prompt:
Chapter: ADVENTURE

Alice Hindman, a woman of twenty-seven when George
Willard was a mere boy, had lived in Winesburg all her
life. She clerked in Winney's Dry Goods Store and lived
with her mother, who had married a second husband.

Alice's step-father was a carriage painter, and given
to drink. His story is an odd one. It will be worth
telling some day.

At twenty-seven Alice was tall and somewhat slight.
Her head was large and overshadowed her body. Her
shoulders were a little stooped and her hair and eyes
brown. She was very quiet but beneath a placid exterior
a continual ferment went on.

When she was a girl of sixteen and before she began to
work in the store, Alice had an affair with a young
man. The young man, named Ned Currie, was older than
Alice. He, like George Willard, was employed on the
Winesburg Eagle and for a long time he went to see
Alice almost every evening. Together the two walked
under the trees through the streets of the town and
talked of what they would do with their lives. Alice
was then a very pretty girl and Ned Currie took her
into his arms and kissed her. He became excited and
said things he did not intend to say and Alice,
betrayed by her desire to have something beautiful come
into her rather narrow life, also grew excited. She
also talked. The outer crust of her life, all of her
natural diffidence and reserve, was torn away and she
gave herself over to the emotions of love. When, late
in the fall of her sixteenth year, Ned Currie went away
to Cleveland where he hoped to get a place on a city
newspaper and rise in the world, she wanted to go with
him. With a trembling voice she told him what was in
her mind. "I will work and you can work," she said. "I
do not want to harness you to a needless expense that
will prevent your making progress. Don't marry me now.
We will get along without that and we can be together.
Even though we live in the same house no one will say
anything. In the city we will be unknown and people
will pay no attention to us."

Ned Currie was puzzled by the determination and abandon
of his sweetheart and was also deeply touched. He had
wanted the girl to become his mistress but changed his
mind. He wanted to protect and care for her. "You don't
know what you're talking about," he said sharply; "you
may be sure I'll let you do no such thing. As soon as I
get a good job I'll come back. For the present you'll
have to stay here. It's the only thing we can do."

On the evening before he left Winesburg to take up his
new life in the city, Ned Currie went to call on Alice.
They walked about through the streets for an hour and
then got a rig from Wesley Moyer's livery and went for
a drive in the country. The moon came up and they found
themselves unable to talk. In his sadness the young man
forgot the resolutions he had made regarding his
conduct with the girl.

They got out of the buggy at a place where a long
meadow ran down to the bank of Wine Creek and there in
the dim light became lovers. When at midnight they
returned to town they were both glad. It did not seem
to them that anything that could happen in the future
could blot out the wonder and beauty of the thing that
had happened. "Now we will have to stick to each other,
whatever happens we will have to do that," Ned Currie
said as he left the girl at her father's door.

The young newspaper man did not succeed in getting a
place on a Cleveland paper and went west to Chicago.
For a time he was lonely and wrote to Alice almost
every day. Then he was caught up by the life of the
city; he began to make friends and found new interests
in life. In Chicago he boarded at a house where there
were several women. One of them attracted his attention
and he forgot Alice in Winesburg. At the end of a year
he had stopped writing letters, and only once in a long
time, when he was lonely or when he went into one of
the city parks and saw the moon shining on the grass as
it had shone that night on the meadow by Wine Creek,
did he think of her at all.

In Winesburg the girl who had been loved grew to be a
woman. When she was twenty-two years old her father,
who owned a harness repair shop, died suddenly. The
harness maker was an old soldier, and after a few
months his wife received a widow's pension. She used
the first money she got to buy a loom and became a
weaver of carpets, and Alice got a place in Winney's
store. For a number of years nothing could have induced
her to believe that Ned Currie would not in the end
return to her.

She was glad to be employed because the daily round of
toil in the store made the time of waiting seem less
long and uninteresting. She began to save money,
thinking that when she had saved two or three hundred
dollars she would follow her lover to the city and try
if her presence would not win back his affections.

Alice did not blame Ned Currie for what had happened in
the moonlight in the field, but felt that she could
never marry another man. To her the thought of giving
to another what she still felt could belong only to Ned
seemed monstrous. When other young men tried to attract
her attention she would have nothing to do with them.
"I am his wife and shall remain his wife whether he
comes back or not," she whispered to herself, and for
all of her willingness to support herself could not
have understood the growing modern idea of a woman's
owning herself and giving and taking for her own ends
in life.

Alice worked in the dry goods store from eight in the
morning until six at night and on three evenings a week
went back to the store to stay from seven until nine.
As time passed and she became more and more lonely she
began to practice the devices common to lonely people.
When at night she went upstairs into her own room she
knelt on the floor to pray and in her prayers whispered
things she wanted to say to her lover. She became
attached to inanimate objects, and because it was her
own, could not bare to have anyone touch the furniture
of her room. The trick of saving money, begun for a
purpose, was carried on after the scheme of going to
the city to find Ned Currie had been given up. It
became a fixed habit, and when she needed new clothes
she did not get them. Sometimes on rainy afternoons in
the store she got out her bank book and, letting it lie
open before her, spent hours dreaming impossible dreams
of saving money enough so that the interest would
support both herself and her future husband.

"Ned always liked to travel about," she thought. "I'll
give him the chance. Some day when we are married and I
can save both his money and my own, we will be rich.
Then we can travel together all over the world."

In the dry goods store weeks ran into months and months
into years as Alice waited and dreamed of her lover's
return. Her employer, a grey old man with false teeth
and a thin grey mustache that drooped down over his
mouth, was not given to conversation, and sometimes, on
rainy days and in the winter when a storm raged in Main
Street, long hours passed when no customers came in.
Alice arranged and rearranged the stock. She stood near
the front window where she could look down the deserted
street and thought of the evenings when she had walked
with Ned Currie and of what he had said. "We will have
to stick to each other now." The words echoed and
re-echoed through the mind of the maturing woman. Tears
came into her eyes. Sometimes when her employer had
gone out and she was alone in the store she put her
head on the counter and wept. "Oh, Ned, I am waiting,"
she whispered over and over, and all the time the
creeping fear that he would never come back grew
stronger within her.

In the spring when the rains have passed and before the
long hot days of summer have come, the country about
Winesburg is delightful. The town lies in the midst of
open fields, but beyond the fields are pleasant patches
of woodlands. In the wooded places are many little
cloistered nooks, quiet places where lovers go to sit
on Sunday afternoons. Through the trees they look out
across the fields and see farmers at work about the
barns or people driving up and down on the roads. In
the town bells ring and occasionally a train passes,
looking like a toy thing in the distance.

For several years after Ned Currie went away Alice did
not go into the wood with the other young people on
Sunday, but one day after he had been gone for two or
three years and when her loneliness seemed unbearable,
she put on her best dress and set out. Finding a little
sheltered place from which she could see the town and a
long stretch of the fields, she sat down. Fear of age
and ineffectuality took possession of her. She could
not sit still, and arose. As she stood looking out over
the land something, perhaps the thought of never
ceasing life as it expresses itself in the flow of the
seasons, fixed her mind on the passing years. With a
shiver of dread, she realized that for her the beauty
and freshness of youth had passed. For the first time
she felt that she had been cheated. She did not blame
Ned Currie and did not know what to blame. Sadness
swept over her. Dropping to her knees, she tried to
pray, but instead of prayers words of protest came to
her lips. "It is not going to come to me. I will never
find happiness. Why do I tell myself lies?" she cried,
and an odd sense of relief came with this, her first
bold attempt to face the fear that had become a part of
her everyday life.

In the year when Alice Hindman became twenty-five two
things happened to disturb the dull uneventfulness of
her days. Her mother married Bush Milton, the carriage
painter of Winesburg, and she herself became a member
of the Winesburg Methodist Church. Alice joined the
church because she had become frightened by the
loneliness of her position in life. Her mother's second
marriage had emphasized her isolation. "I am becoming
old and queer. If Ned comes he will not want me. In the
city where he is living men are perpetually young.
There is so much going on that they do not have time to
grow old," she told herself with a grim little smile,
and went resolutely about the business of becoming
acquainted with people. Every Thursday evening when the
store had closed she went to a prayer meeting in the
basement of the church and on Sunday evening attended a
meeting of an organization called The Epworth League.

When Will Hurley, a middle-aged man who clerked in a
drug store and who also belonged to the church, offered
to walk home with her she did not protest. "Of course I
will not let him make a practice of being with me, but
if he comes to see me once in a long time there can be
no harm in that," she told herself, still determined in
her loyalty to Ned Currie.

Without realizing what was happening, Alice was trying
feebly at first, but with growing determination, to get
a new hold upon life. Beside the drug clerk she walked
in silence, but sometimes in the darkness as they went
stolidly along she put out her hand and touched softly
the folds of his coat. When he left her at the gate
before her mother's house she did not go indoors, but
stood for a moment by the door. She wanted to call to
the drug clerk, to ask him to sit with her in the
darkness on the porch before the house, but was afraid
he would not understand. "It is not him that I want,"
she told herself; "I want to avoid being so much alone.
If I am not careful I will grow unaccustomed to being
with people."

            *       *       *

During the early fall of her twenty-seventh year a
passionate restlessness took possession of Alice. She
could not bear to be in the company of the drug clerk,
and when, in the evening, he came to walk with her she
sent him away. Her mind became intensely active and
when, weary from the long hours of standing behind the
counter in the store, she went home and crawled into
bed, she could not sleep. With staring eyes she looked
into the darkness. Her imagination, like a child
awakened from long sleep, played about the room. Deep
within her there was something that would not be
cheated by phantasies and that demanded some definite
answer from life.

Alice took a pillow into her arms and held it tightly
against her breasts. Getting out of bed, she arranged a
blanket so that in the darkness it looked like a form
lying between the sheets and, kneeling beside the bed,
she caressed it, whispering words over and over, like a
refrain. "Why doesn't something happen? Why am I left
here alone?" she muttered. Although she sometimes
thought of Ned Currie, she no longer depended on him.
Her desire had grown vague. She did not want Ned Currie
or any other man. She wanted to be loved, to have
something answer the call that was growing louder and
louder within her.

And then one night when it rained Alice had an
adventure. It frightened and confused her. She had come
home from the store at nine and found the house empty.
Bush Milton had gone off to town and her mother to the
house of a neighbor. Alice went upstairs to her room
and undressed in the darkness. For a moment she stood
by the window hearing the rain beat against the glass
and then a strange desire took possession of her.
Without stopping to think of what she intended to do,
she ran downstairs through the dark house and out into
the rain. As she stood on the little grass plot before
the house and felt the cold rain on her body a mad
desire to run naked through the streets took possession
of her.

She thought that the rain would have some creative and
wonderful effect on her body. Not for years had she
felt so full of youth and courage. She wanted to leap
and run, to cry out, to find some other lonely human
and embrace him. On the brick sidewalk before the house
a man stumbled homeward. Alice started to run. A wild,
desperate mood took possession of her. "What do I care
who it is. He is alone, and I will go to him," she
thought; and then without stopping to consider the
possible result of her madness, called softly. "Wait!"
she cried. "Don't go away. Whoever you are, you must
wait."

The man on the sidewalk stopped and stood listening.
He was an old man and somewhat deaf. Putting his hand
to his mouth, he shouted. "What? What say?" he called.

Alice dropped to the ground and lay trembling. She was
so frightened at the thought of what she had done that
when the man had gone on his way she did not dare get
to her feet, but crawled on hands and knees through the
grass to the house. When she got to her own room she
bolted the door and drew her dressing table across the
doorway. Her body shook as with a chill and her hands
trembled so that she had difficulty getting into her
nightdress. When she got into bed she buried her face
in the pillow and wept brokenheartedly. "What is the
matter with me? I will do something dreadful if I am
not careful," she thought, and turning her face to the
wall, began trying to force herself to face bravely the
fact that many people must live and die alone, even in
Winesburg.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Alice Hindman, twenty-seven year old woman has lived all her life in Winesburg, working as a clerk in Winney's dry good store. When she is sixteen, she has an affair with Ned Currie. But Ned has left Winesburg to try his luck in the city. Before leaving he promises Alice that he would return for her and take her away with him. However, as time had passes, he, having got caught up with city life, forgets her totally. Alice in the meanwhile keeps waiting for him, keeping herself aloof from any other social contact. She considers herself already married to Ned, and does not allow any man to come close to her after her father's death, her mother remarries leaving Alice all the more lonely. She starts save money, in the main hope that it will come of use to Ned and herself once they begin life together. However, slowly, Alice starts realizing the futility of her dreams and hopes, and even ventures out a few times with Will Hurley, a middle aged man. But her heart is not in it, and she puts him off soon. On her twenty-seventh year, Alice has an adventure. After reaching home, she undresses herself in the darkness, and a strange desire takes possession of her. Without thinking further, she runs downstairs, naked, and begins to run through the streets, in the chill cold night. On seeing a man at a distance, her unfulfilled desire overcomes her and she calls out to him. Mercifully, the man is old and deaf, and Alice doesn't come to any harm. But later in her own room, she weeps bitterly, and resolves to live a life, learning to live alone and die alone, in Winesburg.


prompt:
Chapter: RESPECTABILITY

If you have lived in cities and have walked in the park
on a summer afternoon, you have perhaps seen, blinking
in a corner of his iron cage, a huge, grotesque kind of
monkey, a creature with ugly, sagging, hairless skin
below his eyes and a bright purple underbody. This
monkey is a true monster. In the completeness of his
ugliness he achieved a kind of perverted beauty.
Children stopping before the cage are fascinated, men
turn away with an air of disgust, and women linger for
a moment, trying perhaps to remember which one of their
male acquaintances the thing in some faint way
resembles.

Had you been in the earlier years of your life a
citizen of the village of Winesburg, Ohio, there would
have been for you no mystery in regard to the beast in
his cage. "It is like Wash Williams," you would have
said. "As he sits in the corner there, the beast is
exactly like old Wash sitting on the grass in the
station yard on a summer evening after he has closed
his office for the night."

Wash Williams, the telegraph operator of Winesburg, was
the ugliest thing in town. His girth was immense, his
neck thin, his legs feeble. He was dirty. Everything
about him was unclean. Even the whites of his eyes
looked soiled.

I go too fast. Not everything about Wash was unclean.
He took care of his hands. His fingers were fat, but
there was something sensitive and shapely in the hand
that lay on the table by the instrument in the
telegraph office. In his youth Wash Williams had been
called the best telegraph operator in the state, and in
spite of his degradement to the obscure office at
Winesburg, he was still proud of his ability.

Wash Williams did not associate with the men of the
town in which he lived. "I'll have nothing to do with
them," he said, looking with bleary eyes at the men who
walked along the station platform past the telegraph
office. Up along Main Street he went in the evening to
Ed Griffith's saloon, and after drinking unbelievable
quantities of beer staggered off to his room in the New
Willard House and to his bed for the night.

Wash Williams was a man of courage. A thing had
happened to him that made him hate life, and he hated
it wholeheartedly, with the abandon of a poet. First of
all, he hated women. "Bitches," he called them. His
feeling toward men was somewhat different. He pitied
them. "Does not every man let his life be managed for
him by some bitch or another?" he asked.

In Winesburg no attention was paid to Wash Williams and
his hatred of his fellows. Once Mrs. White, the
banker's wife, complained to the telegraph company,
saying that the office in Winesburg was dirty and
smelled abominably, but nothing came of her complaint.
Here and there a man respected the operator.
Instinctively the man felt in him a glowing resentment
of something he had not the courage to resent. When
Wash walked through the streets such a one had an
instinct to pay him homage, to raise his hat or to bow
before him. The superintendent who had supervision over
the telegraph operators on the railroad that went
through Winesburg felt that way. He had put Wash into
the obscure office at Winesburg to avoid discharging
him, and he meant to keep him there. When he received
the letter of complaint from the banker's wife, he tore
it up and laughed unpleasantly. For some reason he
thought of his own wife as he tore up the letter.

Wash Williams once had a wife. When he was still a
young man he married a woman at Dayton, Ohio. The woman
was tall and slender and had blue eyes and yellow hair.
Wash was himself a comely youth. He loved the woman
with a love as absorbing as the hatred he later felt
for all women.

In all of Winesburg there was but one person who knew
the story of the thing that had made ugly the person
and the character of Wash Williams. He once told the
story to George Willard and the telling of the tale
came about in this way:

George Willard went one evening to walk with Belle
Carpenter, a trimmer of women's hats who worked in a
millinery shop kept by Mrs. Kate McHugh. The young man
was not in love with the woman, who, in fact, had a
suitor who worked as bartender in Ed Griffith's saloon,
but as they walked about under the trees they
occasionally embraced. The night and their own thoughts
had aroused something in them. As they were returning
to Main Street they passed the little lawn beside the
railroad station and saw Wash Williams apparently
asleep on the grass beneath a tree. On the next evening
the operator and George Willard walked out together.
Down the railroad they went and sat on a pile of
decaying railroad ties beside the tracks. It was then
that the operator told the young reporter his story of
hate.

Perhaps a dozen times George Willard and the strange,
shapeless man who lived at his father's hotel had been
on the point of talking. The young man looked at the
hideous, leering face staring about the hotel dining
room and was consumed with curiosity. Something he saw
lurking in the staring eyes told him that the man who
had nothing to say to others had nevertheless something
to say to him. On the pile of railroad ties on the
summer evening, he waited expectantly. When the
operator remained silent and seemed to have changed his
mind about talking, he tried to make conversation.
"Were you ever married, Mr. Williams?" he began. "I
suppose you were and your wife is dead, is that it?"

Wash Williams spat forth a succession of vile oaths.
"Yes, she is dead," he agreed. "She is dead as all
women are dead. She is a living-dead thing, walking in
the sight of men and making the earth foul by her
presence." Staring into the boy's eyes, the man became
purple with rage. "Don't have fool notions in your
head," he commanded. "My wife, she is dead; yes,
surely. I tell you, all women are dead, my mother, your
mother, that tall dark woman who works in the millinery
store and with whom I saw you walking about
yesterday--all of them, they are all dead. I tell you
there is something rotten about them. I was married,
sure. My wife was dead before she married me, she was a
foul thing come out a woman more foul. She was a thing
sent to make life unbearable to me. I was a fool, do
you see, as you are now, and so I married this woman. I
would like to see men a little begin to understand
women. They are sent to prevent men making the world
worth while. It is a trick in Nature. Ugh! They are
creeping, crawling, squirming things, they with their
soft hands and their blue eyes. The sight of a woman
sickens me. Why I don't kill every woman I see I don't
know."

Half frightened and yet fascinated by the light burning
in the eyes of the hideous old man, George Willard
listened, afire with curiosity. Darkness came on and he
leaned forward trying to see the face of the man who
talked. When, in the gathering darkness, he could no
longer see the purple, bloated face and the burning
eyes, a curious fancy came to him. Wash Williams talked
in low even tones that made his words seem the more
terrible. In the darkness the young reporter found
himself imagining that he sat on the railroad ties
beside a comely young man with black hair and black
shining eyes. There was something almost beautiful in
the voice of Wash Williams, the hideous, telling his
story of hate.

The telegraph operator of Winesburg, sitting in the
darkness on the railroad ties, had become a poet.
Hatred had raised him to that elevation. "It is because
I saw you kissing the lips of that Belle Carpenter that
I tell you my story," he said. "What happened to me may
next happen to you. I want to put you on your guard.
Already you may be having dreams in your head. I want
to destroy them."

Wash Williams began telling the story of his married
life with the tall blonde girl with the blue eyes whom
he had met when he was a young operator at Dayton,
Ohio. Here and there his story was touched with moments
of beauty intermingled with strings of vile curses. The
operator had married the daughter of a dentist who was
the youngest of three sisters. On his marriage day,
because of his ability, he was promoted to a position
as dispatcher at an increased salary and sent to an
office at Columbus, Ohio. There he settled down with
his young wife and began buying a house on the
installment plan.

The young telegraph operator was madly in love. With a
kind of religious fervor he had managed to go through
the pitfalls of his youth and to remain virginal until
after his marriage. He made for George Willard a
picture of his life in the house at Columbus, Ohio,
with the young wife. "In the garden back of our house
we planted vegetables," he said, "you know, peas and
corn and such things. We went to Columbus in early
March and as soon as the days became warm I went to
work in the garden. With a spade I turned up the black
ground while she ran about laughing and pretending to
be afraid of the worms I uncovered. Late in April came
the planting. In the little paths among the seed beds
she stood holding a paper bag in her hand. The bag was
filled with seeds. A few at a time she handed me the
seeds that I might thrust them into the warm, soft
ground."

For a moment there was a catch in the voice of the man
talking in the darkness. "I loved her," he said. "I
don't claim not to be a fool. I love her yet. There in
the dusk in the spring evening I crawled along the
black ground to her feet and groveled before her. I
kissed her shoes and the ankles above her shoes. When
the hem of her garment touched my face I trembled. When
after two years of that life I found she had managed to
acquire three other lovers who came regularly to our
house when I was away at work, I didn't want to touch
them or her. I just sent her home to her mother and
said nothing. There was nothing to say. I had four
hundred dollars in the bank and I gave her that. I
didn't ask her reasons. I didn't say anything. When she
had gone I cried like a silly boy. Pretty soon I had a
chance to sell the house and I sent that money to her."

Wash Williams and George Willard arose from the pile of
railroad ties and walked along the tracks toward town.
The operator finished his tale quickly, breathlessly.

"Her mother sent for me," he said. "She wrote me a
letter and asked me to come to their house at Dayton.
When I got there it was evening about this time."

Wash Williams' voice rose to a half scream. "I sat in
the parlor of that house two hours. Her mother took me
in there and left me. Their house was stylish. They
were what is called respectable people. There were
plush chairs and a couch in the room. I was trembling
all over. I hated the men I thought had wronged her. I
was sick of living alone and wanted her back. The
longer I waited the more raw and tender I became. I
thought that if she came in and just touched me with
her hand I would perhaps faint away. I ached to forgive
and forget."

Wash Williams stopped and stood staring at George
Willard. The boy's body shook as from a chill. Again
the man's voice became soft and low. "She came into the
room naked," he went on. "Her mother did that. While I
sat there she was taking the girl's clothes off,
perhaps coaxing her to do it. First I heard voices at
the door that led into a little hallway and then it
opened softly. The girl was ashamed and stood perfectly
still staring at the floor. The mother didn't come into
the room. When she had pushed the girl in through the
door she stood in the hallway waiting, hoping we
would--well, you see--waiting."

George Willard and the telegraph operator came into the
main street of Winesburg. The lights from the store
windows lay bright and shining on the sidewalks. People
moved about laughing and talking. The young reporter
felt ill and weak. In imagination, he also became old
and shapeless. "I didn't get the mother killed," said
Wash Williams, staring up and down the street. "I
struck her once with a chair and then the neighbors
came in and took it away. She screamed so loud you see.
I won't ever have a chance to kill her now. She died of
a fever a month after that happened."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: In Winesburg, Wash Williams works as a telegraph operator, he is the ugliest man to be seen in the town. He is immense, with thin legs and neck, and is extremely filthy. His hands, however, though fat, are shapely and look sensitive. The townsfolk avoid any contact with him and so does he. Any complaints about his filth are ignored, as he is a very competent telegraph operator. It is George Willard who manages to extricate Wash's life story out. Once on seeing George and a young girl embracing and kissing while taking a night walk, Wash, the next day, accompanies George, and tells his whole story. It turns out that he had once been married to a very beautiful girl, whom he was madly in love with. He had bought a house for her, and catered to her every need. But he finally realized that she used to bring her lovers to his own house, in his absence. In anger and humiliation he and Wash Williams packed her off to her mother's house with all the money from his bank account. Much later, the girl's mother had sent for him. The girl's house turned out to be a stylish, respectable house. Wash, while waiting for her, began feeling that perhaps he has wronged her and has decided to take her back. But when the girl entered, she was naked. Her mother had apparently removed all her clothes and sent her to him, in the hope that he would be mesmerized by her and would make love to her. Wash, in his anger, slapped the mother and walked out. Wash has told his story to George, wishing him to understand the vile nature of women. He considered all women to be hateful, convincing creatures, who should be best avoided and he wanted George to remember this.


prompt:
Chapter: THE THINKER

The house in which Seth Richmond of Winesburg lived
with his mother had been at one time the show place of
the town, but when young Seth lived there its glory had
become somewhat dimmed. The huge brick house which
Banker White had built on Buckeye Street had
overshadowed it. The Richmond place was in a little
valley far out at the end of Main Street. Farmers
coming into town by a dusty road from the south passed
by a grove of walnut trees, skirted the Fair Ground
with its high board fence covered with advertisements,
and trotted their horses down through the valley past
the Richmond place into town. As much of the country
north and south of Winesburg was devoted to fruit and
berry raising, Seth saw wagon-loads of berry
pickers--boys, girls, and women--going to the fields in
the morning and returning covered with dust in the
evening. The chattering crowd, with their rude jokes
cried out from wagon to wagon, sometimes irritated him
sharply. He regretted that he also could not laugh
boisterously, shout meaningless jokes and make of
himself a figure in the endless stream of moving,
giggling activity that went up and down the road.

The Richmond house was built of limestone, and,
although it was said in the village to have become run
down, had in reality grown more beautiful with every
passing year. Already time had begun a little to color
the stone, lending a golden richness to its surface and
in the evening or on dark days touching the shaded
places beneath the eaves with wavering patches of
browns and blacks.

The house had been built by Seth's grandfather, a stone
quarryman, and it, together with the stone quarries on
Lake Erie eighteen miles to the north, had been left to
his son, Clarence Richmond, Seth's father. Clarence
Richmond, a quiet passionate man extraordinarily
admired by his neighbors, had been killed in a street
fight with the editor of a newspaper in Toledo, Ohio.
The fight concerned the publication of Clarence
Richmond's name coupled with that of a woman school
teacher, and as the dead man had begun the row by
firing upon the editor, the effort to punish the slayer
was unsuccessful. After the quarryman's death it was
found that much of the money left to him had been
squandered in speculation and in insecure investments
made through the influence of friends.

Left with but a small income, Virginia Richmond had
settled down to a retired life in the village and to
the raising of her son. Although she had been deeply
moved by the death of the husband and father, she did
not at all believe the stories concerning him that ran
about after his death. To her mind, the sensitive,
boyish man whom all had instinctively loved, was but an
unfortunate, a being too fine for everyday life.
"You'll be hearing all sorts of stories, but you are
not to believe what you hear," she said to her son. "He
was a good man, full of tenderness for everyone, and
should not have tried to be a man of affairs. No matter
how much I were to plan and dream of your future, I
could not imagine anything better for you than that you
turn out as good a man as your father."

Several years after the death of her husband, Virginia
Richmond had become alarmed at the growing demands upon
her income and had set herself to the task of
increasing it. She had learned stenography and through
the influence of her husband's friends got the position
of court stenographer at the county seat. There she
went by train each morning during the sessions of the
court, and when no court sat, spent her days working
among the rosebushes in her garden. She was a tall,
straight figure of a woman with a plain face and a
great mass of brown hair.

In the relationship between Seth Richmond and his
mother, there was a quality that even at eighteen had
begun to color all of his traffic with men. An almost
unhealthy respect for the youth kept the mother for the
most part silent in his presence. When she did speak
sharply to him he had only to look steadily into her
eyes to see dawning there the puzzled look he had
already noticed in the eyes of others when he looked at
them.

The truth was that the son thought with remarkable
clearness and the mother did not. She expected from all
people certain conventional reactions to life. A boy
was your son, you scolded him and he trembled and
looked at the floor. When you had scolded enough he
wept and all was forgiven. After the weeping and when
he had gone to bed, you crept into his room and kissed
him.

Virginia Richmond could not understand why her son did
not do these things. After the severest reprimand, he
did not tremble and look at the floor but instead
looked steadily at her, causing uneasy doubts to invade
her mind. As for creeping into his room--after Seth
had passed his fifteenth year, she would have been half
afraid to do anything of the kind.

Once when he was a boy of sixteen, Seth in company with
two other boys ran away from home. The three boys
climbed into the open door of an empty freight car and
rode some forty miles to a town where a fair was being
held. One of the boys had a bottle filled with a
combination of whiskey and blackberry wine, and the
three sat with legs dangling out of the car door
drinking from the bottle. Seth's two companions sang
and waved their hands to idlers about the stations of
the towns through which the train passed. They planned
raids upon the baskets of farmers who had come with
their families to the fair. "We will live like kings
and won't have to spend a penny to see the fair and
horse races," they declared boastfully.

After the disappearance of Seth, Virginia Richmond
walked up and down the floor of her home filled with
vague alarms. Although on the next day she discovered,
through an inquiry made by the town marshal, on what
adventure the boys had gone, she could not quiet
herself. All through the night she lay awake hearing
the clock tick and telling herself that Seth, like his
father, would come to a sudden and violent end. So
determined was she that the boy should this time feel
the weight of her wrath that, although she would not
allow the marshal to interfere with his adventure, she
got out a pencil and paper and wrote down a series of
sharp, stinging reproofs she intended to pour out upon
him. The reproofs she committed to memory, going about
the garden and saying them aloud like an actor
memorizing his part.

And when, at the end of the week, Seth returned, a
little weary and with coal soot in his ears and about
his eyes, she again found herself unable to reprove
him. Walking into the house he hung his cap on a nail
by the kitchen door and stood looking steadily at her.
"I wanted to turn back within an hour after we had
started," he explained. "I didn't know what to do. I
knew you would be bothered, but I knew also that if I
didn't go on I would be ashamed of myself. I went
through with the thing for my own good. It was
uncomfortable, sleeping on wet straw, and two drunken
Negroes came and slept with us. When I stole a lunch
basket out of a farmer's wagon I couldn't help thinking
of his children going all day without food. I was sick
of the whole affair, but I was determined to stick it
out until the other boys were ready to come back."

"I'm glad you did stick it out," replied the mother,
half resentfully, and kissing him upon the forehead
pretended to busy herself with the work about the
house.

On a summer evening Seth Richmond went to the New
Willard House to visit his friend, George Willard. It
had rained during the afternoon, but as he walked
through Main Street, the sky had partially cleared and
a golden glow lit up the west. Going around a corner,
he turned in at the door of the hotel and began to
climb the stairway leading up to his friend's room. In
the hotel office the proprietor and two traveling men
were engaged in a discussion of politics.

On the stairway Seth stopped and listened to the voices
of the men below. They were excited and talked rapidly.
Tom Willard was berating the traveling men. "I am a
Democrat but your talk makes me sick," he said. "You
don't understand McKinley. McKinley and Mark Hanna are
friends. It is impossible perhaps for your mind to
grasp that. If anyone tells you that a friendship can
be deeper and bigger and more worth while than dollars
and cents, or even more worth while than state
politics, you snicker and laugh."

The landlord was interrupted by one of the guests, a
tall, grey-mustached man who worked for a wholesale
grocery house. "Do you think that I've lived in
Cleveland all these years without knowing Mark Hanna?"
he demanded. "Your talk is piffle. Hanna is after money
and nothing else. This McKinley is his tool. He has
McKinley bluffed and don't you forget it."

The young man on the stairs did not linger to hear the
rest of the discussion, but went on up the stairway and
into the little dark hall. Something in the voices of
the men talking in the hotel office started a chain of
thoughts in his mind. He was lonely and had begun to
think that loneliness was a part of his character,
something that would always stay with him. Stepping
into a side hall he stood by a window that looked into
an alleyway. At the back of his shop stood Abner Groff,
the town baker. His tiny bloodshot eyes looked up and
down the alleyway. In his shop someone called the
baker, who pretended not to hear. The baker had an
empty milk bottle in his hand and an angry sullen look
in his eyes.

In Winesburg, Seth Richmond was called the "deep one."
"He's like his father," men said as he went through the
streets. "He'll break out some of these days. You wait
and see."

The talk of the town and the respect with which men and
boys instinctively greeted him, as all men greet silent
people, had affected Seth Richmond's outlook on life
and on himself. He, like most boys, was deeper than
boys are given credit for being, but he was not what
the men of the town, and even his mother, thought him
to be. No great underlying purpose lay back of his
habitual silence, and he had no definite plan for his
life. When the boys with whom he associated were noisy
and quarrelsome, he stood quietly at one side. With
calm eyes he watched the gesticulating lively figures
of his companions. He wasn't particularly interested in
what was going on, and sometimes wondered if he would
ever be particularly interested in anything. Now, as he
stood in the half-darkness by the window watching the
baker, he wished that he himself might become
thoroughly stirred by something, even by the fits of
sullen anger for which Baker Groff was noted. "It would
be better for me if I could become excited and wrangle
about politics like windy old Tom Willard," he thought,
as he left the window and went again along the hallway
to the room occupied by his friend, George Willard.

George Willard was older than Seth Richmond, but in the
rather odd friendship between the two, it was he who
was forever courting and the younger boy who was being
courted. The paper on which George worked had one
policy. It strove to mention by name in each issue, as
many as possible of the inhabitants of the village.
Like an excited dog, George Willard ran here and there,
noting on his pad of paper who had gone on business to
the county seat or had returned from a visit to a
neighboring village. All day he wrote little facts upon
the pad. "A. P. Wringlet had received a shipment of
straw hats. Ed Byerbaum and Tom Marshall were in
Cleveland Friday. Uncle Tom Sinnings is building a new
barn on his place on the Valley Road."

The idea that George Willard would some day become a
writer had given him a place of distinction in
Winesburg, and to Seth Richmond he talked continually
of the matter, "It's the easiest of all lives to live,"
he declared, becoming excited and boastful. "Here and
there you go and there is no one to boss you. Though
you are in India or in the South Seas in a boat, you
have but to write and there you are. Wait till I get my
name up and then see what fun I shall have."

In George Willard's room, which had a window looking
down into an alleyway and one that looked across
railroad tracks to Biff Carter's Lunch Room facing the
railroad station, Seth Richmond sat in a chair and
looked at the floor. George Willard, who had been
sitting for an hour idly playing with a lead pencil,
greeted him effusively. "I've been trying to write a
love story," he explained, laughing nervously. Lighting
a pipe he began walking up and down the room. "I know
what I'm going to do. I'm going to fall in love. I've
been sitting here and thinking it over and I'm going to
do it."

As though embarrassed by his declaration, George went
to a window and turning his back to his friend leaned
out. "I know who I'm going to fall in love with," he
said sharply. "It's Helen White. She is the only girl
in town with any 'get-up' to her."

Struck with a new idea, young Willard turned and walked
toward his visitor. "Look here," he said. "You know
Helen White better than I do. I want you to tell her
what I said. You just get to talking to her and say
that I'm in love with her. See what she says to that.
See how she takes it, and then you come and tell me."

Seth Richmond arose and went toward the door. The words
of his comrade irritated him unbearably. "Well,
good-bye," he said briefly.

George was amazed. Running forward he stood in the
darkness trying to look into Seth's face. "What's the
matter? What are you going to do? You stay here and
let's talk," he urged.

A wave of resentment directed against his friend, the
men of the town who were, he thought, perpetually
talking of nothing, and most of all, against his own
habit of silence, made Seth half desperate. "Aw, speak
to her yourself," he burst forth and then, going
quickly through the door, slammed it sharply in his
friend's face. "I'm going to find Helen White and talk
to her, but not about him," he muttered.

Seth went down the stairway and out at the front door
of the hotel muttering with wrath. Crossing a little
dusty street and climbing a low iron railing, he went
to sit upon the grass in the station yard. George
Willard he thought a profound fool, and he wished that
he had said so more vigorously. Although his
acquaintanceship with Helen White, the banker's
daughter, was outwardly but casual, she was often the
subject of his thoughts and he felt that she was
something private and personal to himself. "The busy
fool with his love stories," he muttered, staring back
over his shoulder at George Willard's room, "why does
he never tire of his eternal talking."

It was berry harvest time in Winesburg and upon the
station platform men and boys loaded the boxes of red,
fragrant berries into two express cars that stood upon
the siding. A June moon was in the sky, although in the
west a storm threatened, and no street lamps were
lighted. In the dim light the figures of the men
standing upon the express truck and pitching the boxes
in at the doors of the cars were but dimly discernible.
Upon the iron railing that protected the station lawn
sat other men. Pipes were lighted. Village jokes went
back and forth. Away in the distance a train whistled
and the men loading the boxes into the cars worked with
renewed activity.

Seth arose from his place on the grass and went
silently past the men perched upon the railing and into
Main Street. He had come to a resolution. "I'll get out
of here," he told himself. "What good am I here? I'm
going to some city and go to work. I'll tell mother
about it tomorrow."

Seth Richmond went slowly along Main Street, past
Wacker's Cigar Store and the Town Hall, and into
Buckeye Street. He was depressed by the thought that he
was not a part of the life in his own town, but the
depression did not cut deeply as he did not think of
himself as at fault. In the heavy shadows of a big tree
before Doctor Welling's house, he stopped and stood
watching half-witted Turk Smollet, who was pushing a
wheelbarrow in the road. The old man with his absurdly
boyish mind had a dozen long boards on the wheelbarrow,
and, as he hurried along the road, balanced the load
with extreme nicety. "Easy there, Turk! Steady now, old
boy!" the old man shouted to himself, and laughed so
that the load of boards rocked dangerously.

Seth knew Turk Smollet, the half dangerous old wood
chopper whose peculiarities added so much of color to
the life of the village. He knew that when Turk got
into Main Street he would become the center of a
whirlwind of cries and comments, that in truth the old
man was going far out of his way in order to pass
through Main Street and exhibit his skill in wheeling
the boards. "If George Willard were here, he'd have
something to say," thought Seth. "George belongs to
this town. He'd shout at Turk and Turk would shout at
him. They'd both be secretly pleased by what they had
said. It's different with me. I don't belong. I'll not
make a fuss about it, but I'm going to get out of
here."

Seth stumbled forward through the half-darkness,
feeling himself an outcast in his own town. He began to
pity himself, but a sense of the absurdity of his
thoughts made him smile. In the end he decided that he
was simply old beyond his years and not at all a
subject for self-pity. "I'm made to go to work. I may
be able to make a place for myself by steady working,
and I might as well be at it," he decided.

Seth went to the house of Banker White and stood in the
darkness by the front door. On the door hung a heavy
brass knocker, an innovation introduced into the
village by Helen White's mother, who had also organized
a women's club for the study of poetry. Seth raised the
knocker and let it fall. Its heavy clatter sounded like
a report from distant guns. "How awkward and foolish I
am," he thought. "If Mrs. White comes to the door, I
won't know what to say."

It was Helen White who came to the door and found Seth
standing at the edge of the porch. Blushing with
pleasure, she stepped forward, closing the door softly.
"I'm going to get out of town. I don't know what I'll
do, but I'm going to get out of here and go to work. I
think I'll go to Columbus," he said. "Perhaps I'll get
into the State University down there. Anyway, I'm
going. I'll tell mother tonight." He hesitated and
looked doubtfully about. "Perhaps you wouldn't mind
coming to walk with me?"

Seth and Helen walked through the streets beneath the
trees. Heavy clouds had drifted across the face of the
moon, and before them in the deep twilight went a man
with a short ladder upon his shoulder. Hurrying
forward, the man stopped at the street crossing and,
putting the ladder against the wooden lamp-post,
lighted the village lights so that their way was half
lighted, half darkened, by the lamps and by the
deepening shadows cast by the low-branched trees. In
the tops of the trees the wind began to play,
disturbing the sleeping birds so that they flew about
calling plaintively. In the lighted space before one of
the lamps, two bats wheeled and circled, pursuing the
gathering swarm of night flies.

Since Seth had been a boy in knee trousers there had
been a half expressed intimacy between him and the
maiden who now for the first time walked beside him.
For a time she had been beset with a madness for
writing notes which she addressed to Seth. He had found
them concealed in his books at school and one had been
given him by a child met in the street, while several
had been delivered through the village post office.

The notes had been written in a round, boyish hand and
had reflected a mind inflamed by novel reading. Seth
had not answered them, although he had been moved and
flattered by some of the sentences scrawled in pencil
upon the stationery of the banker's wife. Putting them
into the pocket of his coat, he went through the street
or stood by the fence in the school yard with something
burning at his side. He thought it fine that he should
be thus selected as the favorite of the richest and
most attractive girl in town.

Helen and Seth stopped by a fence near where a low dark
building faced the street. The building had once been a
factory for the making of barrel staves but was now
vacant. Across the street upon the porch of a house a
man and woman talked of their childhood, their voices
coming dearly across to the half-embarrassed youth and
maiden. There was the sound of scraping chairs and the
man and woman came down the gravel path to a wooden
gate. Standing outside the gate, the man leaned over
and kissed the woman. "For old times' sake," he said
and, turning, walked rapidly away along the sidewalk.

"That's Belle Turner," whispered Helen, and put her
hand boldly into Seth's hand. "I didn't know she had a
fellow. I thought she was too old for that." Seth
laughed uneasily. The hand of the girl was warm and a
strange, dizzy feeling crept over him. Into his mind
came a desire to tell her something he had been
determined not to tell. "George Willard's in love with
you," he said, and in spite of his agitation his voice
was low and quiet. "He's writing a story, and he wants
to be in love. He wants to know how it feels. He wanted
me to tell you and see what you said."

Again Helen and Seth walked in silence. They came to
the garden surrounding the old Richmond place and going
through a gap in the hedge sat on a wooden bench
beneath a bush.

On the street as he walked beside the girl new and
daring thoughts had come into Seth Richmond's mind. He
began to regret his decision to get out of town. "It
would be something new and altogether delightful to
remain and walk often through the streets with Helen
White," he thought. In imagination he saw himself
putting his arm about her waist and feeling her arms
clasped tightly about his neck. One of those odd
combinations of events and places made him connect the
idea of love-making with this girl and a spot he had
visited some days before. He had gone on an errand to
the house of a farmer who lived on a hillside beyond
the Fair Ground and had returned by a path through a
field. At the foot of the hill below the farmer's house
Seth had stopped beneath a sycamore tree and looked
about him. A soft humming noise had greeted his ears.
For a moment he had thought the tree must be the home
of a swarm of bees.

And then, looking down, Seth had seen the bees
everywhere all about him in the long grass. He stood in
a mass of weeds that grew waist-high in the field that
ran away from the hillside. The weeds were abloom with
tiny purple blossoms and gave forth an overpowering
fragrance. Upon the weeds the bees were gathered in
armies, singing as they worked.

Seth imagined himself lying on a summer evening, buried
deep among the weeds beneath the tree. Beside him, in
the scene built in his fancy, lay Helen White, her hand
lying in his hand. A peculiar reluctance kept him from
kissing her lips, but he felt he might have done that
if he wished. Instead, he lay perfectly still, looking
at her and listening to the army of bees that sang the
sustained masterful song of labor above his head.

On the bench in the garden Seth stirred uneasily.
Releasing the hand of the girl, he thrust his hands
into his trouser pockets. A desire to impress the mind
of his companion with the importance of the resolution
he had made came over him and he nodded his head toward
the house. "Mother'll make a fuss, I suppose," he
whispered. "She hasn't thought at all about what I'm
going to do in life. She thinks I'm going to stay on
here forever just being a boy."

Seth's voice became charged with boyish earnestness.
"You see, I've got to strike out. I've got to get to
work. It's what I'm good for."

Helen White was impressed. She nodded her head and a
feeling of admiration swept over her. "This is as it
should be," she thought. "This boy is not a boy at all,
but a strong, purposeful man." Certain vague desires
that had been invading her body were swept away and she
sat up very straight on the bench. The thunder
continued to rumble and flashes of heat lightning lit
up the eastern sky. The garden that had been so
mysterious and vast, a place that with Seth beside her
might have become the background for strange and
wonderful adventures, now seemed no more than an
ordinary Winesburg back yard, quite definite and
limited in its outlines.

"What will you do up there?" she whispered.

Seth turned half around on the bench, striving to see
her face in the darkness. He thought her infinitely
more sensible and straightforward than George Willard,
and was glad he had come away from his friend. A
feeling of impatience with the town that had been in
his mind returned, and he tried to tell her of it.
"Everyone talks and talks," he began. "I'm sick of it.
I'll do something, get into some kind of work where
talk don't count. Maybe I'll just be a mechanic in a
shop. I don't know. I guess I don't care much. I just
want to work and keep quiet. That's all I've got in my
mind."

Seth arose from the bench and put out his hand. He did
not want to bring the meeting to an end but could not
think of anything more to say. "It's the last time
we'll see each other," he whispered.

A wave of sentiment swept over Helen. Putting her hand
upon Seth's shoulder, she started to draw his face down
toward her own upturned face. The act was one of pure
affection and cutting regret that some vague adventure
that had been present in the spirit of the night would
now never be realized. "I think I'd better be going
along," she said, letting her hand fall heavily to her
side. A thought came to her. "Don't you go with me; I
want to be alone," she said. "You go and talk with your
mother. You'd better do that now."

Seth hesitated and, as he stood waiting, the girl
turned and ran away through the hedge. A desire to run
after her came to him, but he only stood staring,
perplexed and puzzled by her action as he had been
perplexed and puzzled by all of the life of the town
out of which she had come. Walking slowly toward the
house, he stopped in the shadow of a large tree and
looked at his mother sitting by a lighted window busily
sewing. The feeling of loneliness that had visited him
earlier in the evening returned and colored his
thoughts of the adventure through which he had just
passed. "Huh!" he exclaimed, turning and staring in the
direction taken by Helen White. "That's how things'll
turn out. She'll be like the rest. I suppose she'll
begin now to look at me in a funny way." He looked at
the ground and pondered this thought. "She'll be
embarrassed and feel strange when I'm around," he
whispered to himself. "That's how it'll be. That's how
everything'll turn out. When it comes to loving
someone, it won't never be me. It'll be someone
else--some fool--someone who talks a lot--someone like
that George Willard."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Seth Richmond is a young boy who lives in Winesburg. His father, who died in a shootout with an editor of a magazine, a highly admired man in his times. His mother, Virginia had raised Seth up single handedly. However, she can never quite understand her son, who is too serious and quiet a boy to be treated in a normal way. Virginia finds it difficult to even reprimand her son, since he has the habit of looking straight into her eye, thus causing uneasy doubts to enter her mind. Seth's only friend is George Willard, with whom he has a somewhat comfortable relationship but one day, when George discloses to him his plan to fall in love with Helen White, Seth is dismayed and irked, since he himself has personal thoughts about her. As retaliation, Seth goes over to her house and invites her for a walk. Helen too has a soft corner for Seth and so agrees to walk with Seth. However Seth is so agitated that he inadvertently reveals George's message of love to Helen. He then speaks out his plans of going to work and leaving his hometown. When he claims that this meeting would be their last one, Helen is swept away by sentiments and kisses him. After she leaves, Seth is filled with a sense of loneliness and feels that only, men like George can win girls for themselves.


prompt:
Chapter: 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, redhaired 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 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.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: In an old unpainted house, lives a child who is seven, with her father Tom Hard. Her father hardly pays any attention to her is an agnostic who is only interested in spending his time talking about religion and God, trying to destroy the idea of God. But one day when the girl was five, a stranger arrives in Winesburg. He is the son of a rich merchant, but has rushed his life by excessive drinking. He has come to hope that a rural surrounding would pull him out of his drinking habit. But he is unable to do so. Later, he arrives at Tom Hard's house. He begins speaking eloquently about his distress at not being able to get rid of his drinking problem. He then goes on to proclaim that in his vision there is a woman who has yet to cross his path. She will have to struggle a lot in her life. The stranger says that he has named her Tandy, which is a quality of "being strong to be loved." He then speaks to Tom's daughter and tells her to be Tandy and to be "brave enough to be loved." The stranger leaves with more words of courage and strength. Later, the father has of course, not given importance to the mans words and addresses his daughter by her real name. But the girl begins weeping bitterly and entreats her father to call her Tandy, saying "I want to be Tandy, I want to be Tandy Hard."


prompt:
Chapter: THE STRENGTH OF GOD

The Reverend Curtis Hartman was pastor of the
Presbyterian Church of Winesburg, and had been in that
position ten years. He was forty years old, and by his
nature very silent and reticent. To preach, standing in
the pulpit before the people, was always a hardship for
him and from Wednesday morning until Saturday evening
he thought of nothing but the two sermons that must be
preached on Sunday. Early on Sunday morning he went
into a little room called a study in the bell tower of
the church and prayed. In his prayers there was one
note that always predominated. "Give me strength and
courage for Thy work, O Lord!" he pleaded, kneeling on
the bare floor and bowing his head in the presence of
the task that lay before him.

The Reverend Hartman was a tall man with a brown beard.
His wife, a stout, nervous woman, was the daughter of a
manufacturer of underwear at Cleveland, Ohio. The
minister himself was rather a favorite in the town. The
elders of the church liked him because he was quiet and
unpretentious and Mrs. White, the banker's wife,
thought him scholarly and refined.

The Presbyterian Church held itself somewhat aloof from
the other churches of Winesburg. It was larger and more
imposing and its minister was better paid. He even had
a carriage of his own and on summer evenings sometimes
drove about town with his wife. Through Main Street and
up and down Buckeye Street he went, bowing gravely to
the people, while his wife, afire with secret pride,
looked at him out of the corners of her eyes and
worried lest the horse become frightened and run away.

For a good many years after he came to Winesburg things
went well with Curtis Hartman. He was not one to arouse
keen enthusiasm among the worshippers in his church but
on the other hand he made no enemies. In reality he was
much in earnest and sometimes suffered prolonged
periods of remorse because he could not go crying the
word of God in the highways and byways of the town. He
wondered if the flame of the spirit really burned in
him and dreamed of a day when a strong sweet new
current of power would come like a great wind into his
voice and his soul and the people would tremble before
the spirit of God made manifest in him. "I am a poor
stick and that will never really happen to me," he
mused dejectedly, and then a patient smile lit up his
features. "Oh well, I suppose I'm doing well enough,"
he added philosophically.

The room in the bell tower of the church, where on
Sunday mornings the minister prayed for an increase in
him of the power of God, had but one window. It was
long and narrow and swung outward on a hinge like a
door. On the window, made of little leaded panes, was a
design showing the Christ laying his hand upon the head
of a child. One Sunday morning in the summer as he sat
by his desk in the room with a large Bible opened
before him, and the sheets of his sermon scattered
about, the minister was shocked to see, in the upper
room of the house next door, a woman lying in her bed
and smoking a cigarette while she read a book. Curtis
Hartman went on tiptoe to the window and closed it
softly. He was horror stricken at the thought of a
woman smoking and trembled also to think that his eyes,
just raised from the pages of the book of God, had
looked upon the bare shoulders and white throat of a
woman. With his brain in a whirl he went down into the
pulpit and preached a long sermon without once thinking
of his gestures or his voice. The sermon attracted
unusual attention because of its power and clearness.
"I wonder if she is listening, if my voice is carrying
a message into her soul," he thought and began to hope
that on future Sunday mornings he might be able to say
words that would touch and awaken the woman apparently
far gone in secret sin.

The house next door to the Presbyterian Church, through
the windows of which the minister had seen the sight
that had so upset him, was occupied by two women. Aunt
Elizabeth Swift, a grey competent-looking widow with
money in the Winesburg National Bank, lived there with
her daughter Kate Swift, a school teacher. The school
teacher was thirty years old and had a neat
trim-looking figure. She had few friends and bore a
reputation of having a sharp tongue. When he began to
think about her, Curtis Hartman remembered that she had
been to Europe and had lived for two years in New York
City. "Perhaps after all her smoking means nothing," he
thought. He began to remember that when he was a
student in college and occasionally read novels, good
although somewhat worldly women, had smoked through the
pages of a book that had once fallen into his hands.
With a rush of new determination he worked on his
sermons all through the week and forgot, in his zeal to
reach the ears and the soul of this new listener, both
his embarrassment in the pulpit and the necessity of
prayer in the study on Sunday mornings.

Reverend Hartman's experience with women had been
somewhat limited. He was the son of a wagon maker from
Muncie, Indiana, and had worked his way through
college. The daughter of the underwear manufacturer had
boarded in a house where he lived during his school
days and he had married her after a formal and
prolonged courtship, carried on for the most part by
the girl herself. On his marriage day the underwear
manufacturer had given his daughter five thousand
dollars and he promised to leave her at least twice
that amount in his will. The minister had thought
himself fortunate in marriage and had never permitted
himself to think of other women. He did not want to
think of other women. What he wanted was to do the work
of God quietly and earnestly.

In the soul of the minister a struggle awoke. From
wanting to reach the ears of Kate Swift, and through
his sermons to delve into her soul, he began to want
also to look again at the figure lying white and quiet
in the bed. On a Sunday morning when he could not sleep
because of his thoughts he arose and went to walk in
the streets. When he had gone along Main Street almost
to the old Richmond place he stopped and picking up a
stone rushed off to the room in the bell tower. With
the stone he broke out a corner of the window and then
locked the door and sat down at the desk before the
open Bible to wait. When the shade of the window to
Kate Swift's room was raised he could see, through the
hole, directly into her bed, but she was not there. She
also had arisen and had gone for a walk and the hand
that raised the shade was the hand of Aunt Elizabeth
Swift.

The minister almost wept with joy at this deliverance
from the carnal desire to "peep" and went back to his
own house praising God. In an ill moment he forgot,
however, to stop the hole in the window. The piece of
glass broken out at the corner of the window just
nipped off the bare heel of the boy standing motionless
and looking with rapt eyes into the face of the Christ.

Curtis Hartman forgot his sermon on that Sunday
morning. He talked to his congregation and in his talk
said that it was a mistake for people to think of their
minister as a man set aside and intended by nature to
lead a blameless life. "Out of my own experience I know
that we, who are the ministers of God's word, are beset
by the same temptations that assail you," he declared.
"I have been tempted and have surrendered to
temptation. It is only the hand of God, placed beneath
my head, that has raised me up. As he has raised me so
also will he raise you. Do not despair. In your hour of
sin raise your eyes to the skies and you will be again
and again saved."

Resolutely the minister put the thoughts of the woman
in the bed out of his mind and began to be something
like a lover in the presence of his wife. One evening
when they drove out together he turned the horse out of
Buckeye Street and in the darkness on Gospel Hill,
above Waterworks Pond, put his arm about Sarah
Hartman's waist. When he had eaten breakfast in the
morning and was ready to retire to his study at the
back of his house he went around the table and kissed
his wife on the cheek. When thoughts of Kate Swift came
into his head, he smiled and raised his eyes to the
skies. "Intercede for me, Master," he muttered, "keep
me in the narrow path intent on Thy work."

And now began the real struggle in the soul of the
brown-bearded minister. By chance he discovered that
Kate Swift was in the habit of lying in her bed in the
evenings and reading a book. A lamp stood on a table by
the side of the bed and the light streamed down upon
her white shoulders and bare throat. On the evening
when he made the discovery the minister sat at the desk
in the dusty room from nine until after eleven and when
her light was put out stumbled out of the church to
spend two more hours walking and praying in the
streets. He did not want to kiss the shoulders and the
throat of Kate Swift and had not allowed his mind to
dwell on such thoughts. He did not know what he wanted.
"I am God's child and he must save me from myself," he
cried, in the darkness under the trees as he wandered
in the streets. By a tree he stood and looked at the
sky that was covered with hurrying clouds. He began to
talk to God intimately and closely. "Please, Father, do
not forget me. Give me power to go tomorrow and repair
the hole in the window. Lift my eyes again to the
skies. Stay with me, Thy servant, in his hour of need."

Up and down through the silent streets walked the
minister and for days and weeks his soul was troubled.
He could not understand the temptation that had come to
him nor could he fathom the reason for its coming. In a
way he began to blame God, saying to himself that he
had tried to keep his feet in the true path and had not
run about seeking sin. "Through my days as a young man
and all through my life here I have gone quietly about
my work," he declared. "Why now should I be tempted?
What have I done that this burden should be laid on
me?"

Three times during the early fall and winter of that
year Curtis Hartman crept out of his house to the room
in the bell tower to sit in the darkness looking at the
figure of Kate Swift lying in her bed and later went to
walk and pray in the streets. He could not understand
himself. For weeks he would go along scarcely thinking
of the school teacher and telling himself that he had
conquered the carnal desire to look at her body. And
then something would happen. As he sat in the study of
his own house, hard at work on a sermon, he would
become nervous and begin to walk up and down the room.
"I will go out into the streets," he told himself and
even as he let himself in at the church door he
persistently denied to himself the cause of his being
there. "I will not repair the hole in the window and I
will train myself to come here at night and sit in the
presence of this woman without raising my eyes. I will
not be defeated in this thing. The Lord has devised
this temptation as a test of my soul and I will grope
my way out of darkness into the light of
righteousness."

One night in January when it was bitter cold and snow
lay deep on the streets of Winesburg Curtis Hartman
paid his last visit to the room in the bell tower of
the church. It was past nine o'clock when he left his
own house and he set out so hurriedly that he forgot to
put on his overshoes. In Main Street no one was abroad
but Hop Higgins the night watchman and in the whole
town no one was awake but the watchman and young George
Willard, who sat in the office of the Winesburg Eagle
trying to write a story. Along the street to the church
went the minister, plowing through the drifts and
thinking that this time he would utterly give way to
sin. "I want to look at the woman and to think of
kissing her shoulders and I am going to let myself
think what I choose," he declared bitterly and tears
came into his eyes. He began to think that he would get
out of the ministry and try some other way of life. "I
shall go to some city and get into business," he
declared. "If my nature is such that I cannot resist
sin, I shall give myself over to sin. At least I shall
not be a hypocrite, preaching the word of God with my
mind thinking of the shoulders and neck of a woman who
does not belong to me."

It was cold in the room of the bell tower of the church
on that January night and almost as soon as he came
into the room Curtis Hartman knew that if he stayed he
would be ill. His feet were wet from tramping in the
snow and there was no fire. In the room in the house
next door Kate Swift had not yet appeared. With grim
determination the man sat down to wait. Sitting in the
chair and gripping the edge of the desk on which lay
the Bible he stared into the darkness thinking the
blackest thoughts of his life. He thought of his wife
and for the moment almost hated her. "She has always
been ashamed of passion and has cheated me," he
thought. "Man has a right to expect living passion and
beauty in a woman. He has no right to forget that he is
an animal and in me there is something that is Greek. I
will throw off the woman of my bosom and seek other
women. I will besiege this school teacher. I will fly
in the face of all men and if I am a creature of carnal
lusts I will live then for my lusts."

The distracted man trembled from head to foot, partly
from cold, partly from the struggle in which he was
engaged. Hours passed and a fever assailed his body.
His throat began to hurt and his teeth chattered. His
feet on the study floor felt like two cakes of ice.
Still he would not give up. "I will see this woman and
will think the thoughts I have never dared to think,"
he told himself, gripping the edge of the desk and
waiting.

Curtis Hartman came near dying from the effects of that
night of waiting in the church, and also he found in
the thing that happened what he took to be the way of
life for him. On other evenings when he had waited he
had not been able to see, through the little hole in
the glass, any part of the school teacher's room except
that occupied by her bed. In the darkness he had waited
until the woman suddenly appeared sitting in the bed in
her white nightrobe. When the light was turned up she
propped herself up among the pillows and read a book.
Sometimes she smoked one of the cigarettes. Only her
bare shoulders and throat were visible.

On the January night, after he had come near dying with
cold and after his mind had two or three times actually
slipped away into an odd land of fantasy so that he had
by an exercise of will power to force himself back into
consciousness, Kate Swift appeared. In the room next
door a lamp was lighted and the waiting man stared into
an empty bed. Then upon the bed before his eyes a naked
woman threw herself. Lying face downward she wept and
beat with her fists upon the pillow. With a final
outburst of weeping she half arose, and in the presence
of the man who had waited to look and not to think
thoughts the woman of sin began to pray. In the
lamplight her figure, slim and strong, looked like the
figure of the boy in the presence of the Christ on the
leaded window.

Curtis Hartman never remembered how he got out of the
church. With a cry he arose, dragging the heavy desk
along the floor. The Bible fell, making a great clatter
in the silence. When the light in the house next door
went out he stumbled down the stairway and into the
street. Along the street he went and ran in at the door
of the Winesburg Eagle. To George Willard, who was
tramping up and down in the office undergoing a
struggle of his own, he began to talk half
incoherently. "The ways of God are beyond human
understanding," he cried, running in quickly and
closing the door. He began to advance upon the young
man, his eyes glowing and his voice ringing with
fervor. "I have found the light," he cried. "After ten
years in this town, God has manifested himself to me in
the body of a woman." His voice dropped and he began to
whisper. "I did not understand," he said. "What I took
to be a trial of my soul was only a preparation for a
new and more beautiful fervor of the spirit. God has
appeared to me in the person of Kate Swift, the school
teacher, kneeling naked on a bed. Do you know Kate
Swift? Although she may not be aware of it, she is an
instrument of God, bearing the message of truth."

Reverend Curtis Hartman turned and ran out of the
office. At the door he stopped, and after looking up
and down the deserted street, turned again to George
Willard. "I am delivered. Have no fear." He held up a
bleeding fist for the young man to see. "I smashed the
glass of the window," he cried. "Now it will have to be
wholly replaced. The strength of God was in me and I
broke it with my fist."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Though the Reverend Curtis Hartman is a pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Winesburg, it is a hardship for him to preach his sermons. He prays to the Lord to give him the strength to preach well. Reverend Curtis is liked by all, but he wonders when the flame of the spirit would really burn in him. One day, as he is reading the Bible, he sees through the opposite window, a woman lying on her bed, smoking a cigarette. He also notices her bare shoulders and white throat, and wild thoughts course through him. That day his speech is impassioned and strong. The Reverend undergoes the torture of trying in vain to subdue his thoughts, which runs towards the open window. Each day is a battle for him. He tries to keep himself away from the room, but it is in vain. He even thinks if throwing away his chosen career and let-himself be pulled into the vortex of lust and passion. One night, he sees the lady, who is Kate Swift, a teacher throwing herself naked on to her bed and weeping bitterly. Then she rises and begins to pray. For Curtis Hartman, this is the ultimate message he has received from god. He rushes out crying that he had found the light, and that God had manifested himself to him in the body of a woman. He fears no more for his soul and feels no more for his soul and feels that finally, he has been delivered.