of Longfellow, copied maps of Europe and Asia and learned all the cities and rivers. Of course they thought they were bringing up a little Samuel—so did everyone—
so they all kept him supplied with books and paints and a magnifying glass and whatever else came to mind or to hand. My mother sometimes regretted out loud that they hadn't really required him to do much in the way of chores, and she certainly didn't make the same mistake with me. But a child as wonderful as he was is not a thing you see often, and the belief was general that he would be a great preacher. So the congregation took up collections to put him in college and then to send him to Germany. And he came back an atheist. That's what he always claimed to be, at any rate. He took a position at the state college in Lawrence teaching German literature and philosophy, and stayed there till he died. He married a German girl from Indianapolis and they had six little towheaded children, all of them well into middle age by now. He was a few hundred miles away all those years 25
and I hardly ever saw him. He did send back contributions to the church to repay them for helping him. A check dated January 1 came every year he lived. He was a good man.
He and my father had words when he came back, once at
the dinner table that first evening when my father asked him to say grace. Edward cleared his throat and replied, 'I am afraid I could not do that in good conscience, sir,' and the color drained out of my father's face. I knew there had been letters I was not given to read, and there had been somber words between my parents. So this was the dreaded confirmation of their fears. My father said, 'You have lived under this roof. You know the customs of your family. You might show some respect for them.' And Edward replied, and this was very wrong
of him, 'When I was a child, I thought as a child. Now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things.' My father left the table, my mother sat still in her chair with tears streaming down her face, and Edward passed me the potatoes. I had no idea what was expected of me, so I took some. Edward passed me the gravy. We ate our unhallowed meal solemnly for a little while, and then we left the house and I walked Edward to the hotel.
And on that walk he said to me, 'John, you might as well know now what you're sure to learn sometime. This is a backwateryou must be aware of that already. Leaving here is like
waking from a trance.' I suppose the neighbors saw us leaving the house just at dinnertime that first day, Edward with one arm bent behind his back, stooped a little to suggest that he had some use for a walking stick, appearing somehow to be plunged in thought of an especially rigorous and distinguished kind, possibly conducted in a foreign language. (Only listen to me!) If they saw him, they'd have known instantly what they had long suspected. They'd have known also that there was rage and weeping in my mother's kitchen and that my father was in the attic or the woodshed, in some hidden, quiet place, 26
down on his knees, wondering to the Lord what it was that was being asked of him. And there I was with Edward, trailing along after him, another grief to my parents, or so they must
have thought.
Besides those books I mentioned, Edward also gave me the little painting of a marketplace that hangs by the stairs. I must
be sure to tell your mother it belongs to me and not to the parsonage. I doubt it's worth anything to speak of, but she might
want it.
I'm going to set aside that Feuerbach with the books I will ask your mother to be sure to save for you. I hope you will read it sometime. There is nothing alarming in it, to my mind. I
read it the first time under the covers, and down by the creek, because my mother had forbidden me to have any further contact with Edward, and I knew that would include my reading
an atheistical book he had given me. She said, 'If you ever spoke to your father that way, it would kill him.' In fact, my thought was always to defend my father. I believe I have done that.
There are some notes of mine in the margins of the book which I hope you may find useful.
That mention of Feuerbach and joy reminded me of something I saw early one morning a few years ago, as I was walking up to the church. There was a young couple strolling along half a block ahead of me. The sun had come up brilliantly after a heavy rain, and the trees were glistening and very wet.
On some impulse, plain exuberance, I suppose, the fellow jumped up and caught hold of a branch, and a storm of luminous water came pouring down on the two of them, and they
laughed and took off running, the girl sweeping water off her 27
hair and her dress as if she were a little bit disgusted, but she wasn't. It was a beautiful thing to see, like something from a myth. I don't know why I thought of that now, except perhaps because it is easy to believe in such moments that water was made primarily for blessing, and only secondarily for growing vegetables or doing the wash. I wish I had paid more attention to it. My list of regrets may seem unusual, but who can know that they are, really. This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.
In writing this, I notice the care it costs me not to use certain words more than I ought to.
I am thinking about the word 'just.' I almost wish I could have written that the sun just shone and the tree just glistened, and the water just poured out of it and the girl just laughed—when it's used that way it does indicate a stress on the word that follows it, and also a particular pitch of the voice. People talk that way when they want to call attention to a thing existing in excess of itself, so to speak, a sort of purity or lavishness, at any rate something ordinary in kind but exceptional in degree. So it seems to me at the moment. There is something real signified by that word 'just'
that proper language won't acknowledge. It's a little like the German ge-. I regret that I must deprive myself of it. It takes half the point out of telling the story.
I am also inclined to overuse the word 'old,' which actually has less to do with age, as it seems to me, than it does with familiarity. It sets a thing apart as something regarded with a modest, habitual affection. Sometimes it suggests haplessness or vulnerability. I say
'old Boughton,' I say 'this shabby old town,' and I mean that they are very near my heart.
I don't write the way I speak. I'm afraid you would think I didn't know any better. I don't write the way I do for the pulpit, either, insofar as I can help it. That would be ridiculous, in
