Ohio

One of my favorite parts of a favorite book.

From "Whinesburg, Ohio."

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, 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 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 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.