The Transcendental Murder

the firing pins from falling on the 32-caliber blank cartridges. Then the lanyard men picked up the strings that were attached to the yokes.

'Number one gun ready,' said Philip Goss.

'Number two gun ready,' said Jerry Toplady.

'By battery,' roared Harvey Finn, 'fire!' The lanyard men jerked their strings and there was a colossal double BABOOM. Smoke and flame poured out of the guns. The gun carriages rolled back and forth. The bridge trembled. Three crows rose cawing from the top of a snagged old elm. Homer smiled at Mary, and picked up John so that he could see. Annie's skinny body tensed against Mary, and she kept her fingers jammed in her ears. The smoke billowed up around the Minuteman's knees and around his plow. His own musket seemed to smoke. The rammers turned their ramrods around and dipped the fleecy pompons on the other end into the water buckets. Then they :shook off the excess water and swabbed out the barrels of their guns. The powder monkeys trotted back for more powder.

Getting into the spirit of the thing, Homer repeated Major Buttrick's famous words, 'Fire, fellow-soldiers, for God's sake, fire!' And Mary, between booms, told him about the gigantic 150th anniversary celebration that had been broadcast to the entire nation, when a nervous descendant of Buttrick's had garbled his lines. 'Come on you guys!' he had hollered, 'for Christ's sake, shoot!'

BOOM. The two guns were firing in slow alternation. 'Number one gun—fire!' BOOM. 'Number two gun—fire!' BOOM ... BOOM ... BOOM. John was beside himself with joy. It was like a war, a real war.

What was the matter? The cannon had stopped firing, and the men were standing in one attitude, looking at someone. It was Philip they were looking at. Mary saw him turning his head stiffly from side to side, while the others stared at him. Ernest Goss stood in front of the Number One gun, his ramrod still halfway down the barrel. He, too, stared at Philip. Harvey Finn strode over to Philip and gripped him by the shirt. 'What are you trying to do, kill somebody?'

Philip said nothing. Then Harvey let go and went back to his post. Ernest Goss, looking shaken, pulled his ramrod out of the cannon and stepped to the side. Philip looked at his father, and then hesitantly at Harvey. 'Well, Philip,' bawled Harvey, 'you ready or not?'

Philip stuttered something inaudible, and Harvey yelled, 'Number one gun—fire!' BOOM. 'Number two gun—fire!' BOOM. The regular rhythm began again, and the salute ended with another double firing of both guns together ... BABOOM.

Then the Honor Guard stepped up stylishly and hoisted the flag. Annie, sagging down in Mary's arms, saluted patriotically with the Honor Guard. A clergyman came forward and called on God. His prayer was long, and the teenager's blue knees knocked together with the cold.

It was all over. Mary looked for Philip, but he avoided her and walked away across the field by the Old Manse, alone. Homer consulted his newspaper. 'What's this about a Lions Club Pancake Breakfast?' he said.

The cornflakes were rattling around inside Annie and John. 'Oh, yes,' they shouted, 'pancakes!'

'Well, just one apiece,' said Mary. 'We've got to go home so you children can get ready to march in the parade.'

In Monument Hall the Lions were struggling heroically with a fantastic bottleneck in the shape of a tide of hungry people and one small grill. The line of would-be pancake eaters doubled across the hall, idly paddling the air with their paper plates, their insides clapping against their backbones. Apologetic Lions moved up and down the line, passing out cups of coffee. Annie chewed her fingernails. Homer told Mary about his Ugly Word Collection, which included pianola, bowlarama, oleomargarine and frenchified words like shaze lownge, bra-zeere and neglazhay.

'Your neckties must be an inspiration to you,' said Mary, admiring the phosphorescent diatoms he was wearing.

Homer looked down at his necktie proudly. 'It glows in the dark,' he said.

'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.