Glenway Wescott

“ And when she glanced back at her husband, Alwyn realized that he was not only her enemy, but her priest.
She rarely spoke of religion, and had no reminiscences of its coming and going in men's hearts. Evidently it had nothing to do with love, of which she spoke with pride and regret, as Alwyn's other grandmother spoke of the old days—their glory, their poverty, their bravado. "My son," she would say, "there were broken hearts and romances. But young women in my day covered their nakedness, every one was modest and genteel. ”

“ Relatives and friends, one by one, coming to have a horror of her sharp tongue, her bitter disposition becoming a by-word. . . . The old man complacently watching loneliness widen around her, watching the manias of her old age increase, accumulating in his mind the pity of others for himself as a miser stores away secret treasure, sighing and pitying himself. . . . Alwyn decided at last that he sincerely thought himself a good man, a patient husband, a martyr. ”

“ For Alwyn's grandfather, who was known as "the greatest talker in the country," used words which no one else understood, words which he did not understand, and words which do not exist, to swell a passionate theme, to confound his neighbors in an argument, and for their own sake. He would say, for example, "My farm was the very apocalypse of fertility, but the renter has rested on his oars till it is good for nothing," or "Manifest the bounty to pass the salt shaker in my direction." ”

“ If Alwyn left his collar unbuttoned, she would steal up behind him and wrap a handkerchief about his neck, murmuring, "I can't abide nakedness."
Alwyn learned from his mother that she had always kept everything of an improper nature out of sight. She had had no roosters in her flock of hens, and bought eggs for hatching from her neighbors. She had persuaded her husband to plant a great hedge of cedars far from the house, behind which the cows and bulls together had been led. She had never allowed her babies to be seen until they were a month old. ”

“ Their son Andrew came from Chicago to see his father. Alwyn and his grandmother stood before the window, and in the garden the feeble old man gestured and talked to his son. "Who's that man up there in the garden talking to your father?" she asked. "You better go up and find out if he means to stay to dinner."
Her husband insisted that she recognized her son and pretended not to, out of spite. She often called Alwyn Andrew, even during her son's visit. At other times she treated him with exquisite formality, as if he were a man she loved, half a stranger. ”

“ Without ceasing for half a century, we have labored and sung thy praises and kept faithful to each other and to thy true religion—though our steps totter, we are still the same. Forgive us our transgressions of word and deed, and lead us not into trouble, but bring our aged limbs into thy kingdom. ”

“ AFTER his aunt Flora's funeral, Alwyn went back to school in Aaronsville. He lived with his mother's parents, who had rented their farm and bought a little property in the town: a house, a fine lawn bounded by hedges, a vegetable garden, and a stable.
His grandmother Duff never lit the lamps until the shades were drawn, remarking that it was "indecent to be seen by Tom, Dick and Harry, as if you were an actor in plays." Stiff and delicate, she would stand in the bay window every evening as long as the dusk lasted. ”

“ His malice was exercised only under cover of pity and affection. Long before her mind began to fail, he would draw a relative or a neighbor into a corner and confide in a stage whisper, "Don't you forget it—my poor wife is doting in the decline of her powers." ”

“ But the menfolks were inclined to be rough—they mingled with animals all day, and had many hardships to undergo. Don't ever be wild as your grandpa was."
Alwyn remembered their wedding picture: the young man's lips large and red, his eyes expressionless as eyes of crystal, his large hand closed on her arm as if it had often had its way with women; and beside him the little bride dressed in dark sacramental finery.
"Always behave like a gentleman," she continued. "In all my life, I knew only one gentleman. ”

“ Guard us, dear adorable father, and guide us into one of thy mansions. Though roamers and strangers to thy charity, set us not aside with those who defile the highways and the byways. For liars, money changers, ungrateful relatives, and strange women triumph. ”

“ Her husband blamed her less for driving their sons away from home than for acknowledging their weaknesses; and improved Andrew's character even as he had improved his own—by talking about it, hypocritically.
In the little house in Aaronsville a red-edged Bible lay on a special shelf over the kitchen table. Every morning of their old age (just as when their wayward children had been at home) after the breakfast of fried potatoes and sweet rolls, he drew himself up to his full height, took down the book, and read a chapter. ”

“ There was a history of the conquest of America with innumerable illustrations, in which the savages offered their daughters to the discoverers in dresses which she drew, and even the slain lay beneath shrouds as fanciful as valentines—the work of many weeks. ”

“ She betrayed a lifelong envy by wanting everyone to admire these sisters. One had married, for love, a man who was too easy-going and often drifted into financial straits, though they wanted for nothing. ”

“ He was accounted a little crazy in those days by many who were his neighbors. My life would have been different if I had married him. But I was already married, so I didn't love him. It was my duty to love your grandpa and I did it, hard and dishonest man that he was. As for Leander Tower, he loved nobody on earth but his relations."
Alwyn's mother said that she had never before referred to that secret.
Another day she said, to his amazement: "I don't regret a day of my life. Your grandpa is a virtuous. man and God-fearing, though he was pretty unruly in his youth. ”

“ I'll buy a man, by cracky! said I. I'm not so poor in this world's goods that I've got to be ordered about by every cracker-box public speaker that gets delegated by hook or crook to Washington. I'll buy a man to do my fighting for me. There's aplenty as are waiting for such chances and that hain't any other future and wouldn't be man enough for it if they had. ”

“ He never ran after women. Not after we married. He never failed at churchgoing, or giving testimony, or praying before the public—and there wasn't a man in the township who could make such a fine prayer. ”