That was that other patch, very blue but not very bright blue, like some of the pansy petals when they are two colors of blue. We didn’t talk about that patch, but I can say I was thinking of asking her about that patch — it’s not a very large patch — if she asks me what I was thinking, or even what I was saying.
Really, I am Agnes now, so I suppose I ought to call her Mimmie again. “Here is your water,” I say, “Mimmie.”
“I remembered that the leaves were for the healing of the nations and I drank the water in the goblet … what was I saying, what was I saying, Hilda?”
I said, “You were saying you were thirsty, Mamalie, and I got you some water from the pitcher on the washstand, it isn’t very cold; I was thinking, would you want me to run down and get some cracked ice? I could run down and get some cracked ice from the refrigerator. You were saying…”
Mamalie, Mamalie, Mamalie, what were you saying? Wait, Mamalie, there are a thousand questions that I want to ask you.
Mamalie, Mamalie, you have told me nothing at all, really did they ever find the papers that were lost? Mamalie, this is all frightful, I could cry with sorrow and grief that you won’t tell me more, because now you are holding the common kitchen tumbler in your hand, and it’s only a kitchen tumbler. I remember Mama saying, before you came, “We really must look out for an odd glass or a pretty cup for the washstand in the spare bedroom, before your grandmother comes.”
Why, Mamalie, I could die of grief when I think we had just such a common kitchen tumbler instead of a crystal goblet, and Mamalie, don’t you want the cracked ice; it’s really only water from the washstand pitcher, and I could have run down and got some cracked ice, but you understand, I was so excited, I couldn’t wait a minute, I wanted to hear more about Wunden Eiland and Gnadenhuetten and they were killed — they were killed, the little huts of the blessed in the habitation of Grace are burning, and the leaves on the young dogwood trees are withered, and Paxnous is far away because he was trying to keep the tribes from fighting.
Oh, Mamalie, there is such a lot I want to know; I want to know what Paxnous’ wife looked like, she was a sort of Princess and Oh, there is Anna von Pahlen, my dear, dear Anna who was Morning Star like the Princess with the nine brothers in the story that was lost, and she had lilies too, like I had a lily, only it was a short stem like a white cup, like a goblet, not like the branch of lilies the Madonna has on Easter cards or Jesus has on Easter cards when He comes out of the tomb, passe le tombeau.
Mamalie, Mamalie, don’t go away, Mamalie; I told you I’d get you some cracked ice because you were burning with a terrible sort of fever, which was when you remembered how you were burnt; but you weren’t burnt at Gnadenhuetten when the Indiana massacred the Inhabitants of Grace, but it was the other Indians who did it; Oh Mamalie, say it wasn’t Paxnous who gave his wife, the Princess Morning Star, to the Moravians.
Mamalie, don’t go away. Because the thing that will happen, will happen to me this winter after Christmas or before Christmas begins, about November, but I won’t remember. I will forget, like you forgot all about Wunden Eiland and the papers that were lost and I will be afraid too. Mamalie, there will be savages, and they will have ugly symbols like some of the bad Indians, to bring ugly and horrible things back to the world and the Storm of Death is storming in my ears now; Mamalie wait, there is so much I want to ask you.
Mamalie, Mamalie, you say you don’t want any cracked ice, though I could run down to the refrigerator and get you some cracked ice that Ida always has, in a bowl for ice water in the refrigerator. Mamalie, you said rivers of crystal and that is like the ice storms that we have, when the trees glisten like glass in a fairy tale of a glass mountain, and there is always the moment in the woods when you remember a path (that you couldn’t remember) that will run to an old ford across a stream or a river, that will run to a spring that is called Christiansbrunn because it was Christian Renatus who helped find out the secret, though hardly anyone knows now that there even was a secret.
Mamalie, you are holding the glass of water, and you are looking at the glass of water, and you saw a picture in the crystal goblet, that was Papalie and Aunt Lucia who were standing at a window, and I think there was a white curtain blowing in the wind, but you didn’t tell me. Mamalie, don’t get lost; I must go on, I must go on into the darkness that was my own darkness and the face that was my own terrible inheritance, but it was Papa, it was my own Papa’s face, it wasn’t the face of the wounded one at Wunden Eiland, though I got them all mixed up, but I will get them separated again and I will hold the cup in my hand that is a lily, that is a rose, that is …
WHAT IT WAS
WHAT IT WAS
What it was, was not appreciable at the moment. What happened did not take long to happen.
We were sitting round the round table in the sitting room; there was a painting book and a glass for paint water and Ida had gone upstairs and the baby was asleep and Eric and Mr. Evans were at the observatory or the transit house, or in their rooms in the wing of the house.
Mama and Papa had gone to Philadelphia, the way they did if it was raining or if there were clouds so Papa could not work. Papa would leave the party, or what they called a reception, if he thought it was going to clear up, and Mama would have to come home alone afterwards, if she wanted to stay on after he left.
We did not ourselves go in to Philadelphia very often; it was a long trip with a sort of streetcar with an engine that ran the two miles to Cobbs Creek that was the city limit and then another half-hour in the ordinary trolley, to Wanamaker’s to see the Christmas things or to go with Mama to see Cousin Laura and Cousin Emily Bell on Spruce Street. This was our house. We had moved here after Christmas, one winter.
I had come first, alone with Papa and Mama, and we had stayed at Fetters’ Farm, which was the nearest house except the farmhouse and the cowsheds which belonged to the Flower Farm. An old man had left his farm to the university for an observatory and this was it; it was Flower Observatory and Papa was the astronomer and Eric and Mr. Evans helped him with his work.
We had a big Thanksgiving dinner, and the uncles and the aunts came, and Mama gave an Easter party, like we always had, and the university ladies helped hunt the eggs with their children that they brought. Mama drew bunnies in ink on top of the invitation, or a nest with a duck or a chick with its eggshell, and some of the letters they wrote back to say they were coming had ducks or bunnies drawn on, too.
Everybody liked the little baskets Mama bought, and Harold and I helped with the smaller children, but it was a long way to Philadelphia and we did not have little parties, only sometimes one big party like that, or when they all came. Thanksgiving Day. People did not run in and Mama did not run out across the garden to Mamalie or up Church Street to Aunt Jennie’s, and Uncle Fred did not go past the house and wave his music at us (when we shouted at him to come in) and say, “I’m late for choir practice.”