"
II
DAVID HARDY OF Winesburg, Ohio, was the grand-
son 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 Wines-
burg, who became a banker. Louise and her hus-
band 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 si-
lent. 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.
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