angry voice that had always made him tremble.
There in the country all sounds were pleasant sounds. When  he awoke at dawn
the  barnyard  back of the house  also awoke. In  the  house  people stirred
about. Eliza Stoughton the half-witted girl was poked in  the ribs by a farm
hand  and  giggled  noisily, in some  distant  field  a cow bawled  and  was
answered by the cattle  in  the stables,  and one of  the farm  hands  spoke
sharply to the horse he was grooming by the stable door. David leaped out of
bed and ran to a window. All of the people stirring about excited  his mind,
and he wondered what his mother was doing in the house in town.
     From  the  windows  of his own room he could  not see directly into the
barnyard  where the  farm hands  had  now  all assembled to  do the  morning
shores,  but he could hear the voices of  the men and  the  neighing  of the
horses.  When one of the  men laughed, he laughed also.  Leaning out  at the
open window, he looked into an orchard where a fat sow wandered about with a
litter of tiny pigs at her heels. Every morning  he counted the pigs. "Four,
five, six, seven," he said slowly, wetting his finger and making straight up
and down marks on the  window ledge.  David ran to put  on  his trousers and
shirt. A feverish desire to get out of doors took  possession of him.  Every
morning  he  made such  a  noise  coming down stairs that  Aunt Callie,  the
housekeeper, declared he was trying to tear the  house down. When he had run
through  the  long  old house, shutting the doors behind him with a bang, he
came into the barnyard and looked about with an amazed air of expectancy. It
seemed  to him that in such a place tremendous  things might  have  happened
during  the night.  The farm hands looked at him and laughed. Henry Strader,
an old man who had been on the farm since Jesse came into possession and who
before David's time had never been known to make  a joke, made the same joke
every morning.  It amused David so that he  laughed  and  clapped his hands.
"See, come here and  look,"  cried the old  man. "Grandfather Jesse's  white
mare has tom the black stocking she wears on her foot."
     Day after day through the long summer, Jesse Bentley drove from farm to
farm  up and  down the valley of Wine Creek, and his grandson went with him.
They rode in a comfortable old phaeton drawn by the white horse. The old man
scratched his thin  white  beard  and talked  to  himself  of his  plans for
increasing the productiveness of  the  fields they visited and of God's part
in the plans all men made. Sometimes he looked  at David  and smiled happily
and then for a long time he appeared to forget the boy's existence. More and
more every day now his mind turned back again  to the dreams that had filled
his mind  when he had  first come out of the  city to live on the land.  One
afternoon he startled David by letting his dreams take entire  possession of
him. With the boy as a witness, he went through a ceremony and brought about
an accident that nearly  destroyed  the  companionship that was  growing  up
between them.
     Jesse and his grandson  were  driving in  a distant part of  the valley
some miles from home. A forest came down to the road and through the  forest
Wine  Creek  wriggled  its way over stones  toward a distant river.  All the
afternoon Jesse had been in a  meditative mood and now he began to talk. His
mind went  back to the night  when he had  been  frightened by thoughts of a
giant that  might  come to rob and plunder him of his possessions, and again
as on that night when he  had  run through the fields crying for  a  son, he
became excited to the edge of insanity. Stopping the horse he got out of the
buggy and  asked  David  to get out also. The two climbed over  a fence  and
walked along  the  bank  of the  stream. The boy paid  no attention  to  the
muttering of his grandfather, but ran along beside him and wondered what was
going to happen.  When a rabbit jumped up and ran away through the woods, he
clapped his hands and  danced with delight.  He looked at the tall trees and
was sorry  that he was not a little animal to climb high in the air  without
being frightened. Stooping, he picked up a small stone and threw it over the
head of his grandfather into a clump of  bushes. "Wake up, little animal. Go
and climb to the top of the trees," he shouted in a shrill voice.
     Jesse Bentley  went along under the trees with his head bowed  and with
his mind  in  a  ferment.  His earnestness affected  the boy,  who presently
became silent  and a little alarmed.  Into  the  old man's mind had come the
notion that  now he could bring from God  a word or a sign out  of  the sky,
that the presence  of the boy and man on their knees  in some lonely spot in
the forest would make the miracle he had been waiting for almost inevitable.
"It was in just such a place as this that other David tended the sheep  when
his father came and told him to go down unto Saul," he muttered.
     Taking the boy rather roughly by the shoulder, he climbed over a fallen
log  and when he had come to an  open place among the  trees he dropped upon
his knees and began to pray in a loud voice.
     A  kind of terror he had  never known before  took possession of David.
Crouching beneath a tree he watched the man on the ground before him and his
own knees began to tremble. It seemed to him that he was in the presence not
only of  his grandfather but of someone else,  someone  who might  hurt him,
someone who  was not kindly but  dangerous and  brutal. He began  to cry and
reaching down picked up a small stick,  which he held tightly gripped in his
fingers. When Jesse Bentley, absorbed in  his  own idea, suddenly arose  and
advanced  toward him, his  terror grew  until  his whole body shook. In  the
woods an intense silence seemed to lie  over everything and suddenly out  of
the silence came the old man's harsh and insistent voice. Gripping the boy's
shoulders, Jesse turned his face to the sky and shouted. The whole left side
of his face twitched and his hand on the boy's shoulder twitched also. "Make
a sign to me, God," he cried. "Here I stand with the boy David. Come down to
me out of the sky and make Thy presence known to me."
     With  a cry  of fear, David turned  and, shaking himself loose from the
hands that  held  him,  ran away through the forest. He did not believe that
the man who turned up his face and in a harsh  voice  shouted at the sky was
his grandfather  at all.  The  man  did  not look like his grandfather.  The
conviction that  something strange and  terrible had  happened, that by some
miracle a new and dangerous  person had come into the body of the kindly old
man, took possession of him.  On and on he ran down the hillside, sobbing as
he  ran. When he fell over the roots of  a  tree and  in falling  struck his
head, he arose and tried to run on again. His head hurt so that presently he
fell down and lay still, but it was only after Jesse had carried him to  the
buggy and he  awoke to find the  old man's  hand  stroking his head tenderly
that the terror left him. "Take me away. There is a  terrible man back there
in the woods," he  declared firmly, while Jesse looked away over the tops of
the trees and again his  lips cried out to God. "What have I done that  Thou
dost not approve of me," he whispered softly, saying the words over and over
as he drove rapidly along the road with the boy's cut and bleeding head held
tenderly against his shoulder.
     III
     Surrender
     THE STORY  OF Louise Bentley, who became Mrs. John Hardy and lived with
her husband  in a  brick house on  Elm Street  in Winesburg, is a  story  of
misunderstanding.
     Before  such women  as Louise  can be  understood and their lives  made
livable, much will have to be done. Thoughtful books will have to be written
and thoughtful lives lived by people about them.
     Born of a delicate  and  overworked  mother,  and  an  impulsive, hard,
imaginative  father, who did not look  with favor upon her  coming into  the
world,  Louise  was  from  childhood  a  neurotic,  one  of   the  race   of
over-sensitive women that in later  days  industrialism was to bring in such
great numbers into the world.
     During her  early years she lived on the  Bentley farm, a silent, moody
child, wanting love more than anything else in the world and not getting it.
When she was fifteen she went to live in Winesburg with the family of Albert
Hardy,  who had a  store for the sale  of buggies and wagons, and who was  a
member of the town board of education.
     Louise went into town to be a  student in the Winesburg High School and
she  went  to  live at the Hardys'  because Albert Hardy and her father were
friends.
     Hardy, the vehicle merchant of  Winesburg, like thousands of  other men
of his times, was an enthusiast on the subject of education. He had made his
own way in the world without learning  got from books,  but he was convinced
that had he but  known books  things  would  have gone better with  him.  To
everyone who came into his shop  he  talked of  the  matter, and  in his own
household he drove  his  family distracted  by his constant  harping  on the
subject.
     He  had two  daughters and one son, John Hardy, and more than once  the
daughters threatened  to leave  school altogether. As  a matter of principle
they  did just enough  work in their classes to  avoid punishment.  "I  hate
books and I hate anyone who  likes books," Harriet,  the  younger of the two
girls, declared passionately.
     In Winesburg as on the  farm Louise  was not happy. For  years she  had
dreamed of  the time  when she could go forth into the world, and she looked
upon the move into the Hardy household as  a great step in the direction  of
freedom. Always when  she  had thought  of the matter, it had seemed to  her
that in town all must be gaiety and life, that there men and women must live
happily  and freely, giving and taking friendship and affection as one takes
the feel  of a wind on the cheek. After the silence and the cheerlessness of
life in the  Bentley house, she dreamed of stepping forth into an atmosphere
that  was  warm  and  pulsating  with life  and  reality. And  in  the Hardy
household Louise  might have got something  of the thing  for which  she  so
hungered but for a mistake she made when she had just come to town.
     Louise won the disfavor of  the  two Hardy girls, Mary and  Harriet, by
her application  to her  studies in school. She  did not  come to the  house
until the day when school was to begin and knew nothing of the feeling  they
had in  the  matter.  She was  timid  and  during  the first  month  made no
acquaintances. Every Friday afternoon one of  the hired  men  from  the farm
drove into Winesburg and took her home for the week-end, so that she did not
spend the Saturday holiday with the town people. Because she was embarrassed
and lonely  she  worked constantly at  her  studies. To Mary and Harriet, it
seemed as though she  tried to make trouble for them by her proficiency.  In
her eagerness to appear well  Louise wanted  to answer every question put to
the class by the teacher. She jumped up and down and her eyes flashed.  Then
when she had answered some question the  others in the class had been unable
to answer, she  smiled happily.  "See,  I have  done it  for  you," her eyes
seemed to  say. "You need not bother  about the matter. I  will  answer  all
questions. For the whole class it will be easy while I am here."
     In the evening after  supper in the Hardy  house, Albert Hardy began to
praise Louise.  One  of the teachers  had  spoken highly  of her and he  was
delighted.  "Well, again I have heard of it," he  began, looking hard at his
daughters and then turning to smile at Louise. "Another  of the teachers has
told me of  the good  work Louise is doing. Everyone in Winesburg is telling
me how  smart  she is.  I  am  ashamed that they do not  speak so of  my own
girls." Arising, the merchant marched about the room and lighted his evening
cigar.
     The  two  girls looked at  each other  and shook  their  heads wearily.
Seeing  their indifference  the  father became  angry.  "I tell  you  it  is
something  for you  two  to be  thinking about," he cried, glaring  at them.
"There is  a big change coming here  in America and in learning is  the only
hope of the coming generations. Louise is the daughter of a rich man but she
is not ashamed to study. It should make you ashamed to see what she does."
     The  merchant took  his hat  from  a  rack by the door and prepared  to
depart for the evening.  At the door he  stopped and  glared back. So fierce
was his  manner that Louise was frightened and ran upstairs to her own room.
The  daughters began to speak of  their  own affairs. "Pay attention to me,"
roared the merchant. "Your minds are lazy. Your indifference to education is
affecting  your  characters.  You  will amount  to nothing. Now mark  what I
say--Louise will be so far ahead of you that you will never catch up."
     The distracted man  went out  of the house and into the street  shaking
with wrath. He went along muttering words and swearing, but when he got into
Main Street his anger passed. He stopped to talk of the weather or the crops
with some other merchant or with a farmer who had come into town and  forgot
his  daughters  altogether or,  if he thought of  them,  only  shrugged  his
shoulders. "Oh, well, girls will be girls," he muttered philosophically.
     In the house when Louise  came down into the room  where the two  girls
sat, they would have nothing to do with her. One evening after she had  been
there for  more than six weeks and was heartbroken because of  the continued
air of  coldness  with which she was  always greeted,  she burst into tears.
"Shut up your crying  and go back to your own room and to your  books," Mary
Hardy said sharply.
     x x x
     The room occupied by Louise was on the second floor of the Hardy house,
and her window looked out upon an orchard. There was a stove in the room and
every evening young John Hardy carried up an armful of wood and put  it in a
box  that stood by the wall. During the second  month after she  came to the
house, Louise  gave up all  hope of getting on  a friendly footing with  the
Hardy girls and went to her own room  as soon as the evening meal was at  an
end.
     Her mind began to play with thoughts of making friends with John Hardy.
When he came into  the room  with the wood in  his arms, she pretended to be
busy with her studies but  watched him eagerly.  When he had put the wood in
the box and  turned to go out,  she put down her head and blushed. She tried
to make talk but could say nothing, and after  he had gone she  was angry at
herself for her stupidity.
     The  mind of the country girl  became filled with the  idea of  drawing
close to the young man.  She thought that in him might be found  the quality
she had all her  life been  seeking in people. It seemed to her that between
herself and all the other people in the world,  a wall had been built up and
that she was  living just on the edge of some warm inner circle of life that
must  be  quite  open and understandable to others. She became obsessed with
the  thought that it wanted but a courageous act  on her part to make all of
her  association  with people something quite different,  and  that  it  was
possible by such an act to pass into a new life as one opens a door and goes
into a room. Day and night she thought of the matter, but although the thing
she wanted so earnestly was something very warm and close it had as  yet  no
conscious connection with sex. It had not become that definite, and her mind
had only alighted upon the person of John Hardy  because  he was at hand and
unlike his sisters had not been unfriendly to her.
     The Hardy sisters,  Mary and Harriet, were both older than Louise. In a
certain kind of knowledge of the world they were years older.  They lived as
all of the young women  of  Middle Western towns lived.  In those days young
women did not go out of our towns to Eastern colleges and ideas in regard to
social classes had  hardly begun  to exist. A  daughter of a  laborer was in
much the same  social  position as a daughter of a farmer or a merchant, and
there were no leisure classes. A girl was "nice" or she was "not nice." If a
nice  girl, she had a young  man who came to her house to see her  on Sunday
and on Wednesday evenings. Sometimes she went with her young  man to a dance
or a  church social. At other times  she received  him at the house  and was
given the use of the parlor for  that purpose. No one intruded upon her. For
hours the two sat behind closed doors. Sometimes the  lights were turned low
and  the  young  man   and  woman  embraced.  Cheeks  became  hot  and  hair
disarranged. After a year or two, if the impulse  within  them became strong
and insistent enough, they married.
     One  evening  during  her first  winter  in  Winesburg, Louise  had  an
adventure that  gave a new impulse to her desire to break down the wall that
she  thought  stood  between  her  and  John  Hardy.  It  was Wednesday  and
immediately after the evening meal  Albert  Hardy  put on  his hat and  went
away.  Young  John brought the wood and put it in the box  in Louise's room.
"You do  work hard, don't you?" he said awkwardly, and then before she could
answer he also went away.
     Louise heard him  go out of the house and had a mad desire to run after
him. Opening her window she leaned out and called softly, "John, dear  John,
come back, don't go away." The night was cloudy and  she  could not see  far
into  the darkness, but as  she waited  she  fancied she could  hear  a soft
little  noise as of  someone going  on  tiptoes through  the  trees  in  the
orchard.  She was frightened and closed the window quickly. For an hour  she
moved about the room trembling with excitement and when she could not longer
bear the waiting,  she  crept  into  the  hall  and down  the  stairs into a
closet-like room that opened off the parlor.
     Louise had decided  that she would perform  the courageous act that had
for weeks  been in her mind. She was convinced that John Hardy had concealed
himself in the orchard beneath her window and she was determined to find him
and tell him  that she wanted  him  to come close to her, to hold her in his
arms, to  tell  her of his thoughts  and dreams and to listen while she told
him her thoughts and  dreams.  "In  the darkness it will  be easier  to  say
things,"  she whispered to herself,  as she stood in the little room groping
for the door.
     And then suddenly Louise realized  that she was not alone in the house.
In  the parlor  on the other side of the door a man's voice spoke softly and
the door opened. Louise just had time to conceal herself in a little opening
beneath the  stairway when  Mary Hardy,  accompanied  by her young man, came
into the little dark room.
     For  an hour  Louise  sat on the  floor in the darkness  and  listened.
Without words Mary  Hardy, with the aid of the man who had come to spend the
evening with her, brought to the country girl a  knowledge of men and women.
Putting  her  head  down until she  was  curled  into a  little ball she lay
perfectly still. It seemed to her  that by some strange impulse of the gods,
a great gift had been brought to Mary Hardy and she could not understand the
older woman's determined protest.
     The young man took Mary Hardy  into his arms  and  kissed her. When she
struggled and  laughed, he but  held her the more  tightly. For an  hour the
contest between  them  went on and  then they went back  into the parlor and
Louise escaped up the stairs. "I hope you were quiet out there. You must not
disturb the  little mouse  at  her studies," she heard Harriet saying to her
sister as she stood by her own door in the hallway above.
     Louise wrote a note to  John Hardy and late that night, when all in the
house were asleep,  she crept downstairs and  slipped it under his door. She
was afraid that if she did not do the thing at  once her courage would fail.
In the note she  tried to be quite  definite about what she wanted. "I  want
someone to love me and I want to  love someone," she  wrote. "If you are the
one for me I want you  to come into the orchard  at  night and make  a noise
under my window. It will be easy for me to crawl down over the shed and come
to  you. I am thinking about it all  the time,  so if you are to come at all
you must come soon."
     For a  long time  Louise did not know  what would be the outcome of her
bold attempt to secure for herself a lover. In a way she  still did not know
whether or not she wanted him to come. Sometimes it seemed to her that to be
held tightly and kissed was the whole secret of life, and then a new impulse
came and she was terribly afraid. The age-old woman's desire to be possessed
had  taken possession of her, but so vague was  her notion of life  that  it
seemed  to  her just the touch of John Hardy's  hand upon her own hand would
satisfy.  She  wondered  if he would understand that. At the  table next day
while Albert Hardy talked and the two girls  whispered and  laughed, she did
not look at  John but at the  table and as soon as  possible escaped. In the
evening she  went out of the house until she was sure  he had taken the wood
to her room and gone away. When after several evenings  of intense listening
she  heard no  call from the darkness  in the  orchard, she was  half beside
herself  with grief  and  decided that  for  her there was no way  to  break
through the wall that had shut her off from the joy of life.
     And  then on a Monday evening  two or three weeks after  the writing of
the  note, John  Hardy  came for  her. Louise had  so entirely given  up the
thought of his  coming  that  for a long time she did not hear the call that
came up  from the orchard. On  the Friday evening before,  as she was  being
driven back to the farm for the week-end by one of the hired men, she had on
an  impulse done a thing that had startled her, and as  John  Hardy stood in
the darkness below and called her name softly  and  insistently,  she walked
about in her room  and wondered what  new impulse had led  her  to commit so
ridiculous an act.
     The farm hand, a young fellow  with black curly hair, had come  for her
somewhat late on that Friday  evening and they drove home  in the  darkness.
Louise, whose  mind was filled  with thoughts of John  Hardy, tried  to make
talk but the country boy was embarrassed and  would  say nothing.  Her  mind
began to review the loneliness  of her childhood  and she  remembered with a
pang the sharp new loneliness that  had just come to her. "I hate everyone,"
she cried suddenly, and  then  broke forth into a tirade that frightened her
escort. "I hate father and the old man Hardy, too," she declared vehemently.
"I get my lessons there in the school in town but I hate that also."
     Louise frightened the farm  hand  still more by turning and putting her
cheek  down upon his shoulder. Vaguely she hoped that he like that young man
who  had stood in the darkness with Mary  would put his  arms about  her and
kiss her, but the country boy was only alarmed. He struck the horse with the
whip and began to whistle.  "The road  is rough, eh?" he said loudly. Louise
was so angry that reaching  up she snatched his hat  from his head and threw
it into the road. When he jumped out of  the buggy and went to  get it,  she
drove off and left him to walk the rest of the way back to the farm.
     Louise  Bentley took John Hardy to be her lover. That was not  what she
wanted but it was so  the young man had interpreted her approach to him, and
so  anxious was she to achieve  something  else that she made no resistance.
When after a few months they were both afraid that she was about to become a
mother, they went one evening to the county seat and were married. For a few
months they lived in the Hardy house and then took a house of their own. All
during the first year Louise  tried to make her husband understand the vague
and intangible hunger that had led to the writing of  the  note and that was
still unsatisfied. Again and again she crept into his arms and tried to talk
of  it,  but  always without success. Filled with his  own notions  of  love
between men  and women, he did not listen  but began  to  kiss  her upon the
lips.  That  confused her so that in  the end she did not want to be kissed.
She did not know what she wanted.
     When  the  alarm  that  had  tricked  them  into marriage proved  to be
groundless, she was angry and said bitter,  hurtful  things. Later when  her
son David was born,  she  could not  nurse him and  did not know whether she
wanted him  or not. Sometimes  she  stayed  in the  room with him  all  day,
walking about and occasionally creeping close to touch him tenderly with her
hands, and then other  days came when she did not want to see or be near the
tiny  bit of  humanity that  had  come  into  the  house.  When  John  Hardy
reproached her for her cruelty, she laughed. "It is a man child and will get
what it wants anyway," she said sharply. "Had it been a woman child there is
nothing in the world I would not have done for it."

     IV
     Terror
     WHEN DAVID HARDY was a tall boy of fifteen, he, like his mother, had an
adventure that changed the whole current of his life and sent him out of his
quiet  corner into the world. The shell of the circumstances of his life was
broken  and  he was compelled  to start forth. He left Winesburg  and no one
there  ever   saw  him  again.  After  his  disappearance,  his  mother  and
grandfather both died and his father  became very rich. He spent much  money
in trying to locate his son, but that is no part of this story.
     It  was in  the  late fall  of an unusual year  on  the  Bentley farms.
Everywhere the crops had been heavy. That spring, Jesse had bought part of a
long strip of black swamp land  that lay in the valley of Wine Creek. He got
the land at a  low price but had spent  a large sum  of money to improve it.
Great ditches had to be dug  and thousands of tile laid. Neighboring farmers
shook their  heads over the  expense.  Some  of  them laughed and hoped that
Jesse would lose heavily  by the venture,  but the old man  went silently on
with the work and said nothing.
     When  the land was drained he  planted it to cabbages and  onions,  and
again  the neighbors laughed. The  crop was,  however, enormous  and brought
high prices. In the one year Jesse made enough money to pay for all the cost
of preparing the land  and had a surplus that enabled  him  to buy  two more
farms. He was exultant and could not conceal his delight. For the first time
in all the history of his ownership of the farms, he went among his men with
a smiling face.
     Jesse  bought  a  great many new machines for cutting down the cost  of
labor  and all  of  the remaining acres  in the strip of black fertile swamp
land. One day he went into Winesburg and bought a bicycle and a  new suit of
clothes for David and he  gave his two sisters  money with which to go  to a
religious convention at Cleveland, Ohio.
     In the fall of  that year  when  the  frost came and the  trees in  the
forests along Wine Creek were golden brown, David spent every moment when he
did  not have to attend school, out in the open. Alone or with other boys he
went every afternoon  into the woods to gather  nuts. The other boys of  the
countryside, most of them sons of  laborers on the  Bentley  farms, had guns
with  which they  went hunting rabbits and squirrels,  but  David did not go
with them. He made himself  a sling with rubber bands and a forked stick and
went off by himself to gather nuts. As he  went about thoughts came to  him.
He realized that he was almost  a man and wondered what he would do in life,
but before  they came  to  anything,  the  thoughts passed and he was a  boy
again. One day he killed a squirrel that sat on one of the lower branches of
a tree and chattered at him. Home he ran  with the squirrel in his hand. One
of the Bentley sisters  cooked the little  animal and he ate  it  with great
gusto. The skin  he tacked on  a board and suspended the  board by  a string
from his bedroom window.
     That gave his mind a new turn. After that  he never went into the woods
without  carrying the sling  in his  pocket and  he spent  hours shooting at
imaginary animals concealed among the brown leaves in the trees. Thoughts of
his coming  manhood  passed  and he was  content to be  a boy  with a  boy's
impulses.
     One  Saturday morning when he was about to set  off for  the woods with
the sling in his pocket and a bag for nuts on his  shoulder, his grandfather
stopped him. In the eyes  of the  old man was the strained serious look that
always a little frightened David. At such times Jesse Bentley's eyes did not
look straight ahead  but  wavered  and  seemed  to be  looking  at  nothing.
Something  like an  invisible  curtain appeared to have come between the man
and all the rest  of  the world. "I  want  you  to  come with me,"  he  said
briefly, and  his eyes looked over  the boy's  head  into the sky. "We  have
something important to do today. You may bring the bag for nuts if you wish.
It does not matter and anyway we will be going into the woods."
     Jesse and David set out  from the Bentley farmhouse  in the old phaeton
that was drawn by the white horse. When they had gone along in silence for a
long  way they stopped at the edge of  a field where  a flock of sheep  were
grazing. Among the sheep  was a  lamb that had been born out  of season, and
this David  and his  grandfather caught and tied so tightly  that  it looked
like a little white ball. When  they drove on again Jesse let David hold the
lamb in his arms. "I saw it  yesterday and it put me in mind of  what I have
long  wanted to do," he said, and again he looked away over the head of  the
boy with the wavering, uncertain stare in his eyes.
     After the feeling of exaltation that had come to the farmer as a result
of his successful year, another mood had taken possession of him. For a long
time he  had been going  about feeling very  humble  and prayerful. Again he
walked alone at  night  thinking of God and as he walked  he again connected
his own figure with the figures of old days. Under the stars he knelt on the
wet  grass and  raised up his voice in prayer. Now he had decided  that like
the  men  whose  stories  filled the pages of  the Bible,  he  would  make a
sacrifice to God. "I have been  given these abundant crops  and God has also
sent  me  a boy  who is called David," he  whispered to himself.  "Perhaps I
should have done this thing long ago." He was  sorry  the  idea had not come
into  his  mind  in the days  before his daughter Louise had been  born  and
thought that surely now when he had erected a pile of burning sticks in some
lonely place  in  the woods  and  had offered the body  of a lamb as a burnt
offering, God would appear to him and give him a message.
     More and more as he thought of the matter, he thought also of David and
his passionate self-love was partially forgotten. "It is time for the boy to
begin thinking of going out  into the world and  the  message  will  be  one
concerning him," he decided. "God will  make a pathway for him. He will tell
me  what place David is to  take in  life and  when  he shall set out on his
journey. It is right that the  boy should be there. If I am fortunate and an
angel of God should appear, David will see the beauty and glory of  God made
manifest to man. It will make a true man of God of him also."
     In silence Jesse and David drove along the road until they came to that
place where Jesse had once before  appealed to God  and  had frightened  his
grandson.  The  morning had  been bright and  cheerful, but  a cold wind now
began to blow and clouds hid the sun. When David saw the place to which they
had  come  he began to  tremble with fright,  and when  they stopped  by the
bridge where the creek came down from among the trees, he  wanted  to spring
out of the phaeton and run away.
     A dozen plans  for  escape  ran through David's  head, but  when  Jesse
stopped the horse and climbed over the fence into the wood, he followed. "It
is foolish to be  afraid. Nothing will happen," he  told himself as he  went
along with the  lamb in his arms. There was something in the helplessness of
the little animal  held  so  tightly  in his arms that  gave him courage. He
could  feel  the  rapid beating of the  beast's heart and that  made his own
heart beat less rapidly. As he  walked swiftly along behind his grandfather,
he  untied the string  with which  the  four legs of the lamb were  fastened
together. "If anything happens we will run away together," he thought.
     In the woods, after  they had  gone a  long  way from the  road,  Jesse
stopped in an opening among the trees where a clearing, overgrown with small
bushes, ran  up  from the  creek. He was still silent but began  at  once to
erect a heap of dry sticks which  he presently set afire. The boy sat on the
ground  with the  lamb in  his  arms.  His imagination began to invest every
movement of  the old man with significance and he became  every  moment more
afraid.  "I must put the blood  of the lamb on the head  of  the boy," Jesse
muttered  when the sticks  had begun to blaze  greedily,  and taking a  long
knife  from  his  pocket he turned and  walked rapidly across  the  clearing
toward David.
     Terror  seized upon the soul of the  boy.  He was  sick with it. For  a
moment he sat perfectly  still and then  his body stiffened and he sprang to
his  feet. His face  became as white as  the  fleece of the  lamb  that, now
finding itself  suddenly released, ran down the hill. David  ran also.  Fear
made his feet fly. Over the low bushes and logs he leaped frantically. As he
ran  he put  his hand into his  pocket and took out the branched  stick from
which the  sling for shooting squirrels was suspended. When he  came  to the
creek that was shallow and splashed down over the stones, he dashed into the
water and turned to look back, and when he saw his grandfather still running
toward him with the long knife held tightly in his hand he did not hesitate,
but  reaching down, selected a stone and put  it in the  sling. With all his
strength he drew back the  heavy rubber bands and the stone whistled through
the air. It hit Jesse,  who had entirely forgotten the boy and  was pursuing
the  lamb, squarely in  the head.  With a groan he pitched forward  and fell
almost  at the boy's feet. When David saw that he  lay still and that he was
apparently  dead, his fright  increased immeasurably.  It  became  an insane
panic.
     With  a  cry  he  turned  and   ran  off  through  the  woods   weeping
convulsively. "I  don't care--I killed him, but I don't care," he sobbed. As
he ran on and  on he decided suddenly that he would never go  back  again to
the Bentley farms or to the town of Winesburg. "I have killed the man of God
and now I will myself be a man and go into the world," he said stoutly as he
stopped running and walked rapidly down a road that followed the windings of
Wine Creek as it ran through fields and forests into the west.
     On  the  ground by the  creek  Jesse  Bentley moved uneasily  about. He
groaned and opened  his  eyes.  For a long time  he  lay perfectly still and
looked at the sky. When at last  he got  to his feet, his  mind was confused
and he was not surprised by the boy's disappearance.  By the roadside he sat
down on a log and  began to talk about God. That is all they ever got out of
him.  Whenever David's name was  mentioned he looked vaguely at  the sky and
said that a messenger from God had taken the boy. "It happened because I was
too  greedy for  glory,"  he declared, and would have no more to say  in the
matter.

     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 success of Tony  Tip hung
heavy in the air of Winesburg.
     Into  the  drug  store  came Joe  Welling,  brushing  the  screen  door
violently aside. With  a  strange absorbed light in his eyes he pounced upon
Ed Thomas, he who knew Pop Geers and whose opinion of Tony Tip's chances was
worth considering.
     "The  water is up in Wine  Creek," cried  Joe Welling with the  air  of
Pheidippides  bringing news of the victory of the Greeks in the struggle  at
Marathon. His finger beat a tattoo upon Ed Thomas's broad chest. "By Trunion
bridge it is within  eleven and  a half inches of the flooring," he went on,
the  words coming quickly and with a little whistling noise from between his
teeth. An expression of helpless annoyance crept over the faces of the four.
     "I  have  my  facts  correct.  Depend upon that.  I  went to  Sinnings'
Hardware Store and got a rule. Then I went back and measured. I could hardly
believe  my own eyes. It hasn't  rained you see  for  ten days. At  first  I
didn't  know what to  think. Thoughts  rushed through  my head. I thought of
subterranean  passages  and  springs.  Down  under the ground went my  mind,
delving about. I  sat on the floor of the bridge and rubbed  my head.  There
wasn't a cloud in the sky, not one. Come out into the street and you'll see.
There wasn't a cloud. There  isn't  a cloud  now. Yes,  there was a cloud. I
don't want to  keep back any facts. There was a cloud  in the west down near
the horizon, a cloud no bigger than a man's hand.
     "Not that I  think that has  anything  to do with  it. There it is, you
see. You understand how puzzled I was.
     "Then  an idea came to me. I laughed. You'll  laugh, too. Of course  it
rained over in Medina  County.  That's interesting, eh? If we had no trains,
no mails, no  telegraph, we would know that it rained over in Medina County.
That's where  Wine Creek  comes from. Everyone  knows that. Little  old Wine
Creek brought us the news. That's interesting. I laughed. I