Gilead

The edges around the hole kept crumbling, falling in, exposing more of it every day. (They had removed that shed, prudently, since a shed in a hole in the middle of the road would be no easier to account for than a horse.) The quickest solution would have been to collapse the tunnel altogether and fill it in from the top, but then the path it made from the store to the stables would have been visible immediately and indefinitely. So they chose a hill to level and began carting earth into the tunnel day and night, having placed a lookout on the roof of the dry-goods store to signal the approach of strangers. If asked, they would say they were constructing terraces, as in a certain book the preacher had which illustrated the customs of the Orient. I suppose that was the best they could do in the circumstances.

These were hardworking people, but there is simply no way in the world to pack soil from the side, or in any wise to pack it and settle it as firmly as rain and snow and heat have done in the years since the world began. That is to say, with all their hard work to undo all the hard work they had done, with the first good rain the road sagged from one end of that tunnel to the other. Then they began filling it from the top, having no other choice and nothing at all to lose. And still it sagged as often as there was a good rain.

So when the winter finally came and there was a hard freeze and snow, they pried up the few buildings they had and set them on planks and hitched their horses to them and moved the town, such as it was, half a mile down the road. They had to pry up their grave markers to hide where the town had been, and that was a sad thing, though there weren’t more than three or four. The tunnel became a kind of creek bed, a freshet in the spring, with nice grassy banks and flowers that had run wild from the old gardens. People who didn’t know better would picnic beside it, spreading their blankets and baskets over those poor, forgotten graves, which was, on balance, a pleasant thing.

You and Tobias are hopping around in the sprinkler. The sprinkler is a magnificent invention because it exposes raindrops to sunshine. That does occur in nature, but it is rare. When I was in seminary I used to go sometimes to watch the Baptists down at the river. It was something to see the preacher lifting the one who was being baptized up out of the water and the water pouring off the garments and the hair. It did look like a birth or a resurrection. For us the water just heightens the touch of the pastor’s hand on the sweet bones of the head, sort of like making an electrical connection. I’ve always loved to baptize people, though I have sometimes wished there were more shimmer and splash involved in the way we go about it. Well, but you two are dancing around in your iridescent little downpour, whooping and stomping as sane people ought to do when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water.

***

During those days after Edward came back from Germany, he was so much on my mind that I kept slipping away to look for him at the hotel. One time I took my baseball and glove and my father’s glove and we walked down to a side street and played some catch. At first he was careful of his clothes. He hadn’t even seen a baseball in years, he said. But when he got warmed up a little, he was pretty sharp. He threw one that stung my hand, and when I said “Ow!” he laughed with pleasure, because it meant he had his arm back. It wouldn’t have stung, though, except that I didn’t expect it to be coming hard and I wasn’t ready. So then we really started firing. I threw one high and he jumped for it, a lovely catch. By then he was in shirtsleeves with his collar open and his suspenders hanging down at his sides. Some people stood around watching us. It was a dusty little street and a hot day and we were throwing flies and grounders. Edward asked a girl for a glass of water. She brought us each one. I drank mine, but he poured his right over his head, and it spilled off that big mustache of his like rain off a roof.

I thought after that day we would sometime be able to talk. That did not prove to be the case. All the same, after that day I did feel pretty much at ease about the state of his soul. Though of course I am not competent to judge.

Here is what he said, standing there with his hair all plastered to his head and his mustache dripping.

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is,

For brethren to dwell together in unity!

It is like the precious oil upon the head,

That ran down upon the beard;

Even Aaron’s beard;

That came down upon the skirt of his garments

Like the dew of Hermon,

That cometh down upon the mountains of Zion.

That is from Psalm 133. It meant he knew everything I knew, every single word. Perhaps he was telling me that he knew everything I knew and he was not persuaded by it. Still, I have often thought what a splendid thing that was for him to do. I wished my father had been there, because I knew it would have made him laugh. He