In “Walter Simmons,” a man looks back on a youth full of promise. Everyone, especially his parents, believed he might become another Edison. He built toys, engines, telephones from cans, played music, painted, and acted. But marriage at twenty-one forced him to earn a living, so he became a watchmaker and ran a jewelry store. All the while, he obsessed over an engine he was designing, even studying calculus for it. The town watched and waited, but the engine never worked. Some people excused him, saying the store held him back. Walter rejects that comfort. The real reason, he admits plainly, is that he simply didn’t have the brains. The mood is quiet, resigned, and brutally honest—less angry than tired, a man finally telling the truth about himself after a lifetime of expectation.
Walter Simmons — Summary
My parents thought that I would be As great as Edison or greater: For as a boy I made balloons And wondrous kites and toys with clocks And little engines with tracks to run on And telephones of cans and thread. I played the cornet and painted pictures, Modeled in clay and took the part Of the villain in the “Octoroon.” But then at twenty-one I married And had to live, and so, to live I learned the trade of making watches And kept the jewelry store on the square, Thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking,— Not of business, but of the engine I studied the calculus to build. And all Spoon River watched and waited To see it work, but it never worked. And a few kind souls believed my genius Was somehow hampered by the store. It wasn’t true. The truth was this: I did not have the brains.