ntry. On the country
roads after she had gotten out of sight of the houses
she let the horses slow down to a walk and her wild,
reckless mood passed. She became thoughtful and
muttered words. Sometimes tears came into her eyes. And
then when she came back into town she again drove
furiously through the quiet streets. But for the
influence of her husband and the respect he inspired in
people's minds she would have been arrested more than
once by the town marshal.

Young David Hardy grew up in the house with this woman
and as can well be imagined there was not much joy in
his childhood. He was too young then to have opinions
of his own about people, but at times it was difficult
for him not to have very definite opinions about the
woman who was his mother. David was always a quiet,
orderly boy and for a long time was thought by the
people of Winesburg to be something of a dullard. His
eyes were brown and as a child he had a habit of
looking at things and people a long time without
appearing to see what he was looking at. When he heard
his mother spoken of harshly or when he overheard her
berating his father, he was frightened and ran away to
hide. Sometimes he could not find a hiding place and
that confused him. Turning his face toward a tree or if
he was indoors toward the wall, he closed his eyes and
tried not to think of anything. He had a habit of
talking aloud to himself, and early in life a spirit of
quiet sadness often took possession of him.

On the occasions when David went to visit his
grandfather on the Bentley farm, he was altogether
contented and happy. Often he wished that he would
never have to go back to town and once when he had come
home from the farm after a long visit, something
happened that had a lasting effect on his mind.

David had come back into town with one of the hired
men. The man was in a hurry to go about his own affairs
and left the boy at the head of the street in which the
Hardy house stood. It was early dusk of a fall evening
and the sky was overcast with clouds. Something
happened to David. He could not bear to go into the
house where his mother and father lived, and on an
impulse he decided to run away from home. He intended
to go back to the farm and to his grandfather, but lost
his way and for hours he wandered weeping and
frightened on country roads. It started to rain and
lightning flashed in the sky. The boy's imagination was
excited and he fancied that he could see