"I've got a word game, too," said Mary. "I look for words that sound alike and more or less rhyme. It's kind of a nuisance because you can't stop. I wandered around the house yesterday for five minutes with a saucer in my hand, going from bashful flyswatter to gasfitter's daughter, to tiptoe, please, the Antipodes, to noisy gales, glassy knees, gluey noise, noisome grails."
"Are you bragging or complaining?" said Homer, stepping on the flowers.
"Bragging, bragging. Banjo band, bangled hand, newfangled strand."
Homer picked up newfangled strand. "What stout Balboa said when he gazed at the Pacific. 'This ain't the Indies, by God, it's some newfangled strand.' "
"And Emerson, too. That's what he said. 'This is a newfangled strand, this country, and why doesn't some newfangled man come along to match it.' "
John began to whine. He was tired of waiting, and tears came easily. He had discovered in first grade that life was essentially tragic, and it had come as a blow. He pulled at Mary's skirt. Then Mary and Homer began to bicker. She had gone so far as to say that Emily Dickinson was the newfangled voice that Emerson was looking for. Homer bridled at that and took out his skewer. "There's another one of your women with electric fluid."
"Oh, for heaven's sake," said Mary. (Don't let him get away with it. Jump, Mary, jump.)
She began, halting and stuttering, defending Emily. She was the greatest, the best, she saw the supercharged significance in humble things, in natural objects...
"Oh, that old transcendental fallacy, that things seen are purposeful symbols of things unseen. I knew a man once who found enormous significance in people's license plates. He was crazy as a coot." Homer looked at Mary's flushed cheeks. What were those pinkish flowers like gramophone horns? Petunias?
"Look," said Mary, "you can't use a madman's ravings to dispose of a whole philosophical position."
"Calm down, for Pete's sake."
Mary took a new stand on higher ground. She began to reel off ribbons of Emily's sharp, bright verse. Homer listened. John and Annie at last got their pancakes, and they all sat down. Mary sang on, disdaining food.
"There now, listen to that," said Homer, waving his fork. " 'Twere better far, or something like that, to fail with land in sight (how's it go?)
...Than gain my blue peninsula
To perish of delight...
"You see? Always turning aside, withdrawing from the experience, afraid to get their feet dirty. And another thing. Here they were always swooning and perishing with delight over things, but they couldn't stand the sight of each other. Old Emily up in her chamber, refusing to come downstairs to see visitors. She knew she'd scare them with her electric fluid. And you know what Waldo said. 'We descend to meet.' And Henry Thoreau was the worst—exalting his solitariness into a kind of solipsism almost."
O, Blasphemy. And this was the so-called expert. "Solipsism! Oh, really, you just don't understand them at all."
"Thank you," said the expert in a pained tone, wounded to the quick. Mary felt around for her coat. Oh, good for you. Insulting the country's most celebrated Emersonian scholar. That was well done.
On the way out they got in another argument over who should pay, and Mary unfortunately won. She scuttled the children off to her car, and Homer strode off the other way, wrenching at his tie.
*12*
These martial strains seemed as far away as Palestine, and reminded me of a march of crusaders in the horizon, with a slight tantivy and tremulous motion of the elm tree tops which overhang the village. This was one of the great days; though the sky had from my clearing only the same everlastingly great look that it wears daily, and I saw no difference in it. —Henry Thoreau
Preliminary report of the Committee on Public Ceremonies and Celebrations...
19 April, 9 a.m.: Ceremonial parade leaves State Armory, Everett Street, for North Bridge.
The weather had turned out well. Everybody in the family was marching in the parade except Mary and Freddy and Grandmaw. They took up a position on the Milldam in front of Vanderhoof's Hardware Store. American flags, like something pretty invented by Grandma Moses, were stuck into special holes in the sidewalks along Main Street. Jimmy Flower's policemen directed surges of traffic out of the parade route. There were balloon men on the corner of Walden and Main, their arms floating high with buoyant clusters of gas balloons and fans of plastic pinwheels, blurry flags and feathery celluloid dolls on sticks. The balloons were transparent, with polka dots and stars. Mary bought a red one for Freddy, and tied it to his wrist. He tossed his arm around to make it bounce up and down. He was too young to have had one before. Somebody else lost his and it went sailing up in the blue sky. There was a braying sound of a distant band, and everyone peered down the street. Hello, there was Homer Kelly in his fur hat, hurrying Rowena Goss across the street. He nodded distantly to Mary, and she smiled back her friendly smile, wishing he would go fly a kite.
The Independent Battery came first. Philip rode one of the two lead horses, carrying the Battery flag, his thoughtful forehead seamed, his body tense and erect. The horses that pulled the limbers were heavy old plugs, but they made a fine showing, with the clop-clop of their great hairy-ankled hooves and the unfamiliar noise of metal wheel-rims on the streets. Three members of the Battery sat on each limber, with linked arms. Mary remembered that in the good old days after a traditional whiskey breakfast the linked arms had been a necessary precaution. Now the Battery carefully discharged all its duties before toasting the military spirit of the forefathers. After the Battery there was a blur of marching units and noisy bands, the trombonists and trumpeters staring cross-eyed at the music clamped to their instruments. Freddy clapped his hands at the red chariots of the Fire Department and waved at Tom, who was stepping along with his parade staff, handsome in his let-out uniform. Gwen, struggling with morning sickness, walked beside her Girl Scouts, wearing a green uniform that matched her complexion. Grandmaw chuckled and pointed at The Spirit of '76. The bleeding, bandaged drummer boy was extremely small and obviously an amateur, but he was beating the tar out of his instrument. Next in line was the High School Band, with the controversial drum majorettes prancing sweetly to the fore, showing astonishing lengths of bare white leg. After the band there was a big open car containing the Governor of Massachusetts and his wife. The Governor nodded and waved his hat, but his lips were moving, distracted. He was trying to remember what in hell rhymed with Revere. (Hear, queer, beer, near, leer, fear ... oh, sure, fear. "A-cry-of-defiance-and-not-of-fear-a-voice-in-the-darkness-a-knock-at-the-door-and-a-word-that-shall-echo-forever-more.")
"My dear," said his wife, beaming radiantly to right and left, "why in heaven's name didn't you write it out? I know you're trying to work up a reputation for old-fashioned eloquence, but you'll just make a fool of yourself, that's all you'll do."
The parade was over. The watching crowds closed in behind the last band and followed them down Monument Street. Gwen hurried back and picked up Freddy and started walking against the stream toward her car. Homer and Rowena caught up with Mary and old Mrs. Hand. "Those noisome grails of yours," he said. "I've figured out what they're for. Black Masses."
"What?" Well, at least he wasn't not speaking.
"Noisome grails. For witches to use at Black Masses."
Oh, that was good. Mary chuckled.
"What happens now?" he said.
"Now everybody gathers in the field beside the bridge, there next to the Old Manse, and there are speeches and so on."
"These military demonstrations, all this nationalistic flag-waving. Honestly," said Rowena.