by John Cheever
Along with the phrenological paper and the portrait were the family journals, for all the Wapshots were copious journalists. There was hardly a man of the family who had doctored a sick horse or bought a sailboat or heard, late at night, the noise of rain on the roof without making a record of these facts. They chronicled the changes in the wind, the arrival and departure of ships, the price of tea and jute and the death of kings. They urged themselves to improve their minds and they reproached themselves for idleness, sloth, lewdness, stupidity and drunkenness, for St. Botolphs had been a lively port where they danced until dawn and where there was always plenty of rum to drink. The attic was a fitting place for these papers, for this barny summit of the house—as big as a hayloft—with its trunks and oars and tillers and torn sails and broken furniture and crooked chimneys and hornets and wasps and obsolete lamps spread out at one’s feet like the ruins of a vanished civilization and with an extraordinary spiciness in the air as if some eighteenth-century Wapshot, drinking Madeira and eating nuts on a sunny beach and thinking about the passing of the season, had tried to capture the heat and light in a flask or hamper and had released his treasure in the attic, for here was the smell of summer without its vitality; here seemed to be the lights and sounds of a summer preserved.
Benjamin was remembered in the village—unjustly, to be sure—for an incident that took place on his return from Ceylon in the second Topaze. His son Lorenzo gave a good account of this in his journal. There were four volumes of these, bound in boards with this introduction.—I, Lorenzo Wapshot, being 21 years of age and thinking that it will be for my amusement to keep a sort of journal of my time and situation and the various events that may take place as I proceed along through life have concluded to make a minutes on this book daily of all circumstances that may transpire respecting not only my own concerns but of those throughout the town of St. Botolphs as far as I can conveniently ascertain.—It was in the second volume of the journal that he reported the events leading up to his father’s famous return.
This day (Lorenzo wrote) we received news of the ship Topaze, my father Captn. She has been overdue three mos. Brackett esq. from the brig Luna tells us now that her rigging was much damaged by a tempist and that she was at Samoa 2 mos. for repairs, and can now be expected any day. Mother and Aunts Ruth and Patience hearing there was a heavy surf at Hales Point I harnessed the chaise and drove thence.
This day we were waited upon by David Marshman, 1st mate of the brig Luna who asked to speak privately with Mother and was shown into the back parlor for this purpose. He was served no tea and upon leaving Mother was rejoined by her sisters and much whispering ensued. None of the ladies took supper and I ate alone in the kitchen with the Chinaman. In the evening I walked to Cody’s store and weighed myself. I weigh 165 lbs.
This day pleasant and warm; winds southerly. During the day the following vessels arrived viz: The Resiliance from Gibralter, Captn Tobias Moffet. The Golden Doge from New Orleans. Captn Robert Folger. The Venus from Quito. Captn Edg. Small. The Unicorn from Antwerp. Captn Josh Kelley. Bathed in river. This afternoon the thirsty earth was refreshed with a most charming shower.
This day at about noon there was a cry of fire and lo the top of Mr. Dexter’s house was discovered to be ignited. Water however was immediately applied in such copious quantities that its progress was directly stopped. A trifling damage was done to the roof. Walked this evening to Cody’s store and weighed myself. I weigh 165 lbs. While I was at Cody’s Newell Henry drew me aside with further news of the Topaze. He had the damnable effrontery to tell me my father’s delay was occaisioned by no damage to his rigging but by his addiction to immoral practices viz drinking intemperately and indulging in lewdness with the natives whereupon I kicked him in the arse and walked home.
Was waited upon this morning at the counting house by Prince esq. president of the Birch Rod Club an organization of young men from hereabouts for the promotion of manly conduct and high moral character. Was brought before the club in the evening on the complaint of Henry esq. for kicking him in the arse. 1st mate Marshman of the brig Luna testified as to the veracity of Henry’s allegation and H. Prince, serving as prosecutor for the defense made a most elegant and moving condemnation of gossip of all kinds whether or not they be a kernel of truth in it and the jury found for me and fined the plaintiff 3 doz fine apples. Upon returning home found Mother and sisters drinking rum punch.
This day clear at dawn. Captn Webb’s little boy was trod upon by a horse and died before candlelight. Went to Cody’s store and got weighed. I weigh 165 lbs. Walked with ladies in the pasture. Mother and sisters drinking rum punch.
This day was engaged in the gardain wheeling maneur. Mother and sisters drinking rum punch. It is Marshman’s tale of Samoa that has undone them but they should not judge the absent unkindly nor forget that the flesh lusteth contrary to the spirit. I have spent considerable of my leisure time in this past year in the improvement of my mind but I find that much of it has been spent extremely foolish and that walking in the pasture at dusk with virtuous, amiable and genteel young ladies I experience none but swineish passions. I commenced to read Russell’s Modern Europe sometime last summer. I have read the first two vols which I find very interesting and I shall improve the first opportunity to complete the work. By a retrospective view of the past may I find wisdom to govern and improve the future more profitably. To accomplish this and improve my character may the Almighty Ruler of the Universe grant His assistance and guide and direct me in all good things.
This day a wild animal caravan arrived at the River House and I went there in the evening to see the curiosities. At half-past six the gates to the tent were open, previous to which many had gathered and stood crouded together with their gallants like a vast flock of sheep when gathered before the shearer. It was absolutely disgusting to see delicate females and those too of the first respectability as well as many comely, strait and tall lads crouded and jammed and pushing and shoving in keeping their stations near the entrance of the tent and endeavoring to obtain as near a position as possible. The gate was at length opened and then it was a rush. The utmost exertions of several gate-keepers were hardly competent to regulate and prune the flood of ingression and the tent soon became filled to stuffing. Luckily I obtained a situation where by looking between several heads I could see the curiosities which included 1 lion, 3 monkies, 1 leopard and a learned bear this dumb beast having been taught to dance to music and add a sum of figures.
This day at 8 am Sam Trowbridge rode over from Saul’s Hill with the news that the Topaze was sighted. There was much livliness and stirring both at home and in the town amongst her other owners. Rode down-river with Judge Thomas in his chaise and was carried out to the Topaze by John Pendleton. Found father in fine spirits and has brought me as a present one rich sword called a kriss. Drank maderia in the cabin with father and judge Thomas. The cargo is jute. The ship was walked up and made fast and the gangplank put down to where mother and sisters were waiting to greet father. They carried umbrellas. As father approached the ladies Aunt Ruth raised her umbrella high in the air and brought it down most savagely upon the back of his head. Aunt Hope beat him angrily on the port side and Mother charged him from the bow. When the ladies had done Father was taken directly by chaise to Dr. Howland’s surgery where three stitches was taken in his ear and where he spent the night with me for company and where we drank wine and ate nuts and passed the time cheerfully in spite of his pain.
The early volumes of Lorenzo’s journals were the best—accounts of the liveliness in the river and summer evenings when the St. Botolphs horse guards could be heard drilling on the green—and this was in a way surprising since he succeeded in improving his mind, served two terms in the state legislature and founded the St. Botolphs Philosophical Society, but learning did nothing for his prose and he would never write as well again as he had written about the wild-animal caravan. He lived to be eighty, never married and left his savings to his niece Honora, t
he only daughter of his younger brother Thaddeus.
Thaddeus went out to the Pacific on what may have been a voyage of expiation. He and his wife Alice remained there for eighteen years as missionaries, distributing copies of the New Testament, supervising the construction of coral block churches, healing the sick and burying the dead. Physically neither Thaddeus nor Alice was what is usually called to mind by the dedicated missionary. They beamed out of the family photographs—a handsome good-humored couple. They were dedicated, and in his letters Thaddeus reported approaching an island in an outrigger one evening where naked and beautiful women waited on him with ropes of flowers. “What a challenge to my piety,” he wrote.
Honora was born on Oahu and sent to St. Botolphs, where she was raised by her Uncle Lorenzo. She had no children. Ebenezer had no children but Aaron begat Hamlet and Leander. Hamlet had no legal issue and Leander married Sarah Coverly and begat Moses and Coverly, whom we have seen watching the parade.
CHAPTER THREE
Mr. Pincher’s horse galloped along Hill Street for about a hundred yards—maybe two—and then, her wind gone, she fell into a heavy-footed trot. Fatty Titus followed the float in his car, planning to rescue the charter members of the Woman’s Club, but when he reached them the picture was so tranquil—it looked like a hayride—that he backed his car around and returned to the village to see the rest of the parade. The danger had passed for everyone but Mr. Pincher’s mare. God knows what strains she had put on her heart and her lungs—even on her will to live. Her name was Lady, she chewed tobacco and she was worth more to Mr. Pincher than Mrs. Wapshot and all her friends. He loved her sweet nature and admired her perseverance, and the indignity of having a firecracker exploded under her rump made him sore with anger. What was the world coming to? His heart seemed to go out to the old mare and his tender sentiments to spread over her broad back like a blanket.
“Lady’s going home,” he called over his shoulder to Mrs. Wapshot. “She wants to get home and I’m going to let her.”
“Couldn’t you let us off?” Mrs. Wapshot asked.
“I ain’t going to stop her now,” Mr. Pincher said. “She’s had a lot more to put up with than the rest of you. She wants to get home now and I ain’t going to stop her.”
Mrs. Wapshot and her friends resigned themselves to the news of their captivity. After all, none of them had been hurt. The water pitcher was broken and the lectern had been upset, but the lectern was whole. Lady’s stable was on Hewitt Street, they knew, which meant going over the hill and through the back country to River Street; but it was a fine day and a good opportunity to enjoy the salt air and the summer scenery, and anyhow they didn’t have any choice.
The old mare had begun the pull up Wapshot Hill and from here, above the trees, they had an excellent view of the village in the valley. To the northeast lay the brick walls of the table-silver factory, the railroad bridge and the morose, Victorian spire of the depot. Toward the center of town was a less sentimental spire—the Unitarian Church, founded in 1780. Its clock struck the half hour as they traveled. The bell had been cast in Antwerp and had a sweet, clear note. A second later the bell at Christ Church (1870) struck the half hour with a gloomy note that sounded like a frying pan. This bell came from Altoona. A little below the crown of the hill the wagon rolled past old Mrs. Drinkwine’s charming white house with her picket fence buried in red roses. The whiteness of the house, the feathery elms, the punctual church bells—even the faint smell of the sea—encouraged in these travelers a tendency to overlook the versatility of life as if it was only common sense to forget that Mrs. Drinkwine had once been a wardrobe mistress for Lee and J. J. Shubert and knew more about the seamy side of life than Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
But it was difficult, from the summit of Wapshot Hill, not to spread over the village the rich, dark varnish of decorum and quaintness—to do this or to lament the decadence of a once boisterous port; to point out that the Great Pissmire was now Alder Vale and that the Mariner’s Jug was now the Grace Louise Tearoom. There was beauty below them, inarguable and unique—many fine things built for the contentment of hardy men—and there was decadence—more ships in bottles than on the water—but why grieve over this? Looking back at the village we might put ourselves into the shoes of a native son (with a wife and family in Cleveland) coming home for some purpose—a legacy or a set of Hawthorne or a football sweater—and swinging through the streets in good weather what would it matter that the blacksmith shop was now an art school? Our friend from Cleveland might observe, passing through the square at dusk, that this decline or change in spirit had not altered his own humanity and that whatever he was—a man come for a legacy or a drunken sailor looking for a whore—it did not matter whether or not his way was lighted by the twinkling candles in tearooms; it did not change what he was.
But our friend from Cleveland was only a visitor—he would go away, and Mr. Pincher and his passengers would not. Now, past Mrs. Drinkwine’s and over the crown of the hill, the west of the village spread out below them—farmland and woods and in the distance Parson’s Pond, where Parthenia Brown had drowned herself and where the icehouse, useless now, stood with its ramp sloping down into the blue water. They could see, from this high land, that there were no walls or barriers around the village and yet, as the wagon started slowly down the west side of Wapshot Hill and they approached Reba Heaslip’s house, they might wonder how Reba could have carried on her life in a place that was not walled. Whenever Reba was introduced to a stranger she exclaimed: “I was BORN in the inner sanctum of the Masonic Temple.” What she meant, of course, was that what was now the Masonic Temple had been her father’s house, but would her jolting and exclamatory style have gotten her very far in a place like Chicago? She was a passionate antivivisectionist and was dedicated to the alteration or suppression of the celebration of Christmas—a holiday that seemed to her to inculcate and perpetuate ruinous improvidence, false standards and economic depravity. On Christmas Eve she joined her enthusiasms and went among the carol singers, passing out antivivisectionist tracts. She had been arrested twice by what she called the “fascist police.” She had a white house like Mrs. Drinkwine’s and a sign was nailed to her door. THIS IS THE HOUSE OF A VERY OLD LADY WHO HAS GIVEN THE LAST TEN YEARS OF HER LIFE TO THE ANTIVIVISECTIONIST CAUSE. MANY OF THE MEN OF HER FAMILY DIED FOR THEIR COUNTRY. THERE IS NOTHING OF VALUE OR INTEREST HERE. SALUTE YOUR FLAG! ROBBERS AND VANDALS PASS BY! The sign was weathered and had hung there for ten years and the ladies hardly noticed it.
On Reba’s front lawn there was a skiff planted with petunias.
Going down the west side of Wapshot Hill with the full weight of the wagon forward on the shafts the mare picked her way slowly. Beyond Reba’s there was a patch of woodland, charmingly dappled with sunlight, and this grove had on them all, even on Mr. Pincher, a happy effect as if it were some reminder of paradise—some happy authentication of the beauty of the summer countryside—for it was the kind of scene that most of them had hanging on their parlor walls and yet this was no photograph or painting through which they traveled with the spotty lights flowing over them. It was all real and they were flesh and blood.
Beyond the woods they came to Peter Covell’s place.
Peter was a farmer. He had a small cash crop—sweet corn, gladioli, butter and potatoes—and in the past he had made some money building stone walls. A powerful man of perhaps seventy with rusty tools, a collapsed barn, chickens in his kitchen, cats in his parlor, lusty and sometimes drunk and always clean-spoken, he had pulled stones out of the earth with a mare that was older than Lady and had set them together into walls that would outlive the village, whatever its destiny. Dam the river and flood it for a reservoir (this could happen) and in the summer droughts people would drive or fly—this being in the future—to see the pattern of Covell’s walls as they appeared above the receding water; or let the scrub take hold, maple saplings and horse brier, and fishermen and hunters, climbing the walls, would say that this must ha
ve been pasture once upon a time. His daughter Alice had never married, she loved the old man so, and even now on Sunday afternoons they climbed the hill hand in hand, carrying a spyglass to watch the ships in the bay. Alice raised collies. A sign hung on the house: COLLIES FOR SALE. Who wanted collies? She would have done better raising children or selling eggs.
All the unsold collies barked at the wagon as it went by.
Beyond Covells’ there was Brown’s River—a little stream or brook with a wooden bridge that set up peals of false thunder as they crossed it. On the other side of the river was the Pluzinskis’ farm—a small brown house with glass ornaments on the lightning rods and two rose trees in the front yard. The Pluzinskis were hardworking foreigners who kept to themselves although their oldest son had won a scholarship at the Academy. Their farm, rectilinear and self-contained, was the opposite of Peter Covell’s place as if, although they could not speak English, they had come much more naturally to the valley land than the old Yankee.