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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 now 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 a 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.
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