he school yard he began to beat him
with his fists. As his hard knuckles beat down into the
frightened face of the school-master, his wrath became
more and more terrible. Screaming with dismay, the
children ran here and there like disturbed insects.
"I'll teach you to put your hands on my boy, you
beast," roared the saloon keeper, who, tired of beating
the master, had begun to kick him about the yard.

Adolph Myers was driven from the Pennsylvania town in
the night. With lanterns in their hands a dozen men
came to the door of the house where he lived alone and
commanded that he dress and come forth. It was raining
and one of the men had a rope in his hands. They had
intended to hang the school-master, but something in his
figure, so small, white, and pitiful, touched their
hearts and they let him escape. As he ran away into the
darkness they repented of their weakness and ran after
him, swearing and throwing sticks and great balls of
soft mud at the figure that screamed and ran faster and
faster into the darkness.

For twenty years Adolph Myers had lived alone in
Winesburg. He was but forty but looked sixty-five. The
name of Biddlebaum he got from a box of goods seen at a
freight station as he hurried through an eastern Ohio
town. He had an aunt in Winesburg, a black-toothed old
woman who raised chickens, and with her he lived until
she died. He had been ill for a year after the
experience in Pennsylvania, and after his recovery
worked as a day laborer in the fields, going timidly
about and striving to conceal his hands. Although he
did not understand what had happened he felt that the
hands must be to blame. Again and again the fathers of
the boys had talked of the hands. "Keep your hands to
yourself," the saloon keeper had roared, dancing, with
fury in the schoolhouse yard.

Upon the veranda of his house by the ravine, Wing
Biddlebaum continued to walk up and down until the sun
had disappeared and the road beyond the field was lost
in the grey shadows. Going into his house he cut slices
of bread and spread honey upon them. When the rumble of
the evening train that took away the express cars
loaded with the day's harvest of berries had passed and
restored the silence of the summer night, he went again
to walk upon the veranda. In the darkness he could not
see the hands and they became quiet. Although he still
hungered for the presence of the boy, who was the
medium through which he expressed his love of man