Hosts," he cried, "send to me
this night out of the womb of Katherine, a son. Let Thy
grace alight upon me. Send me a son to be called David
who shall help me to pluck at last all of these lands
out of the hands of the Philistines and turn them to
Thy service and to the building of Thy kingdom on
earth."

II

David Hardy of Winesburg, Ohio, was the grandson of
Jesse Bentley, the owner of Bentley farms. When he was
twelve years old he went to the old Bentley place to
live. His mother, Louise Bentley, the girl who came
into the world on that night when Jesse ran through the
fields crying to God that he be given a son, had grown
to womanhood on the farm and had married young John
Hardy of Winesburg, who became a banker. Louise and her
husband did not live happily together and everyone
agreed that she was to blame. She was a small woman
with sharp grey eyes and black hair. From childhood she
had been inclined to fits of temper and when not angry
she was often morose and silent. In Winesburg it was
said that she drank. Her husband, the banker, who was a
careful, shrewd man, tried hard to make her happy. When
he began to make money he bought for her a large brick
house on Elm Street in Winesburg and he was the first
man in that town to keep a manservant to drive his
wife's carriage.

But Louise could not be made happy. She flew into half
insane fits of temper during which she was sometimes
silent, sometimes noisy and quarrelsome. She swore and
cried out in her anger. She got a knife from the
kitchen and threatened her husband's life. Once she
deliberately set fire to the house, and often she hid
herself away for days in her own room and would see no
one. Her life, lived as a half recluse, gave rise to
all sorts of stories concerning her. It was said that
she took drugs and that she hid herself away from
people because she was often so under the influence of
drink that her condition could not be concealed.
Sometimes on summer afternoons she came out of the
house and got into her carriage. Dismissing the driver
she took the reins in her own hands and drove off at
top speed through the streets. If a pedestrian got in
her way she drove straight ahead and the frightened
citizen had to escape as best he could. To the people
of the town it seemed as though she wanted to run them
down. When she had driven through several streets,
tearing around corners and beating the horses with the
whip, she drove off into the cou