Steeplechase

by Jane Langton

  THE TOWN OF CONCORD

  BUILDS THIS MONUMENT

  IN HONOR OF

  THE BRAVE MEN

  WHOSE NAMES IT BEARS:

  AND RECORDS WITH GRATEFUL PRIDE

  THAT THEY FOUND HERE

  A BIRTHPLACE, HOME OR GRAVE.

  Eben leaned against the pedestal. He was waiting for the rest of his family to be photographed, but it looked to be a long wait. By the time his mother and little sisters came back from the Milldam, a line of other customers had collected in front of the mobile studio of the brothers Spratt.

  “Oh, dear,” said Eudocia, “we shouldn’t have gone shopping.” They took their places at the end of the line, Sallie in a new bonnet, Alice in a new pinafore. Through the open windows of the Middlesex Hotel came the sound of drunken guffaws, and on the hotel porch a knot of men in top hats stood in a cloud of tobacco smoke. Eben watched the knot dissolve and trickle across the road. They were like iron filings drawn by the magnet of the painted sign advertising the photographic services of Jack and Jacob Spratt.

  With baby Gussie whimpering on her shoulder, Eben’s sister Ida was trying to keep track of Horace, but he kept darting away, skipping up and down the line, smiling up at the men in stovepipe hats. One of them handed him a sticky black gumdrop. “Here, boy, want a nigger baby?”

  “No, no, Horace,” called Ida, running up to take his hand. But Horace was nearly bursting with the excitement of the crowded green, the men with candy in their pockets, the horses, the carriages, the noise, the fat boy playing a tin whistle. When Ida pulled him away, his excitement boiled over and he began to bawl. Inspired by his example, Gussie bawled, too.

  “Here,” said Eben, “let me take him.” Swiftly, he picked up Horace, tossed him up on his shoulders, and bore him away to the place in front of the courthouse where he had left Mab and the spring wagon. Somehow, the entire family had crowded into the buggy—Eben driving, Sallie with Alice on her lap, Eudocia with Horace, and Ida holding the baby. Now Mab was waiting sleepily with her head down beside the curb, but she perked up when she saw Horace.

  “Look, Horace,” said Eben, lifting his nephew up on the front seat, “you can see everything better from here.”

  Uncle Eben was right. Horace bounced on the high seat and looked around happily at the waiting crowd, the green trees, the barking dog, the cat slinking across the street, the photographer poking his head out of his wagon, the baker’s cart.

  And there was excitement here, too. As Uncle Eben climbed up to sit beside him, they heard an explosion of cursing on the road, a squawking of chickens, a stamping of horses. It was a near collision. A dray loaded with hen coops was blocking the way of a carriage occupied by two gentlemen and three ladies. Chickens screeched and feathers flew, but the driver of the carriage refused to budge. The sulky drayman had to back his team out of the way to permit the two carriage horses to step smartly into the empty space beside Eben’s wagon.

  At once, Eben was aware of the presence of Isabelle Shaw. She was wedged in the back of the carriage between her mother and Mrs. Biddle. In front sat Isabelle’s father, Josiah Gideon, and the Reverend Horatio Biddle. The two men were in heated argument. Behind them, the women sat shocked and silent. Both disputants were clergymen, but the peace of God was not in evidence. Eben said a polite good morning and nodded at the ladies, but only Isabelle’s mother gave him a wan smile. When the three women began gathering their skirts to descend, he jumped down to help, but Isabelle was too quick for him. Before he could take her hand, she was standing in the road, assisting Mrs. Biddle. Isabelle’s mother took Eben’s hand gratefully, but the two men on the forward seats made no move to step down. They were still in hot dispute.

  Isabelle looked around as though she had forgotten why they had come. Julia took her arm and together they walked across the green toward the studio of the photographers. Mrs. Biddle followed, tugging off her gloves and popping up her parasol, her lips compressed.

  Disappointed, Eben climbed back on the wagon, pretending not to hear the tempest of dialectic beside him, but Horace stared openmouthed. The faces of the two men were red with anger, their voices passionate and loud. Yet the content of their disagreement was purely philosophical. It was a classic argument, like the debates of Eben’s student days. Listening, keeping his eyes on Mab’s cocked ears, he soon had a title for this one—“Query: whether the truths of science and the revelations of religion be not fundamentally opposed.”

  Debater Josiah had taken the negative: No, they were not opposed, and only at its peril might religion ignore the great new truths of science.

  Reverend Horatio argued vehemently for the positive. The so-called truths of the new science were not true at all, but false. They were undermining the faith of the fathers, spreading doubt and confusion in the hearts of Christian believers.

  “Sir,” said Josiah, “you must have heard of Mr. Darwin’s great book?”

  “Sir,” replied Horatio, “you must have read Professor Agassiz’s reply?”

  It was a standoff. Eben kept his eyes fixed on the men lounging on the steps of the courthouse, but he listened with all his might. Horace gaped and stared. Even Mab flicked her ears, as if she were listening, too.

  “Don’t Tell!”

  Next?” said the photographer in the bowler hat. This time, it was Jake Spratt, taking over from his exhausted brother, but the customers were not aware of the difference, because Jake was the spitting image of Jack.

  There were only a few customers left by the time the party from Nashoba took its place in line. Isabelle found herself just behind Ella Viles.

  Ella had frizzed her hair with curlpapers, and she looked fetching in a ribbon bow. At once, she leaned close to Isabelle and murmured, “My likeness is for Eben.”

  Isabelle was startled. “You mean Eben Flint?”

  “Of course,” whispered Ella. “We’re promised.” Slyly, she rolled her eyes sideways to the place where Eben and his small nephew waited beside the wagon in which Isabelle’s father and Mr. Biddle were still sitting stiffly upright.

  “Promised? You are?” In spite of herself, Isabelle could not hide her dismay. Not for herself, of course, but for Eben—that he should settle for a girl like Ella Viles.

  “It’s a secret,” whispered Ella. “Promise you won’t tell.”

  Isabelle mumbled something, but she was grateful when her old friend Ida came hurrying up to embrace her just as Jake Spratt poked his head out of the curtain and said, “Which of you ladies is next?”

  Eudocia Flint was next, then Alice and Sallie. Next in line was Isabelle’s mother, Julia Gideon. Julia settled herself dreamily beside the carpeted table, remembering the itinerant photographer who had come to Nashoba in the summer of ’64, just before her new son-in-law had left to join his regiment. The new husband and wife had been taken together, James seated and Isabelle standing beside him with her hand on his shoulder. Julia had seen other photographs like it—anxious wives touching, clasping, leaning close to husbands who were about to endure the dangers of the battlefield.

  James had endured them and survived, and now he was home again, but the brothers Spratt would not be taking his picture. Not this day, nor any other. Only his wife would be recorded for all future time, for Jack Spratt’s “eternity”—Isabelle alone.

  “All done, Jack,” said Jake, looking out at the empty green.

  “Still early, Jake,” said Jack.

  “Three plates left,” said Jake.

  “Let’s use ’em up,” said Jack.

  So they sat for each other—Jack looking one way, Jake the other. The last plate recorded a pretty view of the town green, and then, their day’s work done, they closed up shop.

  NOW

  The First Steeple

  Skeleton in the Closet

  Heads together, Homer and Mary bent over the old photograph of Concord’s Monument Square. Rising tall and pale in the foreground stood the Civil War memorial obelisk. In the middle distance, large and foursq
uare, was the Middlesex Hotel with horses and buggies drawn up in front of the porch. They could just make out the steeple of the First Parish Church high over the trees beyond the hotel.

  “Picture taken in 1868,” murmured Homer.

  “Photographs are so haunting,” said Mary. “Monument Square must have looked just like this when my great-great-grandmother Ida was alive, and my great-grandfather must have been a small boy in 1868.”

  “And Ida’s brother Eben—remember Eben Flint? He would have been twenty-one in 1868. But her husband Seth was dead by then.”

  “Oh, poor misunderstood Seth. Was Ida married again by 1868? Yes, I think she was. So her second husband, the doctor, he would have seen it like this. In 1868, Alexander must have been living with Ida in the house on Barrett’s Mill Road.” Mary stroked the photograph. “If only we could walk into the picture and see what it looked like then, the house I grew up in.” Mary sighed with longing. “Oh, if only the picture would open up and let us in.”

  “I know,” said Homer. “It’s too bad. But we can still walk into the church.” He tapped the dim bell tower in the picture. “It’s our first steeple. The photograph won’t open up, but maybe the church archivist will. Maybe he’ll tell us something scandalous about the history of the First Parish, so that I can satisfy the shameless curiosity of my editor. Luther keeps calling up, demanding skeletons in the closet, vice and corruption, screwing in the—”

  “Oh, never mind what went on in the steeple.” Mary laughed. “Homer, what on earth has happened to Luther Stokes? How could such a distinguished doctor of philosophy and celebrated director of a university press turn into a Peeping Tom?”

  Homer shrugged. “Let’s hope this chap Henry Whipple knows about a few tasty scandals.”

  “Oh, Homer, I doubt it. A scandal in Concord? In this upright old town? Surely none of those august old clergymen had skeletons in their closets. Nothing but old boots and dusty umbrellas.”

  Homer met Henry Whipple at the side door of the church, but at once Henry steered him elsewhere. “My house is right next door,” he said, heading for the road. “We’ll talk in my study.”

  In his study, thought Homer. On the way, struggling to keep up, he wondered eagerly about the nature of Henry’s study. Homer was a connoisseur of other people’s working arrangements. How, for instance, did they keep their pens and pencils, and where did they put their stamps? Did they stick up notes around their computer monitors about passwords and user IDs and reminders to pick up their pants at the cleaner’s? And, above all, how did they control their teeming collections of pamphlets and folders, books and notebooks, miscellaneous pieces of paper, unanswered letters, and all the ragtag strokes of genius scribbled down on the backs of envelopes? What about their dictionaries? And by the way, what other reference books did they keep on hand to be snatched up at a moment’s notice?

  As it turned out, Henry Whipple’s arrangements were charming. He had built himself a nest around his keyboard. Small high-piled tables were gathered in close to take the overflow. A comfy sweater hung over the back of a chair to ward off a chill, and a whirly fan stood beside the printer in case of a heat wave. All that was missing in Henry’s nest was a lining of downy feathers.

  And to Homer’s delight, Henry was ready at once to reveal a blot on the escutcheon of Concord’s old First Parish Church. “How about a hanging sermon?” he said. “Will that do?”

  “A hanging sermon?” said Homer joyfully. “No kidding?”

  “No indeed.” Henry sat back and said smugly, “The Reverend Dr. Ripley preached a hanging sermon in 1799.”

  “Ezra Ripley? Pious old Dr. Ripley?” Homer’s eyes bulged. “But that’s impossible. You don’t mean the same dear old Ezra Ripley who was pastor of the First Parish for years and years?”

  “Sixty years, that’s right. I do indeed.” Then Henry frowned. “But I don’t know as I’d call him ‘dear.’ He was a pretty authoritarian old—” Stopping himself, Henry reached for a book and flipped it open.

  Homer was merciless. “Pretty authoritarian old what?”

  “Never mind,” said Henry, busily turning pages. “Back to the hanging sermon. You know, Homer, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for the time.” Then Henry slammed the book shut and looked at Homer fiercely. “First, you’ve got to picture the congregation in the old church, all the pews packed with people eager to witness a hanging, and the unhappy victim sitting smack in front of the pulpit while the pastor scolded him for his criminal ways. Okay, Homer, you get the picture?” Henry opened the book again. “Here’s what Ripley said to poor old Samuel Smith. ‘Your life for thirty years past has been a predatory warfare against society and individual families and persons.’”

  “Samuel Smith was the—ah—hangee?”

  “Right,” said Henry, and he went on to describe the scene on Gallows Hill, with Smith pleading for his life, then dancing a fandango in the air with the rope around his neck and women fainting and lying on the ground with their fair legs exposed. “Well, I suppose it was their legs,” said Henry. “In George W. Hosmer’s memoir, the word fair is followed by four asterisks.”

  “Hmmm,” said Homer, looking at the ceiling. “What else could they have exposed that had only four letters?”

  “Nothing in George Hosmer’s vocabulary,” said the archivist firmly, and he went on to tell Homer about Parson Ripley’s distress over the drunkenness and disorder in the town and his passionate reaction to the schism in his congregation. “He fought it tooth and nail,” said Henry, shaking his head in awe. “He walked right into a gathering of dissenters and preached a sermon, so the poor people had to sit there and listen. But he couldn’t prevent them from formally withdrawing from the congregation. What they wanted, they said, was ‘a more active spiritual life.’ Well, I guess they were objecting to the appearance of the Unitarian heresy in Dr. Ripley’s church. So away they went, and set up a church of their own.”

  Homer nodded wisely. “Yes, of course. The Trinitarian Congregational Church on Walden Street. It’s one of my chicks.”

  “What do you think, Mary darling?” said Homer, climbing into bed beside her. “Is it scandal enough for my editor? Will Luther be satisfied with a nasty schism in the church, Trinitarians waltzing off, two churches ringing their Sabbath bells in competition, and a hanging sermon?”

  “I don’t know, Homer. It isn’t exactly sex in the steeple.”

  “Well then, I could add a few pages about sex on Fairhaven Bay,” said Homer, drawing her close.

  “I’m afraid it doesn’t exactly fit your subject. I mean, you couldn’t call it a skeleton in the closet of the First Parish Church. And how on earth would you itemize it in the index?”

  “Under ‘Sex, contemporary,’” said Homer. “Luther would like it, I’ll bet.”

  Homer’s sleep was often entertained by lurid visions. Tonight, he dreamed about Luther’s metaphorical skeleton in the closet. This skeleton, however, was not a metaphor, but a tidy collection of ribs and miscellaneous other bones lying right there beside him, nudging Mary to the edge of the bed. While he stared at it in disbelief, the skeleton reared up on one bony elbow and looked back at him with a sparkle in the hollow socket of its eye.

  1868

  The Enormous Tree

  Crossed from the top of Annursnack to the top of Strawberry Hill.… Measured the great chestnut.… It branches first at nine feet from the ground, with great furrows in the bark.

  —Henry Thoreau, Journal,

  August 15, 1854

  Josiah

  Josiah walked home from the church, hardly able to contain his anger. Horatio Biddle had aimed a tirade like a blast from a cannon straight at the head of Josiah Gideon as he sat alone in the family pew. Passages from the Bible had been hurled at him like mortar shells, as though the Book of Genesis were the sole property of Horatio Biddle, as though Josiah had trampled it underfoot and desecrated the evening and the morning, the beasts of the earth, and the fowl of the air. Then
Horatio Biddle had raised a sanctimonious hand and vowed never to profane the house of God with the name of the British naturalist who had replaced their great ancestors Adam and Eve with ludicrous hairy beasts. And then he had waxed poetic, telling again the fable about the wood of the tree in the Garden of Eden that had become the cross of Christ.

  Straight downhill through the burial ground strode Josiah, his long legs carrying him at high speed past the ancient headstones of the first settlers of Nashoba.

  The tree in the garden and the cross of Christ! Oh, yes, it was a pretty story, but it belonged to Josiah Gideon as rightfully as it did to Horatio Biddle. And there was another legendary tree, one of which Horatio was entirely unaware.

  Josiah paused in his downhill plunge and looked up at the chestnut tree beside the stone wall. It was a gigantic tree, spreading its green crown all the way across the Acton Road to drop its cool shade on his own doorstep. Surely the tree had towered over the graves of the first settlers of Nashoba, and over the memorial stones of the sad generation that followed, when whole families had been swept away by scarlet fever and the bloody flux.

  But to Josiah, it had become much more than a splendid survivor from centuries past. He now thought of it as Mr. Darwin’s great “Tree of Life.” He knew the passage by heart and he mumbled it now as he climbed over the wall:

  As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramifications.

  If ever a living tree could be said to have “ever-branching and beautiful ramifications,” it was the chestnut tree in the Nashoba burial ground. Josiah’s anger seized on the tree as a rallying center for all his mental forces.