Thoreau on Wolf Hill

by Oak, B. B.

“More than a visit from a roving harlot?” Mrs. Swann inquired with a leer.

  Henry turned away from her without replying. He does not care for bawdy remarks concerning sex or women, yet he will talk frankly about either in a respectful way.

  A silence ensued, and Mrs. Swann concluded correctly that we did not wish to continue conversing with her. She wished us Good Day and went back to the house.

  “I do not care for that woman,” I said to Henry as soon as she left the barn.

  “How long has she been Julia’s housekeeper?” Henry said.

  “Julia took her on the day after she came back to Plumford. So that would be seven days ago.”

  “What do you know of her?”

  “Not much. There is something about Mrs. Swann that puts me off whenever she comes near, and I do my best to avoid her. I have heard men at the tavern remark that she is handsome, but I do not find her at all attractive.”

  “Nor do I,” Henry said. “Yet I can understand why some might. She has a classical Greek profile, and such symmetry is appealing. Of course, her eyes are off-kilter.”

  “I did not notice. Is one higher than the other?”

  “No. But the left one is blind.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure,” Henry said. “She did not flinch when a bat swooped toward her left side. Yet she kept a wary eye on the bats to her right. Apparently she has been keeping a wary eye on Noah, too. She makes him sound like a little demon. Who is this boy, Adam?”

  “Only a poor orphan Julia felt compelled to take in. You know how impulsive she can be.”

  “Our impulses reflect the true nature of our souls,” Henry said.

  “Be that as it may,” I said, not caring to get into a transcendental discussion with him at the moment, “Julia has become rather fond of the boy. And so have I, for that matter.”

  “I would like to go talk to him now,” Henry said.

  “Let me tell you something about him first.”

  “No. Allow me to meet him without knowing any more so that I may form an unbiased opinion of him.”

  We went back to the house and found Julia and Mrs. Emerson in Doc Silas’s study, which I reckon I should get used to calling Julia’s studio. They did not think it a good idea to wake Noah, and I promised that we would not disturb him if we found him still asleep.

  Noah was staring at the ceiling when I came into the room, looking as bored as any boy put to bed in the daytime might be expected to look. He seemed happy enough to see me, but when I asked him if he would like to meet a friend of mine who was waiting in the hall, he replied with a loud “NO” and pulled the blanket over his head. I was not surprised, for Noah is most wary of strangers.

  An uncannily eerie and low cry began to emanate from the hall. Noah uncovered one ear to hear it better and then could not resist pulling off the blanket to take a look over his shoulder. I looked toward the doorway too, half expecting to see a bird fly into the room. Henry sauntered in, instead.

  “What am I?” he asked the boy and made the sound again.

  “A screech owl!” Noah managed to say distinctly enough.

  “Correct,” Henry said. “And what am I now?” He made a soft but sharp barking sound, and Noah guessed correctly that it was a fox rather than a dog. “You are a boy who pays attention to the natural world around him. I like that,” Henry said, plunking himself down on the edge of the bed as if he were visiting an old chum.

  Henry proceeded to regard Noah with such a long, penetrating gaze that I expected the boy to hide under the blanket again. But he did not. Indeed, he seemed to appreciate being looked upon with such uncritical intensity. Most people avert their eyes from Noah’s face, but Henry studied him as he would any wondrous natural phenomenon. Also, there is something about Henry’s demeanor that encourages trust, especially in children. Perhaps it is his natural simplicity and direct manner.

  “Tell me, young fellow,” he said after a moment. “Do you perchance have upon your person the magical arrowhead I lost?”

  Noah frowned with puzzlement and shook his head.

  Henry leaned toward the boy and touched behind his ear. “Then what is this?” he said, coming away with a quartz arrowhead in his fingers.

  Eyes wide, Noah sat up, stared at the arrowhead, and felt behind his ear.

  Henry laughed and ruffled the boy’s sandy hair. “You didn’t know it had hidden itself there, did you? I am sure you would have admitted to it if you knew, for you look to be an honest, truthful boy. Am I correct?”

  Noah nodded his head.

  “Good. Let us talk about the fire in the barn now,” Henry said. “Do you know how it started, Noah?”

  The boy responded with vigorous head shakes.

  “A fire can start up quite unexpectedly,” Henry continued in his reasonable, quiet tone. “I know of what I speak, for I once set fire to the woods. I did not mean to do it. I lit a small fire in a tree stump to cook some fish my friend and I had caught, but when sparks flew into the grass around the stump, a fire suddenly spread out of control, and three hundred acres of woodland went up in smoke. I admitted what I had done and took responsibility for it. If I had not, I would have felt far worse about it. It is always best to be honest and forthright.” He paused and looked at Noah. Noah looked right back at him and said not a word. “Just tell us what happened in the barn,” Henry urged softly.

  The boy raised his boney shoulders to his ears.

  “Why did you go there?” Henry said.

  Noah mumbled a reply. Henry could not understand his enunciation and looked to me.

  “Noah claims that he doesn’t remember going into the barn today,” I said and turned to the boy. “But if that is where I found you, that is indeed where you went, isn’t it?”

  Another shrug is all I got for an answer. The boy’s eyes drooped, and he fell back upon the pillow.

  “We will let you rest,” Henry told him. “If you say you do not remember going to the barn, we must take you at your word.” He stood and made to leave, then turned back to the boy. “Would you like me to give you the arrowhead I found behind your ear?”

  Noah’s eyes lit up, and he put out his hand to receive it.

  Henry made a motion to give it over to him, but then pulled back. “I should tell you something about this particular arrowhead before you take it into your hand.” He lowered his voice in a confidential manner. “It can sear the flesh of those who do not tell the truth. Do you still want it?”

  Noah nodded most vigorously and kept his palm open. When Henry dropped the arrowhead into it, the boy clutched it in his fist, murmured a thank you, and fell immediately asleep.

  We left him to rest and came upon Mrs. Swann in the hallway. “I am on my way to my chamber to lie down,” she said. “I have another of my cursed headaches.”

  “I will give you a dose of willow bark powder mixed with water,” I offered. “I have found it to be a most effective natural medication.”

  “No thank you, doctor. I do not countenance taking medications of any sort,” she said most sanctimoniously. And with that she went into her chamber and closed the door firmly behind her.

  “She did not even inquire as to how Noah was faring,” I said.

  “She might have had no need to inquire,” Henry said. “Who knows how long she has been standing in the hall on those little cat feet of hers, eavesdropping?”

  We went down to join the ladies in the studio, where there was a fine fire crackling in the hearth. Julia was making a sketch of Lidian Emerson, who sat in an armchair across from her, looking prim and reserved in her heavy black silk dress and light white gauze cap. Henry and I recounted our brief conversation with Noah to them.

  “It is most odd that the child can remember nothing,” Mrs. Emerson said.

  “Perhaps he doesn’t want to,” Henry said. “He could be resisting the memory from coming forth.”

  I nodded in agreement with his theory. “If I hypnotized him, the memory might well come
to the surface.”

  “No, Adam,” Julia said. “I cannot countenance such experimentation on a child.”

  “You were eager enough to have me experiment on you,” I reminded her.

  “And you would not do it but once!” She glared at me and then addressed Mrs. Emerson. “When last I was in Plumford, Adam hypnotized me, and I recounted to him a past life in ancient Rome. When I came out of hypnosis, I had no recollection of it, however. I was all for trying again, this time with Adam’s instruction to remember, but he refused to repeat the procedure, no matter how much I beseeched him.”

  “I can well understand why you would want to remember,” Mrs. Emerson said. “Henry treasures the memory of his own past life as an Indian.”

  I was most surprised that she knew of his regression, for Henry was most secretive about it. I gave him a questioning look, and he smiled back sheepishly.

  “I tell Lidian everything that is important to me,” he said. “She is my confidante.”

  Mrs. Emerson beamed her gentle smile at him. “As you are mine, Henry.”

  Julia and I exchanged a swift look, for we too had been the dearest of confidantes at one time. And now we could not converse for more than a minute without quarrelling.

  “What do you know of the boy’s past?” Henry asked Julia.

  “Not much. As you must have heeded, Noah has difficulty speaking, and because of this he is quite reticent. But we have only known each other for little more than a week, and I am sure he will become more comfortable talking to me the better acquainted we become.”

  “Where did he reside before he came here?” Henry said.

  “He’d been staying with a farm family named Shrove, but they could no longer keep him.”

  “Why?”

  Julia shrugged. “Justice Phyfe gave me no reason.”

  “The Shroves have a small farm up the river,” I said. “They barely subsist on it and have a good number of their own children to feed.”

  Henry nodded and asked no further questions about Noah. Instead, he went to stand over Julia’s shoulder and watch her draw Mrs. Emerson.

  I, in turn, regarded Mrs. Emerson in the flesh. Flesh there is little enough of on her frame, and her long, smooth face was tinged yellow, leading me to conclude she was slightly jaundiced. All the same, being long of limb and graceful in carriage, she is attractive enough. But she is no great beauty to be sure, and I could not help but wonder why Henry is so enthralled with this staid married woman a good decade older than he is. I joined him behind Julia to take a look at her work and understood better. Lidian Emerson’s inherent beauty was clearly evident in the drawing, for with the quick strokes of her pencil Julia had somehow managed to depict her subject’s nobility of character and gentleness of spirit. Fittingly enough, Julia was using a Thoreau pencil.

  When Henry remarked upon this she said, “I prefer the drawing pencils your family manufactures to all others, Henry, and told you as much when first we met, if you recall.”

  “Indeed I do. And I further recall that I offered to give you a box of them.”

  “Alas, I told you I could not accept such an expensive gift from you. Much to my everlasting regret, I might add. But at the time I was rather miffed at you, for you had suggested that I should devote my talents to something useful, such as botanical depictions, rather than depictions of people.”

  “Well, I am not suggesting it now,” Henry said as he continued to stare at the drawing of his dear friend. “And I will renew my offer to give you a box of pencils.”

  “Only if you allow me to pay for them. I appreciate how dear they are.”

  “Perhaps we can strike a deal,” Henry said. He leaned toward her and murmured something in her ear.

  Julia nodded, and when Henry and Mrs. Emerson made ready to leave a short time later, Julia gave him the rolled up drawing she had sketched of Lidian.

  Whilst she and Lidian were bidding each other adieu by the carriage, Henry and I quickly made arrangements to meet again late tomorrow evening. We did not want the ladies to overhear, of course, that we planned to go to an opium den.

  ADAM’S JOURNAL

  Saturday, December 11

  Departed from Concord at ten p.m. last evening, and it took over two hours to drive to Boston. Napoleon kept up a pace of close to ten miles an hour, not bad for a horse his age. Even though a train would have gotten us there much faster, it was just as well none run at night, for Henry and I both prefer traveling in the open air under a starry sky rather than inside a stuffy, smoke-filled car. Left Napoleon and the gig in a horse car stable, and we walked up Tremont, past Faneuil Hall, and then onto Ann Street, which led us deep into the Black Sea district.

  Assuming that the opium den we were heading for catered to gentlemen, I’d dressed for the occasion in my formal black tailcoat and white waistcoat and cravat. But Henry wore his usual attire of rough country sack coat, corduroy trousers, and heavy boots, all better suited to stalking through brambles than treading city streets. When I expressed my opinion that he might have made more of an effort to dress like a man about town, he waved a hand dismissively. “I say if you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes. Besides, any others I have are no better.”

  Midnight along Ann Street proved to be most interesting. There are grogshops and bordellos aplenty servicing boisterous sailors fresh off ships, and right alongside them are dining establishments and saloons catering to college and business men. Along with the sounds of coarse laughter, boisterous singing, and vile cursing, the cold night air carried a current of electrifying energy fueled by manly desires of every ilk. Females caroused freely with the men, but of course not a decent woman was in sight.

  We approached a hack driver and asked if he knew a place called Chandoo Gate. He pointed us to a brick building, its windows covered over with red paper that let through a faint glow from within. We had expected a guard to be posted outside the door, but there was none, so we went right in. A sweet, incense-like odor that was rich and earthy and at the same time conveyed a sense of ripe decay enveloped us.

  “I recall there was a trace of just this scent on Chauncey’s clothes when we found him in the woods,” Henry said.

  Before we could get past the foyer a giant Chinaman sprang out of a dark recess to block our way. He silently glared at us with one glinting eye. His other eye, I assumed, was missing, for the lid had been sewn shut with a ragged line of black stitches. Would have done a far better job of it myself. But I doubt a trained surgeon had made the sutures, much less removed the orb. Most likely it had been gouged out in a fight. Some thugs, I have heard, purposely grow their thumbnails long to facilitate the gory practice, and if that were the case, the Chinaman was lucky to have survived. The insertion of a foe’s filthy finger deep into one’s cranium could easily result in infection and painful death. Could not help but have trepidations that Henry and I might end up in a brutal fight ourselves given the way the giant regarded us with almost palpable menace. Our intrusion into this den of iniquity was obviously not welcomed.

  “We have opium to sell,” Henry pronounced loudly.

  The giant gave no sign of understanding. He laid a mighty paw on Henry’s shoulder, and I saw my friend brace himself for the expected heave-ho. I tensed, too, ready to come to his aid, although I had doubts that even the two of us together could stand up to such a muscled colossus of a man.

  A bodiless voice rang out in the darkness, speaking a tongue that sounded Chinese, and the giant immediately stepped aside to allow Henry and me to pass through the foyer and enter a long hall with numbered doors on each side. A very small, elderly man, also of the Yellow Race, sat cross-legged on a red lacquered chair at the end of the hall. When he beckoned us to him, his extremely long, curved fingernails looked like lightning bolts shooting off his hand. Dressed in a black padded silk robe trimmed with gold and a black skull cap with an upturned fur brim, he conveyed an air of refinement and cultivation. A thin smile stretched his lips as he wa
tched us approach.

  “My name is Zang,” he said, “and you have aroused my curiosity, gentlemen. Why do you carry coals to Newcastle?”

  Henry smiled back and removed the silk purse from his pocket. “Have you no need for more coals, sir?” he said, tossing the purse into Zang’s lap.

  “I always have need for more,” Zang replied, emptying the contents of the purse in the folds of his garment and then examining each of the ten opium beads closely. “The demand grows faster than the supply. But where did your coals come from?”

  “Most likely from you,” Henry replied. “Did you not sell them to a fellow named Chauncey Bidwell recently?”

  Without replying, Zang regarded Henry for a long moment. “I read honesty in your face, young man, so I will assume you did not steal these opium pills from him.”

  “Would it matter to you if I had?”

  “Not at all. But I do not want Mr. Bidwell coming here and causing trouble over it.”

  “I assure you he will not,” Henry said. “Does he usually come here alone or with friends?”

  “He comes with other men and sometimes women from the stage. I cannot say if any of them are his friends.”

  “Can you say if any are his enemies?”

  “I prefer to say nothing at all about those who come here.” Zang pulled a leather pouch from the voluminous sleeve of his robe and shook an array of coins onto the table beside him. “Take ten gold Liberty Eagles as payment for the ten chandoo you brought me,” he instructed Henry.

  Henry glanced at me and I shrugged. Each Liberty Eagle was worth ten dollars, but I had no idea how much ten opium pills, or chandoo as the elderly Chinaman called them, were worth. Even so, a hundred dollars was a handsome sum, and Henry decided to accept the deal on behalf of the Bidwell ladies. He plucked up the coins and slid them into the deep pocket of his jacket.

  “And now, gentlemen, either adjourn to a smoking room or leave,” Zang said. “I do not allow lingering in the hall.”

  “We will go to a room then,” Henry said, surprising me. We had not discussed the possibility of actually smoking opium.