DRINK

TOM  FOSTER  came  to  Winesburg  from
Cincinnati  when  he  was  still  young  and
could  get  many  new  impressions.  His
grandmother  had  been  raised  on  a  farm  near  the
town  and  as  a  young  girl  had  gone  to  school  there
when  Winesburg  was  a  village  of  twelve  or  fifteen
houses  clustered  about  a  general  store  on  the
Trunion  Pike.
What  a  life  the  old  woman  had  led  since  she
went  away  from  the  frontier  settlement  and  what
a  strong,  capable  little  old  thing  she  was!  She
had  been  in  Kansas,  in  Canada,  and  in  New  York
City,  traveling  about  with  her  husband,  a  me-
chanic, before  he  died.  Later  she  went  to  stay
with  her  daughter  who  had  also  married  a  me-
chanic and  lived  in  Covington,  Kentucky,  across
the  river  from  Cincinnati.
Then  began  the  hard  years  for  Tom  Foster's
grandmother.  First  her  son-in-law  was  killed  by
a  policeman  during  a  strike  and  then  Tom's
mother  became  an  invalid  and  died  also.  The
grandmother  had  saved  a  little  money,  but  it  was
swept  away  by  the  illness  of  the  daughter  and  by

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the  cost  of  the  two  funerals.  She  became  a  half
worn-out  old  woman  worker  and  lived  with  the
grandson  above  a  junk  shop  on  a  side  street  in
Cincinnati.  For  five  years  she  scrubbed  the  floors
in  an  office  building  and  then  got  a  place  as  dish
washer  in  a  restaurant.  Her  hands  were  all
twisted  out  of  shape.  When  she  took  hold  of  a
mop  or  a  broom  handle  the  hands  looked  like  the
dried  stems  of  an  old  creeping  vine  clinging  to  a
tree.
