The Generations of Men
A GOVERNOR it was proclaimed
this time,
When all who would come seeking
in New Hampshire
Ancestral memories might come
together.
And those of the name Stark
gathered in Bow,
A rock-strewn town where farming
has fallen off,
And sprout-lands flourish
where the axe has gone.
Someone had literally run
to earth
In an old cellar hole in a
by-road
The origin of all the family
there.
Thence they were sprung, so
numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses
left in town
Made shift to shelter them
without the help
Of here and there a tent in
grove and orchard.
They were at Bow, but that
was not enough:
Nothing would do but they
must fix a day
To stand together on the crater’s
verge
That turned them on the world,
and try to fathom
The past and get some strangeness
out of it.
But rain spoiled all.
The day began uncertain,
With clouds low trailing and
moments of rain that misted.
The young folk held some hope
out to each other
Till well toward noon when
the storm settled down
With a swish in the grass.
“What if the others
Are there,” they said.
“It isn’t going to rain.”
Only one from a farm not far
away
Strolled thither, not expecting
he would find
Anyone else, but out of idleness.
One, and one other, yes, for
there were two.
The second round the curving
hillside road
Was a girl; and she halted
some way off
To reconnoitre, and then made
up her mind
At least to pass by and see
who he was,
And perhaps hear some word
about the weather.
This was some Stark she didn’t
know. He nodded.
“No fête to-day,”
he said.
“It looks that way.”
She swept the heavens, turning
on her heel.
“I only idled down.”
“I idled down.”
Provision there had been for
just such meeting
Of stranger cousins, in a
family tree
Drawn on a sort of passport
with the branch
Of the one bearing it done
in detail—
Some zealous one’s laborious
device.
She made a sudden movement
toward her bodice,
As one who clasps her heart.
They laughed together.
“Stark?” he inquired.
“No matter for the proof.”
“Yes, Stark. And
you?”
“I’m Stark.”
He drew his passport.
“You know we might not
be and still be cousins:
The town is full of Chases,
Lowes, and Baileys,
All claiming some priority
in Starkness.
My mother was a Lane, yet
might have married
Anyone upon earth and still
her children
Would have been Starks, and
doubtless here to-day.”
“You riddle with your
genealogy
Like a Viola. I don’t
follow you.”
“I only mean my mother
was a Stark
Several times over, and by
marrying father
No more than brought us back
into the name.”
“One ought not to be
thrown into confusion
By a plain statement of relationship,
But I own what you say makes
my head spin.
You take my card—you
seem so good at such things—
And see if you can reckon
our cousinship.
Why not take seats here on
the cellar wall
And dangle feet among the
raspberry vines?”
“Under the shelter of
the family tree.”
“Just so—that
ought to be enough protection.”
“Not from the rain.
I think it’s going to rain.”
“It’s raining.”
“No, it’s misting;
let’s be fair.
Does the rain seem to you
to cool the eyes?”
The situation was like this:
the road
Bowed outward on the mountain
half-way up,
And disappeared and ended
not far off.
No one went home that way.
The only house
Beyond where they were was
a shattered seedpod.
And below roared a brook hidden
in trees,
The sound of which was silence
for the place.
This he sat listening to till
she gave judgment.
“On father’s side,
it seems, we’re—let me see——”
“Don’t be too
technical.—You have three cards.”
“Four cards, one yours,
three mine, one for each branch
Of the Stark family I’m
a member of.”
“D’you know a
person so related to herself
Is supposed to be mad.”
“I may be mad.”
“You look so, sitting
out here in the rain
Studying genealogy with me
You never saw before.
What will we come to
With all this pride of ancestry,
we Yankees?
I think we’re all mad.
Tell me why we’re here
Drawn into town about this
cellar hole
Like wild geese on a lake
before a storm?
What do we see in such a hole,
I wonder.”
“The Indians had a myth
of Chicamoztoc,
Which means The Seven Caves
that We Came out of.
This is the pit from which
we Starks were digged.”
“You must be learned.
That’s what you see in it?”
“And what do you see?”
“Yes, what do I see?
First let me look. I
see raspberry vines——”
“Oh, if you’re
going to use your eyes, just hear
What I see. It’s
a little, little boy,
As pale and dim as a match
flame in the sun;
He’s groping in the
cellar after jam,
He thinks it’s dark
and it’s flooded with daylight.”
“He’s nothing.
Listen. When I lean like this
I can make out old Grandsir
Stark distinctly,—
With his pipe in his mouth
and his brown jug—
Bless you, it isn’t
Grandsir Stark, it’s Granny,
But the pipe’s there
and smoking and the jug.
She’s after cider, the
old girl, she’s thirsty;
Here’s hoping she gets
her drink and gets out safely.”
“Tell me about her.
Does she look like me?”
“She should, shouldn’t
she, you’re so many times
Over descended from her.
I believe
She does look like you.
Stay the way you are.
The nose is just the same,
and so’s the chin—
Making allowance, making due
allowance.”
“You poor, dear, great,
great, great, great Granny!”
“See that you get her
greatness right. Don’t stint her.”
“Yes, it’s important,
though you think it isn’t.
I won’t be teased.
But see how wet I am.”
“Yes, you must go; we
can’t stay here for ever.
But wait until I give you
a hand up.
A bead of silver water more
or less
Strung on your hair won’t
hurt your summer looks.
I wanted to try something
with the noise
That the brook raises in the
empty valley.
We have seen visions—now
consult the voices.
Something I must have learned
riding in trains
When I was young. I used
the roar
To set the voices speaking
out of it,
Speaking or singing, and the
band-music playing.
Perhaps you have the art of
what I mean.
I’ve never listened
in among the sounds
That a brook makes in such
a wild descent.
It ought to give a purer oracle.”
“It’s as you throw
a picture on a screen:
The meaning of it all is out
of you;
The voices give you what you
wish to hear.”
“Strangely, it’s
anything they wish to give.”
“Then I don’t
know. It must be strange enough.
I wonder if it’s not
your make-believe.
What do you think you’re
like to hear to-day?”
“From the sense of our
having been together—
But why take time for what
I’m like to hear?
I’ll tell you what the
voices really say.
You will do very well right
where you are
A little longer. I mustn’t
feel too hurried,
Or I can’t give myself
to hear the voices.”
“Is this some trance
you are withdrawing into?”
“You must be very still;
you mustn’t talk.”
“I’ll hardly breathe.”
“The voices seem to
say——”
“I’m waiting.”
“Don’t! The
voices seem to say:
Call her Nausicaa, the unafraid
Of an acquaintance made adventurously.”
“I let you say that—on
consideration.”
“I don’t see very
well how you can help it.
You want the truth. I
speak but by the voices.
You see they know I haven’t
had your name,
Though what a name should
matter between us——”
“I shall suspect——”
“Be good. The voices
say:
Call her Nausicaa, and take
a timber
That you shall find lies in
the cellar charred
Among the raspberries, and
hew and shape it
For a door-sill or other corner
piece
In a new cottage on the ancient
spot.
The life is not yet all gone
out of it.
And come and make your summer
dwelling here,
And perhaps she will come,
still unafraid,
And sit before you in the
open door
With flowers in her lap until
they fade,
But not come in across the
sacred sill——”
“I wonder where your
oracle is tending.
You can see that there’s
something wrong with it,
Or it would speak in dialect.
Whose voice
Does it purport to speak in?
Not old Grandsir’s
Nor Granny’s, surely.
Call up one of them.
They have best right to be
heard in this place.”
“You seem so partial
to our great-grandmother
(Nine times removed.
Correct me if I err.)
You will be likely to regard
as sacred
Anything she may say.
But let me warn you,
Folks in her day were given
to plain speaking.
You think you’d best
tempt her at such a time?”
“It rests with us always
to cut her off.”
“Well then, it’s
Granny speaking: ’I dunnow!
Mebbe I’m wrong to take
it as I do.
There ain’t no names
quite like the old ones though,
Nor never will be to my way
of thinking.
One mustn’t bear too
hard on the new comers,
But there’s a dite too
many of them for comfort.
I should feel easier if I
could see
More of the salt wherewith
they’re to be salted.
Son, you do as you’re
told! You take the timber—
It’s as sound as the
day when it was cut—
And begin over——’
There, she’d better stop.
You can see what is troubling
Granny, though.
But don’t you think
we sometimes make too much
Of the old stock? What
counts is the ideals,
And those will bear some keeping
still about.”
“I can see we are going
to be good friends.”
“I like your ‘going
to be.’ You said just now
It’s going to rain.”
“I know, and it was
raining.
I let you say all that.
But I must go now.”
“You let me say it?
on consideration?
How shall we say good-bye
in such a case?”
“How shall we?”
“Will you leave the
way to me?”
“No, I don’t trust
your eyes. You’ve said enough.
Now give me your hand up.—Pick
me that flower.”
“Where shall we meet
again?”
“Nowhere but here
Once more before we meet elsewhere.”
“In rain?”
“It ought to be in rain.
Sometime in rain.
In rain to-morrow, shall we,
if it rains?
But if we must, in sunshine.”
So she went.
