Sometimes Peace Activists Have Muskets

An older brother is sacred thing, my Father told me. Just so. But he don’t know the half of it. Father’s older brother went west on him, and disappeared. Maybe he’s in Californy. He don’t know. But he says he cares.

I care about Noah. He’s mine. Older brother I mean. Mother says he was born in 1845, in the biggest thunderstorm ever, and Mother knew he’d be taciturn, for he didn’t say a word that day. Sometimes I think Mother is pullin’ on my leg.But Noah don’t talk much around father. Mother says the oldest is the wisest. Maybe so. I talk all the time she says, even when I’m sleeping, but I wouldn’t know. And when I’m gettin’ switched for begging boiled sweets at the store, or pokin’ at the pigs through the rails, or hidin’ in the smokehouse when we play Red Rover, or hidin’ checkers from my sister in my cheeks and puttin’ ’em back on the board when she aint lookin’, Noah just smiles and carries on, quiet like. I think he’s always talkin’ to himself in his head, so the words don’t build up, and cause a jam.

Noah knows I’m little. I don’t think Father knows. ‘Cause Father tells me to do things, and turns his back to me, and goes back to what he was doing. But Noah turns my head around to the place Father told me to look, when I get distracted, and not with the cuff Father thinks I need. And when I was awful sick, and Father was away to Lafayette, Noah carried me all the way to the doctor’s brick house, ’cause the fever made Mother worry so. Noah’s always carrying me, it seems. ‘Cause he knows I’m little.

Father works too hard. He takes the trees, one by one. There ain’t but one gnarly tree left in the barnyard. And all the branches hang too high for me to reach. I ask Father, but he don’t seem to listen always, but I never have to ask Noah. He never says a word, neither; he just sees me there, and finds a way to pass by, no matter what, and give me the “ten fingers” to the branch that’s lowest.. And he never says nothing, he just does it, and walks on, wordless, and I bet Father don’t even know he does it. But I know.

I asked Mother why Father don’t always hear me, but Noah hears me before I talk, I think. Don’t Father care for me, Mother?She said hush, Father made Noah for you, he loves you so much, to give you the ten fingers without askin’. How Father knew I’d need ten fingers, before I was even born, well, Mother didn’t say. I don’t dare ask Father. He’s a good man, my Father, I guess, but why does he have to take all the climbin’ trees?

Noah came to me and said: I have to go now. Just like that.Where do you have to go? To Lafayette?

No. To the war, down South, to do my part.

But you can’t go. who’ll give me the ten fingers?

There’s others, brother, that need my ten fingers now. I’ll go and give it to them. And then I’ll come home, I promise. Maybe you won’t even need the ten fingers then. But I got you this, from the Shakers, to give you ten fingers when I’m gone.

And he gave me my little wooden steps, to reach the branch, and the bed, and the wash bucket.

Father cried when Noah left, already dressed in his blue uniform, to give the southern man ten fingers. I never seen Father cry before. I think it’s because he ain’t got no brother, to give him the ten fingers.

(Painting by Eastman Johnson 1863. Visit the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and see it.)

The Confectionary Season

Southcoast Massachusetts enjoys the most benevolent climate in New England. We don’t get that much snow, and winter arrives later for us than inland because the ocean stays warmer than the land, and Autumn lasts a good long time. I went sailing in Sippican Harbor in December last year, and it seemed balmy.

Conversely, the ocean remains cooler than the land in the spring. One hour west of here, the sun can make it seem downright hot in March and April, while hereabouts it’s overcast and leaden, cool and gray. It never really gets hot until July, usually.

Late in the Winter season is when we get the snow, if we’re gonna get it. And last week, we got eight inches while folks North and West of here got next to nothing.

It’s not enough snow to bother you much, and sweeping the stairs is all that’s really necessary, and the shovel will slumber uninterrupted throughout the whole season. It’s like a lovely glaze on everything, and it amplifies and redistributes the light so it makes the most pleasant aspects from even mundane views, and the contrast with the cobalt sky makes even the eastern desert sky at nightfall jealous.

You can see the trees’ shadows reaching out to caress the side of the house, and the phalanx of pines stand guard to the North to redirect the wind up and over roof, and allow such as we to dwell in peace, and keep the drifts away from the back of the house when the Nor’easters howl.

The house tries not to be at war with its surroundings. It is made to look smaller than it is. It has quiet, if not somber colorations. The red door isn’t any gaudier than the barberries at the corner of the house, after all; they’ll draw flocks of fat robins to flutter outside the window and poach their berries, and remind us inhabitants that Spring is on the horizon.

It’s delicious to step out into the warm sun, with no coat necessary — finally — and form a snowball with your bare hands and fling it at any target to amuse the two year old.

Sometimes Nature has no teeth when it smiles. We smile back.

Same As It Ever Was

I’ve been hanging around the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston with bad intent. Well, it seems that way, a little, as I’m peeking in on this poor woman in her reverie. The picture is called “Leisure,” and it was painted in 1910 by William Worcester Churchill.

I feel a little better knowing that she must be dead. That didn’t sound quite right. I meant, I’m glad she’s achieved a kind of immortality by posing for this picture, at least until the oil in the paint flakes off the canvas or the Museum burns down; and I’m glad I can’t disturb her, because she looks comfortable.

In 1910, leisure was a newfangled concept to most of the people that trod the earth. The idea of a “weekend,” a rest from the work week, was just about to be invented in Britain, but for the aristocracy only. You didn’t get a day off at all if you were a beater for some viscount on a quail hunt on Sunday.

Look closely at the painting. The room is spare, but not barren. It looks urban outside the window, and the room looks small and cosy. To the right, there’s a screen in the corner to allow a modicum of privacy when dressing, and there’s a brass tub on the floor that looks like our heroine just used it to soak her feet. She’s propped comfortably on a divan, and reads the newspaper by the light of the window, and the leaf on the floor hints she’s had a minute to enjoy it already. A book and perhaps a folio stand by on the table if she wants to continue her bluestocking afternoon.

It’s been almost a hundred years, what’s changed? Well, everything, of course, but what about the idea — the idea of leisure?

Her surroundings are not drab. She has a modicum of privacy. She has time to herself. She has donned informal and comfortable clothing. the divan looks comfortable to perch upon, and allows a great deal of motility; that is to say, she can shift her position in it to various postures to avoid becoming cramped or stiff. She has something to occupy and stimulate her mind. She has likely performed her ablutions as part of a salubrious and languid ritual we might all enjoy after a hard day.

I don’t know Churchill’s work from a hole in the wall. But he knew his business. He showed us a person, and an appealing idea, and intimated to us something about himself too, by the composition of the painting and its subject. And he gave us the gift of understanding another person’s point of view, and perhaps seeing something of ourselves in it; something familiar but interesting.

She has no telephone. No radio. No television. The candle on the table might be for more than mood lighting. She could catch polio. Her dentist might work on horses too.

None of that matters when she was captured there by the window. We all need what she’s got. A cushy spot to rest our bones. Something to occupy our mind. Time to yourself. A little privacy. A little elegance.

Same as it ever was.