A Corner For Echoes

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Title:     A Corner For Echoes
Author: Charles S. Brooks [More Titles by Brooks]

Sometimes in a quiet hour I see in the memory of my childhood a frame house across a wide lawn from a pleasant street. There are no trees about the yard, in itself a defect, yet in its circumstance, as the house arises in my view, the barrenness denotes no more than a breadth of sunlight across those endless days.

There was, indeed, in contrast and by way of shadowy admonishment, a church near by, whose sober bell, grieving lest our joy should romp too long, recalled us to fearful introspection on Sunday evening, and it moved me chiefly to the thought of eternity--eternity everlasting. Reward or punishment mattered not. It was Time itself that plagued me, Time that rolled like a wheel forever until the imagination reeled and sickened. And on Thursday evening also--another bad intrusion on the happy week--again the sexton tugged at the rope for prayer and the dismal clapper answered from above. It is strange that a man in friendly red suspenders, pipe in mouth as he pushed his lawn-mower through the week, should spread such desolation. But presently, when our better neighbors were stiffly gathered in and had composed their skirts, a brisker hymn arose. Tenor and soprano assured one another vigorously from pew to pew that they were Christian soldiers marching as to war. When they were off at last for the fair Jerusalem, the fret of eternity passed from me. And yet, for the most part, we played in sunlight all the week, and our thoughts dwelt happily on wide horizons.

There was another church, far off across the housetops, seen only from an attic window, whose bells in contrast were of a pleasant jangle. Exactly where this church stood I never knew. Its towers arose above a neighbor's barn and acknowledged no base or local habitation. Indeed, its glittering and unsubstantial spire offered a hint that it was but an imaginary creature of the attic, a pageant that mustered only to the view of him who looked out through these narrow, cobwebbed windows. For here, as in a kind of magic, the twilight flourished at the noon and its shadows practiced beforehand for the night. Through these windows children saw the unfamiliar, distant marvels of the world--towers and kingdoms unseen by older eyes that were grown dusty with common sights.

Yet regularly, out of a noonday stillness--except for the cries of the butcher boy upon the steps--a dozen clappers of the tower struck their sudden din across the city. It appeared that at the very moment of the noon, having lagged to the utmost second, the frantic clappers had bolted up the belfry stairs to call the town to dinner. Or perhaps to an older ear their discordant and heterodox tongue hinted that Roman infallibility had here fallen into argument and that various and contrary doctrine was laboring in warm dispute. Certainly the clappers were brawling in the tower and had come to blows. But a half mile off it was an agreeable racket and did not rouse up eternity to tease me.

Across from our house, but at the rear, with only an alley entrance, there was a building in which pies were baked--a horrid factory in our very midst!--and insolent smoke curled off the chimney and flaunted our imperfection. Respectable ladies, long resident, wearing black poke bonnets and camel's-hair shawls, lifted their patrician eyebrows with disapproval. Scorn sat on their gentle up-turned noses. They held their skirts close, in passing, from contamination. These pies could not count upon their patronage. They were contraband even in a pinch, with unexpected guests arrived. It were better to buy of Cobey, the grocer on the Circle. And the building did smell heavily of its commodity. But despite detraction, as one came from school, when the wind was north, an agreeable whiff of lard and cooking touched the nostrils as a happy prologue to one's dinner. Sometimes a cart issued to the street, boarded close, full of pies on shelves, and rattled cityward.

The fire station was around the corner and down a hill. We marveled at the polished engine, the harness that hung ready from the ceiling, the poles down which the firemen slid from their rooms above. It was at the fire station that we got the baseball score, inning by inning, and other news, if it was worthy, from the outside world. But perhaps we dozed in a hammock or were lost with Oliver Optic in a jungle when the fire-bell rang. If spry, we caught a glimpse of the hook-and-ladder from the top of the hill, or the horses galloping up the slope. But would none of our neighbors ever burn? we thought. Must all candles be overturned far off?

Near the school-house was the reservoir, a mound and pond covering all the block. Round about the top there was a gravel path that commanded the city--the belching chimneys on the river, the ships upon the lake, and to the south a horizon of wooded hills. The world lay across that tumbled ridge and there our thoughts went searching for adventure. Perhaps these were the foothills of the Himalaya and from the top were seen the towers of Babylon. Perhaps there was an ocean, with white sails which were blown from the Spanish coast. On a summer afternoon clouds drifted across the sky, like mountains on a journey--emigrants, they seemed, from a loftier range, seeking a fresh plain on which to erect their fortunes.

But the chief use of this reservoir, except for its wholly subsidiary supply of water, was its grassy slope. It was usual in the noon recess--when we were cramped with learning--to slide down on a barrel stave and be wrecked and spilled midway. In default of stave a geography served as sled, for by noon the most sedentary geography itched for action. Of what profit--so it complained--is a knowledge of the world if one is cooped always with stupid primers in a desk? Of what account are the boundaries of Hindostan, if one is housed all day beneath a lid with slate and pencils? But the geography required an exact balance, with feet lifted forward into space, and with fingers gripped behind. Our present geographies, alas, are of smaller surface, and, unless students have shrunk and shriveled, their more profitable use upon a hill is past. Some children descended without stave or book, and their preference was marked upon their shining seats.

It was Hoppy who marred this sport. Hoppy was the keeper of the reservoir, a one-legged Irishman with a crutch. His superfluous trouser-leg was folded and pinned across, and it was a general quarry for patches. When his elbow or his knees came through, here was a remedy at hand. Here his wife clipped, also, for her crazy quilt. And all the little Hoppies--for I fancy him to have been a family man--were reinforced from this extra cloth. But when Hoppy's bad profile appeared at the top of the hill we grabbed our staves and scurried off. The cry of warning--"Peg-leg's a-comin'"--still haunts my memory. It was Hoppy's reward to lead one of us smaller fry roughly by the ear. Or he gripped us by the wrist and snapped his stinging finger at our nose. Then he pitched us through the fence where a wooden slat was gone.

Hoppy's crutch was none of your elaborate affairs, curved and glossy. Instead, it was only a stout, unvarnished stick, with a padded cross-piece at the top. But the varlet could run, leaping forward upon us with long, uneven strides. And I have wondered whether Stevenson, by any chance, while he was still pondering the plot of "Treasure Island," may not have visited our city and, seeing Hoppy on our heels, have contrived John Silver out of him. He must have built him anew above the waist, shearing him at his suspender buttons, scrapping his common upper parts; but the wooden stump and breeches were a precious salvage. His crutch, at the least, became John Silver's very timber.

The Circle was down the street. In the center of this sunny park there arose an artificial mountain, with a waterfall that trickled off the rocks pleasantly on hot days. Ruins and blasted towers, battlements and cement grottoes, were still the fashion. In those days masons built stony belvederes and laid pipes which burst forth into mountain pools a good ten feet above the sidewalk. The cliff upon our Circle, with its path winding upward among the fern, its tiny castle on the peak and its tinkle of little water, sprang from this romantic period. From the terrace on top one could spit over the balustrade on the unsuspecting folk who walked below. Later the town had a mechanical ship that sailed around the pond. As often as this ship neared the cliffs the mechanical captain on the bridge lifted his glasses with a startled jerk and gave orders for the changing of the course.

Tinkey's shop was on the Circle. One side of Tinkey's window was a bakery with jelly-cakes and angel-food. This, as I recall, was my earliest theology. Heaven, certainly, was worth the effort. The other window unbent to peppermint sticks and grab-bags to catch our dirtier pennies. But this meaner produce was a concession to the trade, and the Tinkey fingers, from father down to youngest daughter, touched it with scorn. Mrs. Tinkey, in particular, who, we thought, was above her place, lifted a grab-bag at arm's length, and her nostrils quivered as if she held a dead mouse by the tail.

But in the essence Tinkey was a caterer and his handiwork was shown in the persons of a frosted bride and groom who waited before a sugar altar for the word that would make them man and wife. Her nose in time was bruised--a careless lifting of the glass by the youngest Miss Tinkey--but he, like a faithful suitor, stood to his youthful pledge.

Beyond the shop was a room with blazing red wall paper and a fiery carpet. In this hot furnace, out-rivaling the boasts of Abednego, the neighborhood perspired pleasantly on August nights, and ate ice-cream. If we arose to the price of a Tinkey layer-cake thick with chocolate, the night stood out in splendor above its fellows.

Around the corner was Conrad's bookstore. Conrad was a dumpy fellow with unending good humor and a fat, soft hand. He sometimes called lady customers, My dear, but it was only in his eagerness to press a sale. I do not recall that he was a scholar. If you asked to be shown the newest books, he might offer you the "Vicar of Wakefield" as a work just off the press, and tell you that Goldsmith was a man to watch. A young woman assistant read The Duchess between customers. In her fancy she eloped daily with a duke, but actually she kept company with a grocer's clerk. They ate sodas together at Tinkey's. How could he know, poor fellow, when their fingers met beneath the table, that he was but a substitute in her high romance? At the very moment, in her thoughts, she was off with the duke beneath the moon. Conrad had also an errand boy with a dirty face, who spent the day on a packing case at the rear of the shop, where he ate an endless succession of apples. An orchard went through him in the season.

Conrad's shop was only moderate in books, but it spread itself in fancy goods--crackers for the Fourth--marbles and tops in their season--and for Saint Valentine's Day a range of sentiment that distanced his competitors. A lover, though he sighed like furnace, found here mottoes for his passion. Also there were "comics"--base insulting valentines of suitable greeting from man to man. These were three for a nickel just as they came off the pile, but two for a nickel with selection.

At Christmas, Conrad displayed china inkstands. There was one of these which, although often near a sale, still stuck to the shelves year after year. The beauty of its device dwelt in a little negro who perched at the rear on a rustic fence that held the penholders. But suddenly, when choice was wavering in his favor, off he would pitch into the inkwell. At this mischance Conrad would regularly be astonished, and he would sell instead a china camel whose back was hollowed out for ink. Then he laved the negro for the twentieth time and set him back upon the fence, where he sat like an interrupted suicide with his dark eye again upon the pool.

Nor must I forget a line of Catholic saints. There was one jolly bit of crockery--Saint Patrick, I believe--that had lost an arm. This defect should have been considered a further mark of piety--a martyrdom unrecorded by the church--a special flagellation--but although the price in successive years sunk to thirty-nine and at last to the wholly ridiculous sum of twenty-three cents--less than one third the price of his unbroken but really inferior mates (Saint Aloysius and Saint Anthony)--yet he lingered on.

Nowhere was there a larger assortment of odd and unmatched letter paper. No box was full and many were soiled. If pink envelopes were needed, Conrad, unabashed, laid out a blue, or with his fat thumb he fumbled two boxes into one to complete the count. Initialed paper once had been the fashion--G for Gladys--and there was still a remnant of several letters toward the end of the alphabet. If one of these chanced to fit a customer, with what zest Conrad blew upon the box and slapped it! But until Xenophon and Xerxes shall come to buy, these final letters must rest unsold upon his shelves.

Conrad was a dear good fellow (Bless me! he is still alive--just as fat and bow-legged, with the same soft hand, just as friendly!) and when he retired at last from business the street lost half its mirth and humor.

Near Conrad's shop and the Circle was our house. By it a horse-car jangled, one way only, cityward, at intervals of twelve minutes. In winter there was straw on the floor. In front was a fare-box with sliding shelves down which the nickels rattled, or, if one's memory lagged, the thin driver rapped his whip-handle on the glass. He sat on a high stool which was padded to eke out nature.

Once before, as I have read, there was a corner for echoes. The buildings were set so that the quiet folk who dwelt near by could hear the sound of coming steps--steps far off, then nearer until they tramped beneath the windows. Then, as they listened, the sounds faded. And it seemed to him who chronicled the place that he heard the persons of his drama coming--little steps that would grow to manhood, steps that faltered already toward their final curtain. But there is no plot to thicken around our corner. Or rather, there are a hundred plots. And when I listen in fancy to the echoes, I hear the general tapping of our neighbors--beloved feet that have gone into darkness for a while.

I hear the footsteps of an old man. When he trod our street he was of gloomy temper. The world was awry for him. He was sunk in despair at politics, yet I recall that he relished an apple. As often as he stopped to see us, he told us that the country had gone to the demnition bow-wows, and he snapped at his apple as if it had been a Democrat. His little dog ran a full block ahead of him on their evening stroll, and always trotted into our gateway. He sat on the lowest step with his eyes down the street. "Master," he seemed to say, "here we all are, waiting for you."

John Smith cut the grass on the Circle. He was a friend of children, and, for his nod and greeting, I drove down street my span of tin horses on a wheel. Hand in hand we climbed his rocky mountain to see where the waterfall spurted from a pipe. Below, the neighbors' bonnets, with baskets, went to shop at Cobey's. I still hear the click of his lawn-mower of a summer afternoon.

Darky Dan beat our carpets. He was a merry fellow and he sang upon the street. Wild melodies they were, with head thrown back and crazy laughter. He was a harmless, good-natured fellow, but nurse-maids huddled us close until his song had turned the corner.

I recall a crippled child--maybe of half wit only--who dragged a broken foot. To our shame he seemed a comic creature and we pelted him with snowballs and ran from his piteous anger.

A match-boy with red hair came by on winter nights and was warmed beside the fire. My father questioned him--as one merchant to another--about his business, and mother kept him in mittens. In payment for bread and jam he loosed his muffler and played the mouth-organ. In turn we blew upon the vents, but as music it was naught. Gone is that melody. The house is dark.

There was an old lady lived near by in almost feudal state. Her steps were the broadest on the street, her walnut doors were carved in the deepest pattern, her fence was the highest. Her furniture, the year around, was covered in linen cloths, and the great chairs with their claw feet resembled the horses in panoply that draw the chariot of the Nubian Queen in the circus parade. With this old lady there lived an old cook, an old second-maid, an old laundress and an old coachman. The second-maid thrust a platter at you as you sat at table and nudged you in the ribs--if you were a child--"Eat it," she said, "it's good!" The coachman nodded on his box, the laundress in her tubs, but the cook was spry despite her years. In the yard there was a fountain--all yards had fountains then--and I used to wonder whether this were the font of Ponce de León that restored the aged to their youth. Here, surely, was the very house to test the cure. And when the ancient laundress came by I speculated whether, after a sudden splash, she would emerge a dazzling princess.

With this old lady there dwelt a niece, or a daughter, or a younger sister--relationship was vague--and this niece owned a little black dog. But the old lady was dull of sight and in the dark passages of her house she waved her arm and kept saying, "Whisk, Nigger! Whisk, Nigger!" for she had stepped once on the creature's tail. Every year she gave a children's party, and we youngsters looked for magic in a mirror and went to Jerusalem around her solemn chairs. She had bought toys and trinkets from Europe for all of us.

Then there was an old neighbor, a justice of the peace, who, being devoid of much knowledge of the law, put his cases to my grandfather. When he had been advised, he stroked his beard and said it was an opinion to which he had come himself. He went down the steps mumbling the judgment to keep it in his memory.

It was my grandfather's custom in the late afternoon of summer, when the sun had slanted, to pull a chair off the veranda and sit sprinkling the lawn with his crutch beside him. Toward supper Mr. Hodge, a building contractor and our neighbor, went by. His wagon usually rattled with some bit of salvage--perhaps an iron bath-tub plucked from a building before he wrecked it, or a kitchen sink. His yard was piled with the fruitage of his profession. Mr. Hodge was of sociable turn and he cried whoa to his jogging horse.

Now ensued a half-hour's gossip. It was the comedy of the occasion that the horse, after having made several attempts to start and been stopped by a jerking of the reins, took to craftiness. He put forward a hoof, quite carelessly it seemed. If there was no protest, in time he tried a diagonal hoof behind. It was then but a shifting of the weight to swing forward a step. "Whoa!" yelled Mr. Hodge. "Yes, yes," the old horse seemed to answer, "certainly, of course, yes, yes! But can't a fellow shift his legs?" In this way the sly brute inched toward supper. My grandfather enjoyed this comedy, and once, if I am not mistaken, I caught him exchanging a wink with the horse. Certainly the beast was glancing round to find a partner for his jest. A conversation, begun at the standpipe, progressed to the telegraph pole, and at last came opposite the kitchen. As my grandfather did not move his chair, Mr. Hodge lifted his voice until the neighborhood knew the price of brick and the unworthiness of plumbers. Mr. Hodge was a Republican and he spoke in favor of the tariff. To clinch an argument he had a usual formula. "It's neither here nor there," and he brought his fist against the dashboard, "it's right here." But finally the hungry horse prevailed, Mr. Hodge slapped the reins in consent and they rattled home to supper.

Around this corner, also, there are echoes of children's feet--racing feet upon the grass--feet that lag in the morning on the way to school and run back at four o'clock--feet that leap the hitching posts or avoid the sidewalk cracks. Girls' feet rustle in the fallen leaves, and they think their skirts are silk. And I hear dimly the cries of hide-and-seek and pull-away and the merriment of blindman's buff. One lad rises in my memory who won our marbles. Another excelled us all when he threw his top. His father was a grocer and we envied him his easy access to the candy counter.

And particularly I remember a little girl with yellow curls and blue eyes. She was the Sleeping Beauty in a Christmas play. I had known her before in daytime gingham and I had judged her to be as other girls--creatures that tag along and spoil the fun. But now, as she rested in laces for the picture, she dazzled my imagination; for I was the silken Prince to awaken her. For a week I wished to run to sea, sink a pirate ship, and be worthy of her love. But then a sewer was dug along the street and I was a miner instead--recusant to love--digging in the yellow sand for the center of the earth.

But chiefly it is the echo of older steps I hear--steps whose sound is long since stilled--feet that have crossed the horizon and have gone on journey for a while. And when I listen I hear echoes that are fading into silence.

[The end]
Charles S. Brooks's essay: Corner For Echoes

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