A Man of Ideas

He lived with his mother, a grey, silent woman with a
peculiar ashy complexion. The house in which they lived
stood in a little grove of trees beyond where the main
street of Winesburg crossed Wine Creek. His name was
Joe Welling, and his father had been a man of some
dignity in the community, a lawyer, and a member of the
state legislature at Columbus. Joe himself was small of
body and in his character unlike anyone else in town.
He was like a tiny little volcano that lies silent for
days and then suddenly spouts fire. No, he wasn't like
that--he was like a man who is subject to fits, one
who walks among his fellow men inspiring fear because a
fit may come upon him suddenly and blow him away into a
strange uncanny physical state in which his eyes roll
and his legs and arms jerk. He was like that, only that
the visitation that descended upon Joe Welling was a
mental and not a physical thing. He was beset by ideas
and in the throes of one of his ideas was
uncontrollable. Words rolled and tumbled from his
mouth. A peculiar smile came upon his lips. The edges
of his teeth that were tipped with gold glistened in
the light. Pouncing upon a bystander he began to talk.
For the bystander there was no escape. The excited man
breathed into his face, peered into his eyes, pounded
upon his chest with a shaking forefinger, demanded,
compelled attention.

In those days the Standard Oil Company did not deliver
oil to the consumer in big wagons and motor trucks as
it does now, but delivered instead to retail grocers,
hardware stores, and the like. Joe was the Standard Oil
agent in Winesburg and in several towns up and down the
railroad that went through Winesburg. He collected
bills, booked orders, and did other things. His father,
the legislator, had secured the job for him.

In and out of the stores of Winesburg went Joe
Welling--silent, excessively polite, intent upon his
business. Men watched him with eyes in which lurked
amusement tempered by alarm. They were waiting for him
to break forth, preparing to flee. Although the
seizures that came upon him were harmless enough, they
could not be laughed away. They were overwhelming.
Astride an idea, Joe was overmastering. His personality
became gigantic. It overrode the man to whom he talked,
swept him away, swept all away, all who stood within
sound of his voice.

In Sylvester West's Drug Store stood four men who were
talking of horse racing. Wesley Moyer's stallion, Tony
Tip, was to race at the June meeting at Tiffin, Ohio,
and there was a rumor that he would meet the stiffest
competition of his career. It was said that Pop Geers,
the great racing driver, would himself be there. A
doubt of the