Marching Men
Sherwood Anderson
 The novel begins with the fourteen-year-old Norman McGregor packaging a loaf of bread for his uncle, the "village wit", – who ironically nicknames him "Beaut" because of his off-putting appearance – in his mother Nance's Coal Creek bakery (bought with the savings of her late husband/Beaut's father "Cracked" McGregor). Not long after, frustrated by the local miners expecting bread on credit without first settling their debts, Beaut closes the bakery during a miner's strike. That evening, as the now-drunk miners move to ransack the bakery (and assault Beaut), he is saved by a troupe of soldiers marching in formation. After the episode, the bakery remains closed and Nance goes to work at the mining office while Beaut idles about. When Beaut is 18 years-old, his mother becomes too ill to work and the young man gets a job as a stableboy. One day, as a prank, his fellow stableboys get Beaut (a teetotaler up to that point) blind drunk with a "horrible mess" made just for that purpose. Having reached a breaking point, Beaut takes the rest of his father's savings and leaves Coal Creek for Chicago on the same evening. He arrives in the City just after the 1893 World's Fair. Despite a shortage of jobs, McGregor easily finds a warehouse job and settles into a routine of work during the day and night school/independent reading at night. One day, in a break from the ordinary, the usually unsocial McGregor gives in to the urging of his neighbor Frank Turner, a barber and amateur violin-maker, and goes to a dance. Despite his aloofness, McGregor meets Edith Carson, a frail, mousy, and somewhat homely milliner/shop owner, with whom he develops a platonic relationship. Book III begins with Beaut returning to Coal Creek for his mother's funeral. During the funeral procession, the miners who attend fall spontaneously into step and Beaut is once-again inspired by the power of marching men. Back in Chicago, Edith Carson, who had gained a modicum of wealth through her shrewd business dealings, loans McGregor the money necessary for him to quit working full-time and attend school to become a lawyer, his long-time ambition. Not long after McGregor is admitted to the bar, the son of a wealthy industrialist is found murdered. In order to quell newspaper speculation as to their involvement, the political bosses decide to redirect the media's attention by framing and demonizing small-time thief Andy Brown, an acquaintance of McGregor. From jail, Brown requests that McGregor act as his lawyer. Though McGregor refuses at first, he ends up with the job. After an unsuccessful solo investigation, McGregor turns to wealthy heiress-turned-settlement house-volunteer, Margaret Ormsby, for help. Margaret, a "new woman" who dresses fashionably, is self-assured in demeanor, and is capable of acting independently is bothered by McGregor's bluntness, but decides to aid him nevertheless. On a tip from Edith Carson, and with Ormsby's connections, McGregor is able to clear Andy Brown of any wrongdoing. In the interim, Margaret Ormsby and McGregor develop a romance. While McGregor is slowly building up his idea of marching men (his law practice on the backburner), he decides that he wants to marry Margaret Ormsby. As he is leaving a formal party at her family's mansion, McGregor asks Margaret to marry him, but gets nervous and flees before she can respond. A few weeks later, McGregor falls asleep at the house of Edith Carson and wakes up with her stroking his hair. Realizing that their relationship is more intimate then he had thought, he goes to Margaret and reveals his past experiences with women. Margaret hears McGregor's confession and declares that she will still marry him, but first, she must go talk to Edith. A few weeks later, when McGregor is in the neighborhood for a teamster's strike, he finds that Edith's shop had recently come under new ownership. Rushing to the train station, he finds Edith about to depart. Together, they go to the Ormsby house and in a confrontation Margaret cedes her claim over McGregor to Edith. As Edith and McGregor are leaving, Margaret's father, David, leader of a plow trust (nicknamed "Ormsby the Prince" by the City's oligarchs), extends a hand to McGregor. The two men shake, the narrator noting their polite antagonism towards each other. Soon, the marching men idea blooms with workers coming together and marching to and from work in the evenings. Becoming nervous over newspaper reports and rumors of the worker gatherings, several "men of affairs" discuss the matter. David Ormsby volunteers to dissuade to McGregor from further organizing but cannot communicate his point to the impassive McGregor. The marching men movement peaks during a demonstration on Labor Day, climaxing with a speech by McGregor. Riding in a carriage with her father at the fringe of the demonstration, Margaret Ormsby is overcome by McGregor's oration, but later professes her allegiance to her father. The book ends that same night with a solitary David Ormsby, a foil to the stereotype of the ruthless businessman, at his window overlooking the city, meditating on his life choices: "What if McGregor and his woman knew both roads? What if they, after looking deliberately along the road toward beauty and success in life, went, without regret, along the road to failure? What if McGregor and not myself knew the road to beauty?"