Twice Melvin by James Pumpelly

Author:James Pumpelly [Pumpelly, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781543923865
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2018-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

We are columns left alone

Of a temple once complete -

(C P Cranch)

XX

If Aunt Martha’s victim feels any better from the sunlight freshening his room, George can’t discern the improvement, Vincent’s clothes like chainmail as he moans in the effort of dressing. But with each man discreetly disappointed by the other’s presence, the weekend’s awkward beginning finds redemption in Melody’s company: Vincent buoyed by her gift of smiles and George playing guide for a tour of the sights. This, to his advantage, too; for with Vincent confined to the backseat, George has Melody alone at his side.

“Where to, my man?” he calls over his shoulder to Vincent.

“Why don’t you make the choice, George?” Melody interjects, the flash of her pendant catching his eye. “If Vince isn’t up to a walking tour of Cambridge, we can still enjoy a drive about town. Or perhaps a drive out of town?” her wink putting to trial his peevish thoughts - for in her garden of delights, he and Vince are but two hired hands and he dare not be judged the lessor one.

“To Concord we go!” George rubbing his hands together with an air of satisfaction and enterprise. “It’s the least we can do for Vincent. Otherwise, he’d have only the memory of a shipwrecked night; a night we’ll help him forget by exploring Concord under the bright and steady sun.”

“Aaah, steady is just the word I need,” Vince sighs from the back seat, a wan smile accentuating his tubercular aura, “…but what about the little figure on your dash, George? Saint Christopher, is it? why are his hands clamped over his eyes?”

“Are you suggesting George drives as fast as he lives?” Melody’s laughing blue eyes disarming the question.

“Perhaps Saint Christopher doesn’t approve of the face in the rearview,” George postures, gunning into the Beacon Street traffic to an immediate blare of horns. “Then again…maybe it is my driving!” the swell of laughter dispelling any trace of enmity.

Conducive to gaiety, sunlight sparkles the ice adorning the high woods of Concord, the dazzling trees in merry disregard of the tepid ocean breeze down in Boston. Even Hawthorn’s house seems inviting, and Alcott’s; the two snug against a hill, a path along its crest worn deep by Nathaniel belaboring some dark imagining. And Emerson’s house just down the road, George recounting Thoreau as guest, as handy-man and gardener, as teller of tales to the household’s young and to a world that would someday listen in.

Wending among Lexington’s farms, George’s discourse follows freedom’s trail to the winding hillocks overlooking Fresh Pond, the picturesque lake once affording Bostonians their picnics, its winter surface the ice for their tropical trade.

And on to Mount Auburn, the famous cemetery a visiting Dickens once asked to see before any other New England monument, the hallowed site holding dear to its breast the tombs of New England’s finest - the likes of Channing and Brooks, of Howe and Booth - lamps forever lighting the world by their exemplary lives.

Then, along the widening

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.