Steeplechase

by Jane Langton

  But as he vaulted the stone wall, he saw the doctor’s horse browsing on the grass beside the gate. Once again, he tried to clear his mind of its feverish excitement, because within that house, where at this moment a curtain was blowing out of a bedroom window and the shadow of the chestnut tree was moving over the clapboards, there could be only one thought. Before it, all others fell away. Josiah’s daughter, Isabelle, flinging open the door to welcome him, was an embodiment of the thought, the doctor spoke it aloud in quiet truths, and James was the thought itself.

  Once again, Eben Flint had come with the doctor. Eben nodded at Josiah, then looked back at James. Isabelle and Julia stood watching, too, as James tried to undo the buckles of the prosthetic hook on his left arm with the hook on his right. He failed, and failed again, and at last the hook clattered to the floor.

  “Good,” murmured Alexander. He took the stump in his hand and inspected the raw chafing. “I’ll bring something next time. I’ve got an ointment that’s first-rate.”

  Eben said quickly, “I think I could make a better fit than that.”

  James made a sound in his throat. He was not interested in a better fit and he cared little for an ointment to soothe the chafing. He could not say what he wanted in words. He could only gaze at the doctor with his one suffering eye.

  Alexander did not need words. In a field hospital after Antietam, he had seen the same look on the face of a maimed lieutenant from Mississippi. In everything but words, James was pleading, Help me out of this sorrow. Of course, Dr. Clock pretended not to understand. He closed his bag and said a serene good-bye. Eben followed him out of the room, and so did Isabelle and Josiah.

  In the hall, Eben took his hat from the table and said to Josiah, “You see, sir, I could make a sort of padded contraption that might be more comfortable for James. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Eben could not look at Isabelle, but when Josiah thanked him, so did she.

  For the rest of the day, the house was quiet. Isabelle took down a book from the Dickens shelf, but when she showed it to James, he shook his head and pointed a hook at another. “You mean this one?” said Isabelle. He nodded, and she plucked it out. Sitting down beside him, settling herself comfortably among the chair cushions, Isabelle began to read A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

  James bowed his head and listened.

  Upstairs, Josiah was reading, too. He had set up an office under the eaves of the spare room and arranged on the desk his lexicon, his quill pens, his penknife, his household ledger, and the account books for the charitable institutions that were in his care. Here also was the Bible that had belonged to his father and grandfather before him. Its covers were cracked and its pages limp from a thousand turnings—his father’s hand seeking one of Paul’s Epistles, his grandfather turning to the Book of Revelation.

  Josiah picked up the heavy book and opened it to the beginning. He had not looked at Genesis since his days in seminary. Now he read the first three chapters from the beginning all the way to the verse about the angel whose flaming sword drove Adam away from the tree of life.

  The story was a wonder. Josiah sank back in his chair and read the beautiful verses over and over, until, to his surprise, he saw that Adam’s tree was beginning to merge with that other tree, the one that teemed with birds and monkeys, lions and tigers. A chimpanzee scrambled past him and a bird of paradise flew so close that its feathers brushed his face, and a kindly baboon reached out its hand.

  “Josiah?” His wife was touching his shoulder, and he woke with a start. Julia stood beside him in her nightdress. Josiah lighted a candle, and their shadows followed them across the hall. In the bedroom, he blew out the candle, put his arm around his wife and led her to the window. In a moment, their eyes adjusted to the darkness. Julia drew the curtain aside, and at once they could see the stars, although half the sky was blotted out by the dark shape of the enormous tree across the road.

  Charles Darwin had said nothing about the stars.

  The Emperor’s Birds

  The photographs had come. Jake Spratt had developed the plates and printed the images, and Jack had mounted them on cards and dispatched them in brown paper packets.

  All over Concord and Nashoba, the subjects of the pictures tore off the brown paper and extracted the contents. Some of the subjects were disappointed and threw their images in the stove; others were pleased and ordered more.

  Ella Viles was delighted with her set of six cartes de visite. At once, she urged her mother to pay a call on Eudocia Flint.

  Her mother objected. “Eudocia and I never call. She belongs to the Charitable Society, and that set of women is altogether too freethinking, in my opinion. I prefer the ladies of the Eastern Star.”

  But Ella had her way. And therefore mother and daughter set out on a Wednesday morning in their pretty Jenny Lind, Mrs. Viles shading her complexion with a parasol, Ella flourishing a dainty whip.

  Eudocia was astonished to see them at the door. “Well, my goodness, come in,” she said, sweeping off her apron. Turning quickly to the little boy beside her, she said, “Horace dear, we’ll read your story later.” But the boy clung unhappily to his grandmother’s skirt as the two elegant ladies stepped inside.

  Their visit was a failure because Eben was not at home. Disappointed, Ella folded her hands in her lap and listened to her mother’s probing gossip: “Eudocia, have you heard about that poor young man in Nashoba, the one with the horrible wounds who is married to Ella’s friend Isabelle?”

  “No,” lied Eudocia stoutly, “I have not.” Horace climbed into her lap and sucked his thumb. Conversation languished. Eudocia did not offer tea.

  Ruffled, Ella and her mother rose to go. But at the door, Ella thrust a packet into Eudocia’s hand. “Eben asked for my likeness,” she said, simpering. “Tell him I demand one of his in return.”

  “I’ll tell him,” said Eudocia crisply.

  With relief, she watched the pretty buggy dip and rock as Ella and Mrs. Viles climbed in. When the little cob trotted away with one of Eudocia’s prize tulips dangling from its mouth, she closed the door smartly and put her arm around her grandson. “Come on, Horace dear,” she said, plumping him down on the sofa in the sitting room, “it’s time for your story.”

  It was a brand-new book of fairy tales. Today’s story was “The Emperor’s Nightingale.” When Eben came home, he tossed his hat on a chair, sat down beside Horace, and listened, too.

  “The artificial bird,” read Eudocia, “was covered with diamonds, rubies, and sapphires. As soon as its key was wound, it could sing and move its tail up and down. But the plain little brown bird sang to the emperor about the quiet churchyard where the white roses grow, where the elder tree wafts its perfume on the breeze.”

  It was the end of the story. “Read it again!” said Horace.

  But Eudocia closed the book, reached for the packet left by Ella Viles, and handed it to Eben. “This is for you. Two ladies brought it this morning. Delivered by hand.”

  “For me?” Puzzled, Eben opened the packet and found the photograph of Ella Viles.

  “She demands one of yours in return,” said Eudocia dryly.

  “She does?” Eben stared at Ella’s high-piled curls, then put the picture in the pocket of his coat, reflecting on the emperor’s two birds and on the nature of two women of his acquaintance. Which was the twittering clockwork bird and which the nightingale?

  The Home Farm

  The steeple of Nashoba’s parish church was imposing, but it was not a white needle pointing at the sky. It was a domed tower with a bell chamber and a clock.

  Behind the church on the road to Acton stood the parsonage of the Reverend Horatio Biddle. From the front door, Horatio and his wife, Ingeborg, could look down the whole length of the burial ground to the place where the chestnut tree marked the edge of the graveyard. Across Quarry Pond Road, hidden by the gigantic canopy of leaves, was the home of Horatio’s fractious parishio
ner Josiah Gideon. In front of the church stretched the rough grass of the town green, and beyond the green stood another building painful to the sight of Horatio Biddle. Josiah Gideon called it the Nashoba Home Farm, which was only his fancy name for the old Nashoba poorhouse, so long a depository for bastard and orphaned children, the aged and infirm, the feebleminded and insane.

  The Nashoba Home Farm was not the only almshouse supervised by Josiah Gideon. He had been appointed by the Massachusetts State Board of Charities to inspect all the almshouses in Middlesex County. Therefore, he spent three days a week touring the countryside, interviewing caretakers, examining infirmaries, laundries, and kitchens, and taking note of provisions for heat and light, fresh air and exercise, washing and bathing.

  As a Christian clergyman, Josiah had been drawn to this work by observing that the greatest need for human courage came at the time of greatest weakness—in old age or desperate poverty. Thank God, things were no longer as inhumane as they had once been, back in the bad old days when town charges were auctioned off “at public venue” to the lowest bidder and exploited for their labor. No longer might their dead bodies be handed over for dissection to medical schools in order to further “the advancement of medical science.” No, things were no longer as bad as that. Most of the almshouses inspected by Josiah were run by competent superintendents and matrons. The others aroused his furious pity and relentless nagging.

  In Nashoba, Josiah’s fiery eye had cowed the overseers of the poor into financing a model home for the indigent. The result was a handsome addition to the old workhouse and a new barn equipped with livestock and outfitted with all the tools and machinery necessary to a thriving agricultural enterprise. There were horse rakes and plows, a mowing machine, a cultivator, a mechanical seeder, a spring-tooth harrow, a dozen sap buckets, and a plentiful supply of hand tools.

  Compared to the Boston House of Industry, the entire establishment was small. But Josiah had vowed that the inmates of the Home Farm would turn a profit from the wasted fields and common grazing land belonging to the town. In addition, they would put the sugar bush to use and cut a swath through the town forest, a wilderness like some far uncharted corner of the globe.

  It had not been easy. The board of selectmen had balked at the expense. Josiah had received a formal letter: “The board would by no means favor an unnecessary expenditure in building ornamental palaces, either for criminals or paupers, nor do they wish even to make such a house attractive to the idle.”

  Josiah Gideon cared nothing for official letters. At the next meeting of the selectmen, he had ranted and raved, and prevailed.

  Dickie Doll

  Some of the elderly citizens of Nashoba were slow to learn of the marvels called for by Josiah Gideon. For them, the word workhouse still meant a fate to be dreaded more than death itself. “I’d sooner lie down and die in a ditch by the side of the road,” said old Dickie Doll.

  But now the ditch yawned for Dickie at last. His home and hire were gone. Miss Lydia Perkins, the old widow whose hired man he had been for most of his life, had taken sick and died. Her property was to go on the auction block—her fields and woods, her crops, and her house and barn, along with the shed where Dickie had so long slept and plied his woodworking trade.

  Josiah Gideon sought him out. Josiah’s disfigured son-in-law, James Shaw, was beyond any help that he could give, no matter how eagerly he longed to do something, anything, to help poor James. Therefore, he took comfort in tracking down any misery within his power to ease. He rode out to the remotest edges of the town, knocking on the doors of lonely farms to find addled old grannies, superannuated old gentlemen fading into eccentricity, hungry paupers in neglected shanties, Irish field hands who came and went like Gypsies, and even the half-wild men who lived by gun and snare and rabbit trap in the depths of the town forest.

  On the day of the auction, Josiah moved among the sharp dealers who were examining the rolling stock that had belonged to the Widow Perkins, and the housewives interested in her sideboard, bedstead, and mangle, and the local farmers who were there to inspect her dairy cattle. Josiah was looking for Dickie Doll. He found him sitting forlornly among his tools while a man in a seedy stovepipe hat dumped a box of Dickie’s chisels on the ground and spat and drawled, “These here for sale?”

  “Can’t say as I care,” said Dickie.

  “No, sir, they are not for sale,” said Josiah angrily. He took Dickie’s arm and pulled him to his feet. “Come on out of here, Dickie.”

  But Dickie whimpered, said, “No,” and pulled away. “I’m not going there, never, never.”

  But in the end, Josiah persuaded him to take a look. Dickie mounted Josiah’s tall horse and Josiah walked beside him, pointing out the fields belonging to the Home Farm, now green with rye and corn. A field hand waved his hoe at Dickie and roared with laughter, and Dickie said fearfully, “That’s Bob Bailey. Ain’t he a simpleton?”

  “He’s a good man with a hoe,” said Josiah.

  In the farmhouse, he took Dickie into the parlor, where old dames were knitting socks and a couple of old men were bent over a checkerboard. Then he showed Dickie the bustling kitchen and the dining hall and the small sleeping corner he would have to himself.

  No longer did Dickie talk of lying down by the side of the road. Next day, he moved in willingly, arriving in a borrowed cart laden with tools and the tag ends of boards. In a back room of the farmhouse he set up a workbench, and soon he was furnishing the Home Farm with cabinets and wardrobes, tables and chairs.

  His specialty was elaborate decoration—carved moldings and heraldic devices, finials and crests. Dickie had once made a dressing table for Ingeborg Biddle, the wife of the preacher. To Ingeborg, it had seemed an act of charity. But where on earth had the poor old soul seen sphinxes and classical pilasters and Ionic capitals? The man was illiterate. He didn’t even know the going price for that sort of craftsmanship, and really, his work was quite remarkable. Eagerly, Mrs. Biddle had suggested decorative motifs for her dressing table—dimpled cherubs, festoons of flowers. But when the work was done, she had refused to pay for it, because sly Dickie had festooned her pretty table with gargoyles and bats. The cherubs and flowers were now the wonder of the Nashoba Home Farm.

  Ingeborg

  As shepherd of all the orthodox Christians in Nashoba, the Reverend Horatio Biddle regarded the occupants of the asylum as part of his flock. And in the opinion of his wife, Ingeborg, he had a higher mandate over their spiritual welfare than did Josiah Gideon, who merely attended to their physical needs. Even so, it was infuriating that Josiah should send some of his poor wretches across the green to occupy three entire pews in Horatio’s church every Sunday morning, to disturb the peace of public prayer with their meaningless jabber. Sly! It was a sly insult on Josiah’s part. And his costly almshouse was the most grandiose in Middlesex County. Ingeborg considered it her duty to inspect it, to see how extravagantly that dangerous man was wasting the town funds.

  When she knocked on the front door of the Nashoba Home Farm, it was opened by a barefoot child—one of the bastards, no doubt—and Josiah came at once. With a courtly bow, he exclaimed, “Welcome, Mrs. Biddle,” and led her on a grand tour.

  They began in the kitchen, where the matron and the cook rose from their chairs to be introduced, then sat down again to go on with their accounts.

  “May I see?” asked Ingeborg sweetly.

  The matron looked at her gravely, then handed over the book with its list of the orders for the day:

  $14.03 2 bbls. flour

  9.31 18 lbs. tea

  11.94 120 lbs. cheese

  Ingeborg handed it back with a winning smile, then followed Josiah to the dining room, where two orphan female children were clattering plates down on the table. Then she followed him to the common room, where a madwoman screamed at her joyfully and a humpbacked old lady looked up from her tatting and an ancient man sat snoring with his toothless head thrown back. The old gentleman was sitting in an uphol
stered chair, noted Ingeborg, and the towering cabinet in the corner was crowned with a pediment in the Grecian taste, obviously the work of Dickie Doll.

  Her kettle had reached the boiling point, but Ingeborg said nothing to Josiah. “Good afternoon, ma’am,” he said graciously as she swept out the door.

  Only at home could she open the stopcock of her anger. “Are those people to be treated like kings and queens? Before long—are you listening to me, Horatio?—all the old paupers in the surrounding towns will be clamoring to get in. Can’t you do something about it, Horatio?”

  Her husband looked up from his book in a daze. “About what, my dear?”

  “The new almshouse—it’s outrageous. Those old women, why can’t they earn their keep by taking in washing?”

  “It was the selectmen,” said Horatio. “Josiah mesmerized the selectmen and the overseers of the poor, and this is the result. The man’s a sorcerer.”

  “And an unbeliever,” said Ingeborg. “Don’t forget that, Horatio.”

  Mrs. Ingeborg Biddle was no fool. She had attended a female academy. She had studied German and Italian, algebra, geology, and botany. She had collected minerals and made a herbarium of dried leaves. She also painted china and sang arias in Italian.

  And like her scholarly husband, Horatio, she was an ardent disciple of the teachings of Louis Agassiz. It was Professor Agassiz who had explained the Book of Genesis as a beautiful parable. The seven days of creation were a metaphor for God’s loving interference in the world. With a slowly improving hand, Professor Agassiz’s benevolent God had brought to perfection one species after another, until the whole world displayed the luxuriance of His infinite creative power.