In Edgar Lee Masters’“’Butch’ Weldy” from Spoon River Anthology, the character of the man who impregnated Minerva Jones before he “got religion and steadied down” is revealed. The reader will notice that “Butch” makes no reference to Minerva Jones, her father--Indignation Jones, or Doctor and Mrs. Meyer. His choice of narration subject reveals him to be a self-indulgent individual.
First Movement: “After I got religion and steadied down”
Presenting himself as a ne’er-do-well, Butch reports that he was able to find work after he “got religion and steadied down,” exposing his character as a gad-about, who likely indulged in all manner of adolescent chicanery.
This estimation of his character can be inferred from the fact that he impregnated Minerva Jones out-of-wedlock. Likely, he led Minerva to believe he loved her and after carrying on with her for a time that suited his fancy, he dumped her. As she said, he left her to her fate with Doctor Meyers.
Butch explains his job at the canning works, how he “mounted a rickety ladder” every morning to “fill / The tank in the yard with gasoline.” This fuel then “fed the blow-fires in the sheds / To heat the soldering irons.”
Second Movement: “One morning, as I stood there pouring”
Butch then states that on one work morning as he was filling the tank with gasoline that he had fetched up the ladder, he noticed that “the air grew still and seemed to heave, / And I shot up as the tank exploded.” From this unfortunate event, Butch suffered two broken legs and his “eyes burned crisp as a couple of eggs,” thus rendering him blind.
Third Movement: “For someone left a blow-fire going”
A fellow worker had allowed one of the fires to continue to burn. Butch explains that the air “sucked the flame in the tank.” He then lurches quickly to the trial in which the “Circuit Judge said whoever did it / Was a fellow-servant of mine, and so / Old Rhodes’ son didn’t have to pay me.”
Butch’s attempt to recover damages from the canning works for his injuries is thwarted by the court. The court finds that because a fellow worker had been negligent and caused the accident, the owners of the canning works could not be held responsible.
Fourth Movement: “And I sat on the witness stand as blind”
Butch protests that he “didn’t know [the fellow worker] at all.” This response reveals a lack of understanding; the court was not saying the Butch and the perpetrator were buddies; it was saying that the canning works owners were not responsible. If Butch were to sue the fellow worker, he might have a case.
Butch remarks that he “sat on the witness stand “as blind / As Jack the Fiddler” repeating his claim that he did not know the fellow employ who neglected to douse the fire in the shed. “Jack the Fiddler” is an allusion to “Blind Jack,” who appears later on the Spoon River Anthology.
Linda Sue Grimes - As a writer, researcher, and SRF devotee, Linda Sue Grimes has studied poetry and practiced Kriya Yoga for over thirty years..
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