His crib was a great woven basket, well mattressed and pillowed within; as he grew stronger, he was able to perform extraordinary acrobatics in it, tumbling, making a hoop of his body, and drawing himself easily and strongly erect: with patient effort he could worm over the side on to the floor. There, he would crawl on the vast design of the carpet, his eyes intent upon great wooden blocks piled chaotically on the floor. They had belonged to his brother Luke: all the letters of the alphabet, in bright multicolored carving, were engraved upon them.
Holding them clumsily in his tiny hands, he studied for hours the symbols of speech, knowing that he had here the stones of the temple of language, and striving desperately to find the key that would draw order and intelligence from this anarchy. Great voices soared far above him, vast shapes came and went, lifting him to dizzy heights, depositing him with exhaustless strength. The bell rang under the sea.
One day when the opulent Southern Spring had richly unfolded, when the spongy black earth of the yard was covered with sudden, tender grass, and wet blossoms, the great cherry tree seethed slowly with a massive gem of amber sap, and the cherries hung ripening in prodigal clusters, Gant took him from his basket in the sun on the high front porch, and went with him around the house by the lily bed, taking him back under trees singing with hidden birds, to the far end of the lot.
Here the earth was unshaded, dry, clotted by the plough. Eugene knew by the stillness that it was Sunday: against the high wire fence there was the heavy smell of hot dock-weed. On the other side, Swain’s cow was wrenching the cool coarse grass, lifting her head from time to time, and singing in her strong deep voice her Sunday exuberance. In the warm washed air, Eugene heard with absolute clearness all the brisk backyard sounds of the neighborhood, he became acutely aware of the whole scene, and as Swain’s cow sang out again, he felt the flooded gates in him swing open. He answered “Moo!” phrasing the sound timidly but perfectly, and repeating it confidently in a moment when the cow answered.
Gant’s delight was boundless. He turned and raced back toward the house at the full stride of his legs. And as he went, he nuzzled his stiff mustache into Eugene’s tender neck, mooing industriously and always getting an answer.
“Lord a’ mercy!” cried Eliza, looking from the kitchen window as he raced down the yard with breakneck strides, “He’ll kill that child yet.”
And as he rushed up the kitchen steps—all the house, save the upper side was off the ground—she came out on the little latticed veranda, her hands floury, her nose stove-red.
“Why, what on earth are you doing, Mr. Gant?”
“Moo‑o‑o! He said ‘Moo‑o‑o!’ Yes he did!” Gant spoke to Eugene rather than to Eliza.
Eugene answered him immediately: he felt it was all rather silly, and he saw he would be kept busy imitating Swain’s cow for several days, but he was tremendously excited, nevertheless, feeling now that that wall had been breached.
Eliza was likewise thrilled, but her way of showing it was to turn back to the stove, hiding her pleasure, and saying: “I’ll vow, Mr. Gant. I never saw such an idiot with a child.”
Later, Eugene lay wakefully in his basket on the sitting-room floor, watching the smoking dishes go by in the eager hands of the combined family, for Eliza at this time cooked magnificently, and a Sunday dinner was something to remember. For two hours since their return from church, the little boys had been prowling hungrily around the kitchen: Ben, frowning proudly, kept his dignity outside the screen, making excursions frequently through the house to watch the progress of cookery; Grover came in and watched with frank interest until he was driven out; Luke, his broad humorous little face split by a wide exultant smile, rushed through the house, squealing exultantly:
“Weenie, weedie, weeky
Weenie, weedie, weeky,
Weenie, weedie, weeky,
Wee, Wee, Wee.”
He had heard Daisy and Josephine Brown doing Caesar together, and his chant was his own interpretation of Caesar’s brief boast: “Veni, Vidi, Vici.”
As Eugene lay in his crib, he heard through the open door the dining-room clatter, the shrill excitement of the boys, the clangor of steel and knife as Gant prepared to carve the roast, the repetition of the morning’s great event told over and over without variation, but with increasing zest.
“Soon,” he thought, as the heavy food fragrance floated in to him, “I shall be in there with them.” And he thought lusciously of mysterious and succulent food.
All through the afternoon upon the veranda Gant told the story, summoning the neighbors and calling upon Eugene to perform. Eugene heard clearly all that was said that day: he was not able to answer, but he saw now that speech was imminent.
Thus, later, he saw the first two years of his life in brilliant and isolated flashes. His second Christmas he remembered vaguely as a period of great festivity: it accustomed him to the third when it came. With the miraculous habitude children acquire, it seemed that he had known Christmas forever.
He was
