Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life by Sherwood Anderson

Author:Sherwood Anderson
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: City and town life -- Fiction, Pastoral fiction, Ohio -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2021-06-15T02:08:09+00:00

Tandy

Un­til she was sev­en years old she lived in an old un­paint­ed house on an un­used road that led off Trunion Pike. Her fa­ther gave her but lit­tle at­ten­tion and her moth­er was dead. The fa­ther spent his time talk­ing and think­ing of re­li­gion. He pro­claimed him­self an ag­nos­tic and was so ab­sorbed in de­stroy­ing the ideas of God that had crept in­to the minds of his neigh­bors that he nev­er saw God man­i­fest­ing him­self in the lit­tle child that, half for­got­ten, lived here and there on the boun­ty of her dead moth­er’s rel­a­tives.

A stranger came to Wines­burg and saw in the child what the fa­ther did not see. He was a tall, red­haired young man who was al­most al­ways drunk. Some­times he sat in a chair be­fore the New Willard House with Tom Hard, the fa­ther. As Tom talked, declar­ing there could be no God, the stranger smiled and winked at the by­standers. He and Tom be­came friends and were much to­geth­er.

The stranger was the son of a rich mer­chant of Cleve­land and had come to Wines­burg on a mis­sion. He want­ed to cure him­self of the habit of drink, and thought that by es­cap­ing from his city as­so­ciates and liv­ing in a ru­ral com­mu­ni­ty he would have a bet­ter chance in the strug­gle with the ap­petite that was de­stroy­ing him.

His so­journ in Wines­burg was not a suc­cess. The dull­ness of the pass­ing hours led to his drink­ing hard­er than ev­er. But he did suc­ceed in do­ing some­thing. He gave a name rich with mean­ing to Tom Hard’s daugh­ter.

One evening when he was re­cov­er­ing from a long de­bauch the stranger came reel­ing along the main street of the town. Tom Hard sat in a chair be­fore the New Willard House with his daugh­ter, then a child of five, on his knees. Be­side him on the board side­walk sat young George Willard. The stranger dropped in­to a chair be­side them. His body shook and when he tried to talk his voice trem­bled.

It was late evening and dark­ness lay over the town and over the rail­road that ran along the foot of a lit­tle in­cline be­fore the ho­tel. Some­where in the dis­tance, off to the west, there was a pro­longed blast from the whis­tle of a pas­sen­ger en­gine. A dog that had been sleep­ing in the road­way arose and barked. The stranger be­gan to bab­ble and made a prophe­cy con­cern­ing the child that lay in the arms of the ag­nos­tic.

“I came here to quit drink­ing,” he said, and tears be­gan to run down his cheeks. He did not look at Tom Hard, but leaned for­ward and stared in­to the dark­ness as though see­ing a vi­sion. “I ran away to the coun­try to be cured, but I am not cured. There is a rea­son.” He turned to look at the child who sat up very straight on her fa­ther’s knee and re­turned the look.

The stranger touched Tom Hard on the arm. “Drink is not the on­ly thing to which I am ad­dict­ed,” he said.

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