Becoming more excited Joe Welling crowded the young reporter against the front of the feed store.  He appeared to be lost in thought, rolling his eyes about and running a thin nervous hand through his hair.  A smile spread over his face and his gold teeth glittered.  “You get out your note book,” he commanded.  “You carry a little pad of paper in your pocket, don’t you?  I knew you did.  Well, you set this down.  I thought of it the other day.  Let’s take decay.  Now what is decay?  It’s fire.  It burns up wood and other things.  You never thought of that?  Of course not.  This sidewalk here and this feed store, the trees down the street there—­they’re all on fire.  They’re burning up.  Decay you see is always going on.  It doesn’t stop.  Water and paint can’t stop it.  If a thing is iron, then what?  It rusts, you see.  That’s fire, too.  The world is on fire.  Start your pieces in the paper that way.  Just say in big letters ‘The World Is On Fire.’  That will make ’em look up.  They’ll say you’re a smart one.  I don’t care.  I don’t envy you.  I just snatched that idea out of the air.  I would make a newspaper hum.  You got to admit that."’

Turning quickly, Joe Welling walked rapidly away.  When he had taken several steps he stopped and looked back.  “I’m going to stick to you,” he said.  “I’m going to make you a regular hummer.  I should start a newspaper myself, that’s what I should do.  I’d be a marvel.  Everybody knows that.”

When George Willard had been for a year on the Winesburg Eagle, four things happened to Joe Welling.  His mother died, he came to live at the New Willard House, he became involved in a love affair, and he organized the Winesburg Baseball Club.

Joe organized the baseball club because he wanted to be a coach and in that position he began to win the respect of his townsmen.  “He is a wonder,” they declared after Joe’s team had whipped the team from Medina County.  “He gets everybody working together.  You just watch him.”

Upon the baseball field Joe Welling stood by first base, his whole body quivering with excitement.  In spite of themselves all the players watched him closely.  The opposing pitcher became confused.

“Now!  Now!  Now!  Now!” shouted the excited man.  “Watch me!  Watch me!  Watch my fingers!  Watch my hands!  Watch my feet!  Watch my eyes!  Let’s work together here!  Watch me!  In me you see all the movements of the game!  Work with me!  Work with me!  Watch me!  Watch me!  Watch me!”

With runners of the Winesburg team on bases, Joe Welling became as one inspired.  Before they knew what had come over them, the base runners were watching the man, edging off the bases, advancing, retreating, held as by an invisible cord.  The players of the opposing team also watched Joe.  They were fascinated.  For a moment they watched and then, as though to break a spell that hung over them, they began hurling the ball wildly about, and amid a series of fierce animal-like cries from the coach, the runners of the Winesburg team scampered home.