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, red-
haired 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. "There is something else. I am a
lover and have not found my thing to love. That is
a big point if you know enough to realize what I
mean. It makes my destruction inevitable, you see.
There are few who understand that."
The stranger became silent and seemed overcome
with sadness, but another blast from the whistle of
the passenger engine aroused him. "I have not lost
faith. I proclaim that. I have only been brought to
the place where I know my faith will not be realized," he declared hoarsely. He looked hard at the
child and began to address her, paying no more attention to the father. "There is a woman coming,"
he said, and his voice was now sharp and earnest.
"I have missed her, you see. She did not come in
my time. You may be the woman. It would be like
fate to let me stand in her presence once, on such
an evening as this, when I have destroyed myself
with drink and she is as yet only a child."
The shoulders of the stranger shook violently, and
when he tried to roll a cigarette the paper fell from
his trembling fingers. He grew angry and scolded.
"They think it's easy to be a woman, to be loved,
but I know better," he declared. Again he turned to
the child. "I understand," he cried. "Perhaps of all
men I alone understand."
His glance again wandered away to the darkened
street. "I know about her, although she has never
crossed my path," he said softly. "I know about her
struggles and her defeats. It is because of her defeats
that she is to me the lovely one. Out of her defeats
has been born a new quality in woman. I have a
name for it. I call it Tandy. I made up the name
when I was a true dreamer and before my body
became vile. It is the quality of being strong to be
loved. It is something men need from women and
that they do not get. "
The stranger arose and stood before Tom Hard.
His body rocked back and forth and he seemed
about to fall, but instead he dropped to his knees
on the sidewalk and raised the hands of the little
girl to his drunken lips. He kissed them ecstatically.
"Be Tandy, little one," he pleaded. "Dare to be
strong and courageous. That is the road. Venture
anything. Be brave enough to dare to be loved. Be
something more than man or woman. Be Tandy."
The stranger arose and staggered off down the
street. A day or two later he got aboard a train and
returned to his home in Cleveland. On the summer
evening, after the talk before the hotel, Tom Hard
took the girl child to the house of a relative where
she had been invited to spend the night. As he went
along in the darkness under the trees he forgot the
babbling voice of the stranger and his mind returned
to the making of arguments by which he might destroy men's faith in God. He spoke his daughter's
name and she began to weep.
"I don't want to be called that," she declared. "I
want to be called Tandy--Tandy Hard." The child
wept so bitterly that Tom Hard was touched and
tried to comfort her. He stopped beneath a tree and,
taking her into his arms, began to caress her. "Be
good, now," he said sharply; but she would not be
quieted. With childish abandon she gave herself
over to grief, her voice breaking the evening stillness
of the street. "I want to be Tandy. I want to be
Tandy. I want to be Tandy Hard," she cried, shaking her head and sobbing as though her young
strength were not enough to bear the vision the
words of the drunkard had brought to her.
The Thinker