelf on which he put tins of vegetables. He painted a sign on. Below his name was. Mother. scrubbed the floor and the walls of the room. I went to school in. Still I was not. very joyous. In the evening I walked home from school along. Turner's Pike and remembered the children I had seen playing in. A troop of little girls had gone hopping. Down along the frozen road I. Then I stopped and looked doubtfully about. It must have seemed. I was doing a thing that should not be done by one. At ten in the evening a passenger train went north past our. The freight crew had switching. Pickleville and when the work was done they came to. Sometimes one of them. In the morning at four they returned. A little trade began to grow up. Mother. slept at night and during the day tended the restaurant and fed. He slept in the same bed mother. I went off to the town of. Bidwell and to school. During the long nights, while mother and. I slept, father cooked meats that were to go into sandwiches for. Then an idea in regard to getting. The American spirit took. He also became ambitious. He decided that he had in the. In the early morning he came upstairs and got into bed. She woke and the two talked. From my bed in the. I listened. I cannot. When. people, particularly young people from the town of Bidwell, came. From father's words I gathered that. Mother. must have been doubtful from the first, but she said nothing. It was father's notion that a passion for the company. Bidwell. In the evening bright happy groups. Turner's Pike. They would troop shouting. There would be song and. I do not mean to give the impression that father spoke. He was as I have said an. I tell you. they want some place to go. That was as. far as he got. My own imagination has filled in the blanks. We did not talk much but in our daily lives tried earnestly. Mother smiled at. I, catching the infection, smiled at our cat. Father. became a little feverish in his anxiety to please. There was no. doubt lurking somewhere in him a touch of the spirit of the. He did not waste much of his ammunition on the. Bidwell to come in to show what he. On the counter in the restaurant there was a wire basket. There. was something pre- natal about the way eggs kept themselves. At any rate an egg. Late one night I was awakened by. Both mother and I. With trembling hands she lighted a lamp. Downstairs the front door of. He held an egg in his hand and his hand. There was a half insane. As he stood glaring at us I was sure he intended. Then he laid it gently. He began to cry like a boy and I, carried away by. The two of us filled the little upstairs. It is ridiculous, but of the picture. I can remember only the fact that mother's hand continually. I have. forgotten what mother said to him and how she induced him to. His explanation also. I remember only my own grief and. For some unexplainable reason. I know the story as well as though I had been a witness to my. One in time gets to know many unexplainable. On that evening young Joe Kane, son of a merchant of. Bidwell, came to Pickleville to meet his father, who was expected. The train was. three hours late and Joe came into our place to loaf about and to. The local freight train came in and the freight. Joe was left alone in the restaurant with father. It was his. notion that father was angry at him for hanging around. He noticed. that the restaurant keeper was apparently disturbed by his presence. However, it began to rain and he. He bought a. five- cent cigar and ordered a cup of coffee. He had a newspaper in his. He was no doubt suffering. As so often happens in life he had. Joe Kane put his. Father's eye lighted on the. He talked, he did, and then he went and. He muttered and swore. He. declared it was wrong to teach children that Christopher Columbus. Still grumbling. at Columbus, father took an egg from the basket on the counter. He rolled the egg between the. He began to mumble. He declared that without. He explained that the. Joe Kane was mildly. When after a half hour's. By the. time he had succeeded in calling Joe Kane's attention to the success. A cheerful. smile played over his face. He reached over the counter and tried. Joe Kane on the shoulder as he had seen men do in Ben. Head's saloon when he was a young farmhand and drove to town. Saturday evenings. His visitor was made a little ill by the sight. Coming from behind the counter. He grew a little angry and for a moment had to turn his face. Then he put the bottles back on. In an outburst of generosity he fairly compelled Joe. Kane to have a fresh cup of coffee and another cigar at his expense. When the egg is inside the bottle it will resume its. Then I will give. You can take it about with. People will want to know how you got the. That is. the way to have fun with this trick. Joe Kane decided. When the egg had been heated in vinegar. He was angry because his visitor did. For a long time he struggled, trying to get the. He put the pan of vinegar. After a second bath in the hot vinegar. He worked and worked and a spirit of desperate. When he thought that at. Joe Kane started to go nonchalantly. Father made a last desperate effort to conquer the. He attempted to be somewhat rough. He swore and the sweat stood out on his forehead. The. egg broke under his hand. When the contents spurted over his. Joe Kane, who had stopped at the door, turned and laughed. He danced and. shouted a string of inarticulate words. Grabbing another egg from. I do not know what he intended to do. I imagine he had. When, however. he got into the presence of mother something happened to him. He later decided to close the. I suppose I went. I awoke at dawn and for. I wondered. why eggs had to be and why from the egg came the hen who. America's Planned War on Britain: Revealed. Hidden deep inside the American National Archives there's a highly classified document once considered as the most sensitive on Earth. In 1. 93. 0 America crafted an elaborate plan for war with the . But America's enemy in this conflict was not the Soviet Union, or Japan.. This documentary will reveal how such an astonishing document came to be written and who would have won if it had been put into practice. It will show how America's greatest ally almost became their deadliest enemy. Ward didn't a break out between Britain and America in the 1. American journalist Peter Carlson was to discover. He was on a visit to the American National Archives in Washington DC when he found himself entering a strange and unsettling world. Lying untouched for years the plan . It shows where they would fight, what troops would be needed and how the battles would unfold. Throughout the plan the Americans refer to themselves as . We now think of Britain and America as having a special relationship. After all they did fight side by side in two world wars. But at the start of the 2. British dominion of Canada.
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