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. I