Evening star., 1940-06-16
BETTER AMERICA
WE ARE ALL SMALL-T0WNERS
BY SHERWOOD ANDERSON

WELL don't know, John. When fellow LOOKS up at
the sky at night -
The city remembers vividly his sma}-t school,
teacher the place where he with the other town boys
built dam in the creek to make swimming nole II ne
from small southern town, he remembers Negro
boy with whom he went hunting coons or possums at ngh
The northern boy remembers the hills on which ne went
bobsedding, the ponds which he learned to skate
There was always another boy who could outskate him.
who could figures of eight and other fancy strokes
When he tried them, he kept falling.
During all his life in the city, the small town OF his
boyhood has remained home to him. Every house IN the
town. the faces of people the street in his boyhood
have all remained sharp in his mind How clearly he re-
members the wheat field beside the waterworks pond
where he with troupe of other boys went along path
to the towns swimming hole. He remembers the way the
wind played in the wheat If he is a southern boy he
remembers the fall days when he gathered persmons the
fires under the kettles where sorghum moasses was being
made at night Negro skimming the yellowgr
froth off the boiling juice
OR THE night when he and boyhood friend walked home
together from dance from spelling bee at country
schoohouse the dusty dirt road along which they walked
the wind in the tall fall the rustng sound when the
wind played among the broad dry corn leaves rubbing
them together and making sound like ghosts running
whispering through the corn.
He remembers the towns haunted house. and the night
when he and other town boys played folowtheleader
and daring boy led them into the town graveyard
Sometimes the city remembering an old hunger
returns to the of his youth He walks about the
streets The town strangely changed to him. 1t
constant shock him that the people of his town have
also grown older.
There is gray-haired man he remembers as Slight
youth who played shorttop the baseball team Perhaps
the main street of his has been paved since he
boy The whole town seems to have shrunk in size He
remembers the long journey when child he first set
where he spent his childhood to the school building.
The city returning thus to his home town has
always feeling of sadness He the change in the
town. the fact that people of the town have grown older as
he has, that strangers have come in.
He is shocked, half wishing he hadn't come 1T would
have been better to let my dream alone, he thinks
But there realization in him that the city in which
he has been living for years also is made up of an infinite
number of small towns.
The city also wants to be known and recognized by
the clerks the neghbong drugstore the by cham
grocery store, by the dealer at the corner He
also to be known and recognized by the waters IN
the city restaurant where he goes for his monday lunch
1t the old hunger for intimacy The great majority OF
American city have from the small towns They
remember wildly the intimacy of life in the small towns,
Many of them remain during all the years of their life as
city men, small owners at heart, and they happest
when they recapture city men, the intimacy and
endliness which they first knew srnalltown boys.