Thoreau at Devil's Perch (5 page)

Thursday, August 6th

 

A
s a physician I heartily subscribe to the notion that men need respite from their daily labors. Vigorous exercise with one's fellows clears the mind, loosens the ligaments, and assists digestion. I vote a game of town ball a fine means to achieve those healthy ends. This evening's game on the Green also showed that little reveals a man's character as clearly as the manner in which he conducts himself at play. I am quite sure Henry would agree with this if nothing else regarding sport.

Espied him striding down the road from Concord and heading toward the Green as we were loosening our limbs to begin our game. He walked with his usual purposeful air, paying little heed to the men on the playing field, as they shouted and ran and tossed and struck balls all around him. It appeared such activity was beneath his notice. When he reached me, he removed his straw hat and wiped his brow with his neck-kerchief, for the evening was close and the sun still shone through the elms.

“I have news,” he quietly announced, and drew me away from the other players. “The murdered Negro came from Boston on the cars Sunday last. He sat in the same car as the owner of our gun manufactory and his wife. They remarked that he behaved in a mannerly way, without making eye contact or attempting conversation with them. After stepping down from the car in Concord, he made inquiry with the stationmaster, who gave him directions to Plumford. He spoke to no one else, but he was observed walking over the bridge toward Plumford by the cook at the Middlesex Hotel. He was not seen again till I found him dead.”

I was most impressed with his report and had to confess that my own inquiries had resulted in nothing at all. No one I had asked in and around town had seen the man or knew anything of him. “I could go to Boston and inquire at the Causeway Street terminal,” I volunteered.

“I am of the opinion such an inquiry would be futile, Adam, or I would have conducted it myself. Hundreds of travelers a day pass through a busy terminal such as that, and it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack to find one who was there four days ago and recalled our Negro. Henceforward we should concentrate our efforts in Plumford and try to discover who he had come to see here.”

It was getting on seven, and the men shouted after me to play ball. Henry waved me off, declaring that he would linger awhile and perhaps glean something from the folk milling about.

A goodly number of townspeople had strolled to the Green as it was a fine evening. Families were grouped around the town pump, waiting for play to commence, and patrons of the Sun Tavern had come out to watch with mugs of ale in their fists. They find these weekly games highly entertaining, for the men who play in them, of all ages and sizes and trades, are both enthusiastic and able. However, I have noticed upon my return that the games are much rougher this summer due to the influence of a few coarse players. Indeed, the fierce competition is so contagious the even Grandfather got swept up in it and hence did himself harm.

I allow here that before I removed myself to Boston I was the town's best thrower. I always demur when told so and attribute my results to good fortune, but there is no harm in boasting on these private pages. I have all the required skills, and, in addition, I know all the tricks. A hard and fast rule of town ball is that the thrower must give the striker the chance to hit, the point being to get the ball out into the field so all the players will have opportunity to run, catch, and throw. I try to do a fair job of it and can toss a meaty ball for the striker to take his cut at, but any sensible thrower gives less of a chance to the opposing team's most powerful strikers. No need to let them knock a ball into the high elms and clear the stakes.

There is considerable science in making a tricky throw. One must take care, for if the referee behind the striker determines a fair chance was not given by the thrower, he levies a fine of ten cents to be paid on the spot. To avoid such a penalty, I employ high and low speeds and stealthy forms of spin, confounding a strong striker without the referee knowing quite why it is so hard to make a really good knock at bat against me. Does this make me a practitioner of deception or a proponent of smart play? I believe my mates would call me the latter, for the first side to tally a hundred runs is the side that wins, and it is usually the side I am playing on that reaches the century mark first.

My side of twelve this evening included our blacksmith and butcher, two of the most hale-bodied men in town, but the other side had on its roster several hulking drovers and a former Army sergeant called Rufus Badger, a bellicose lout always ready to participate in any form of mayhem that allowed him to use his fists. Badger is just the sort of man I enjoy confounding. He flailed at my first throw and missed by a rod. My second throw flummoxed him even more, and his lumbering attempt to hit the ball made some bonneted onlookers twitter. He appealed to the referee, who warned me to give the man a meaty ball. So I pitched a ball slow enough for a child to hit. I put a spin on it, however, that broke left as Badger swung, so that his mighty swat only nipped the ball, sending it lamely toward the first stake. He heaved off toward the stake, and I got to the ball. My intention, of course, was to soak the man for an out, but he veered offline to make hitting him difficult. I allow that such a maneuver was within Badger's rights, as a striker has no obligation to run straight between stakes. But he went well beyond the rules of good sportsmanship when he leaped over a seated mother and child, making the poor woman shriek in justifiable fear. Without a glance back at them, much less an apology, he lumbered, with all the grace of a dancing bear, toward the sycamore in front of Grandfather's house. I was in hot pursuit of him, yet managed to observe Julia at the gate, smiling at our manly antics. The air was full of shouts for both Badger and me, and I admit the man showed surprising agility and speed for his bulk. I raced after him, running right between Henry Thoreau and Capt. Gideon Peck. They were having such an intense conversation that neither gave me any notice.

And that was when I perhaps acted a bit hotly. Badger veered toward the stake. I did the same, and from twenty feet wound up and threw the ball with all my strength. The ball hit him square on a buttock so hard it sounded like the tail of a fifty-pound beaver slapping the water. The crowd roared with laughter, and Badger turned to glare at me. The ball is too light to cause physical harm, but his pride had been gravely wounded. He no doubt now harbors resentment toward me, for that and for what soon followed.

We changed sides, and during a short interlude I walked over to Henry and Capt. Peck. The combination of the two appeared most combustible. Peck, as a retired Army officer, is a strong and vocal supporter of the Mexican War, and, sure enough, they were arguing about it when I joined them. Although Henry remained calm, Peck's voice was raised to such a degree that it drew the attention of Sgt. Badger. He came over to his former captain and present employer, towering menacingly over Henry as Peck accused him of being a traitor.

“Captain,” I said to Peck, “let us save such hot discussion for the tavern. I am sure the Plumford ladies have come out this evening to be entertained by sport, not loud political debate.”

The mere mention of ladies changed Peck's demeanor, and he coolly looked about him. “You are quite right, Doctor,” he said in the charming, easy manner he has come to be known for since removing to Plumford. He bowed to me, ignored Thoreau entirely, and strode away, Badger in his wake.

Henry did not seem the least perturbed by his argument with Peck. Perhaps he is used to contentious discussions. “I have gleaned no additional information concerning our Negro this evening,” he told me. “Everyone I spoke to expressed mild sympathy that a black man had met with an accident in Plumford and much puzzlement as to why he would have come here in the first place. He was not seen alive by anyone.”

I had expected as much.Yet as futile as our investigation has been thus far, we agreed to continue our inquiries rather than give up. I was called to take my turn at bat, and Henry bade me farewell, declaring that he'd had enough of Plumford for the time being. He did not seem to think much of our fair little town.

And he would have thought far less of it had he stayed. It was drawing dark, and the score was ninety-eight to forty-three, with my side ahead, when Rufus Badger came to bat again. Perhaps I was a mite too confident, for I gave the man an easy throw. He struck the ball with such a force it looked to take the leather cover off. It soared far down the Green, but a scout on my team got to it and launched a throw toward mighty Ira Munger, who was in position near third to soak Badger as he rushed toward home stake. Ira stands a good head taller than most of us, and in his high-crowned straw hat he looks a mythical Gigantes. He could well be the strongest man in town. In his butcher shop down below the dam he swings his heavy cleaver so hard through meat and bone I can hear it in the office, and Grandfather has more than once called on Ira to hold down men for painful surgery.

The flight of the ball carried Ira near Sgt. Badger's path, and as Ira extended his hands to meet the throw Badger purposely rammed into him to divert his run. The force of the blindsided collision was most powerful, but as Ira fell backward, he managed to take hold of Badger, twist him around in the air, and smash to the ground on top of him. Hands tight around Badger's throat, he butted his head down on the sergeant's forehead. I calculated another blow like that would open both men's skulls, so I ran to them and pulled Ira off. He looked at me with such blind rage that I should have feared getting the same rough treatment as Badger. But as I have grown up knowing Ira, who often came to Tuttle Farm to slaughter pigs, I was not affrighted.

“Go easy,” I told him in a low voice.

Ira nodded, and I saw the ire wane from his eyes. Without another look at Badger, he started to walk away. It was over for him.

Badger, however, heaved himself up and took a blackjack from his coat. In the next instant I managed to divert a crushing blow to Ira's skull with a blow of my own to Badger's shoulder. He glowered at me and raised his weapon again.

“Sergeant Badger! Halt!” I heard Capt. Peck shout with the full authority of a military officer. Badger obeyed the command on the instant and stood stiff and still.

Capt. Peck marched over to us but not with his usual firm stride. Noticing his slight limp, I looked at him more closely than I had earlier in the evening. To my professional eye, he appeared physically deteriorated. Not only was he moving in some pain, but his handsome countenance, usually lit up with a debonair smile, was gray and pinched.

“Pardon Sergeant Badger's hot head,” he said to me. “He misses battle and goes looking for it in the wrong places.”

“Swinging a blackjack at an unarmed man is in itself wrong,” I said.

“Not always,” Capt. Peck replied, but he took from Badger the length of leather with a ball of iron wrapped at its tip. “Rufus, go and cool down with a mug of cider.” He tossed his man a coin, and Badger lurched off.

The rest of the players resumed their positions, and my team won the game shortly thereafter. But the fight had taken the fun out of the play, and all trudged quietly away, sobered, I think, by this glimpse into the violent side of our natures so easily let loose by just a game. Thoreau's point had been proven without his even being present to make it.

 

M
olly could not be found in the kitchen this afternoon. That girl avoids work like the plague. When first I came to Plumford, she seemed eager enough to cook and clean, but of late she has been so sluggish and tardy-gaited that I am at my wits' end. What do I know about keeping house or keeping servants? Not that I would dare call Molly Munger a servant to her face. She is the “hired girl,” free to come and go as she likes. Unfortunately, she likes to go home early and come here late.

But hope springs eternal in the human breast, and with the hope that Molly had not left early and was doing something useful about the house, I went in search of her. I found her in the doctor's office beyond the kitchen, sitting at her ease and tittering whilst Adam amused her by dangling his pocket watch in front of her broad, smooth face.

“Pardon me for interrupting your sport, Molly,” I said, trying to sound as sarcastic and scolding as Grandmother Walker used to sound when dealing with her household help (or my own young self, for that matter).

Apparently I lacked sufficient gravitas, for Molly made no attempt to stifle her glee. “Oh, I don't mind the interrupt, Miss Julia. But Doc Adam might.”

“Not at all,” Adam assured me. “I was about to end my experiment anyway. Molly cannot stop giggling long enough to focus her attention.”

“Well, I can't help but find your notion comical,” she retorted, pert as you please.

“What notion is that?” I said.

“Why, Doc Adam thinks he can put me to sleep by waving his watch afore my eyes. Don't that beat all get out?”

I found it quite fascinating. “Did you mean to mesmerize her, Adam?”

“No, I give no countenance to such humbug as the curative power of magnets. It is the curative power of the
mind
that interests me.”

Apparently it did not interest Molly. “A good dose of calomel might cure me better.”

“Calomel is a preparation of mercury, and mercury is a powerful poison,” Adam informed her patiently. “You are too young to habituate yourself to such a strong remedy for such a common ailment as constipation.”

“But I am
uncommonly
blocked up, Doc!”

“I shall make you a preparation that can do you no harm, Molly,” he said. “Castor oil mixed with cassia, fennel, and half a dram of jalap for good measure. Stop by for the potion before you go home.”

Molly thanked him and languidly made her way back to the kitchen.

“She will most likely take her customary midday nap in the buttery now,” I told Adam. “If constipation is the reason Molly Munger has been so indolent of late, let us hope your potion works.”

“I had hoped hypnotism would.”

“But how, Adam?”

“When Molly was in a hypnotic state, I planned to instill in her mind the idea that her bowels would soon perform the desired action.” He must have seen doubt in my eyes. “Really, Julia, such a method has been proven to be amazingly effective in curing a great many maladies.”

“You have used it before?”

“In point of fact, no. But I have been reading a highly advanced scientific book on the subject. It was published in London two years ago.” He lifted the tome off his desk and handed it to me. The title read
Neurypnology; or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep
. “The author is Dr. James Braid. He invented the term hypnotism to describe his method of inducing nervous sleep. He explains his procedure in this book, and I was attempting to follow it with Molly. Unfortunately, she could not take me seriously.”

“Nor can I,” I admitted, handing back the book.

“I had hoped you of all people would understand, Julia.”

He looked so disappointed that I attempted to defend myself. “Why expect me to understand the latest medical methods, Adam? My training has been solely in art.”

“And as an artist you must appreciate the mind's ability to produce thoughts of a highly creative nature. Well, the mind has the ability to produce thoughts that control physical functions too.”

I considered this a moment and recalled the only time in my life that I had been seriously ill. “I am reminded of Magic,” I said.

Adam looked even more disappointed. “What I am talking about has nothing to do with magic, Julia.”

“Does it not? Do you remember how ill I became after my mother died?”

“Yes, of course. Grief incapacitated you to such a degree that you could not leave your bed. Grandfather feared that you too had fallen victim to Consumption.”

“You would visit me every day, smelling of fresh air and grass,” I said.“And one morning you brought me a poor, sickly kitten from the farm.You told me she had been abandoned by her mother and needed my tender attentions or she would perish.”

“Ah, yes,” Adam said. “You named the kitten Magic.”

“And so absorbed did I become in making Magic well that I ceased to dwell on my recent loss and soon became well myself.”

“You are right, Julia,” Adam acknowledged. “Magic's effect upon you is an excellent example of what I am talking about. The workings of the mind influence the workings of the body, and I would much prefer to induce my patients to use their own thoughts to cure themselves than dose them with harsh drugs. I do not put much stock in purgatives and opiates, but most doctors have great faith in their healing power. Hence their patients do too. Dr. Braid calls this the power of suggestion. When he put his patients in a hypnotic state, this same power of suggestion actuated healing without medicines of any sort. Severe headaches and seizures were cured. Even rheumatic pain and epilepsy.”

“That is indeed most remarkable, Adam.”

“Furthermore, a good many minor surgical operations have been performed painlessly during hypnosis.”

“The more I hear, the more impressed I become.”

“Then hark this, Julia. One of Dr. Braid's patients was a young mother who was breast-feeding. She was producing too little milk to feed her babe, and Dr. Braid hypnotized her to secrete more. He began with only one breast, and after it filled with milk she complained of feeling lopsided. So he hypnotized her again and suggested she increase secretion in the other breast. And so she did!” Adam smiled sheepishly. “Forgive me, Julia. You must find such medical frankness indelicate.”

I suppose I should have, but I did not. “Please continue,” I urged.

“Well, enough about mammary functions. Dr. Braid also discovered that hypnosis produces an extraordinary revival of the memory. He calls this hypnotic hypermnesia. His subjects can recall, in the greatest detail, long-forgotten incidents from their childhoods.”

“How pleasing that must be,” I said. “My most cherished memories are those of my mother before she became ill. Unfortunately, they have dimmed over the years.”

“Perhaps I could help you revive them by means of hypnosis, Julia.”

“Can that really be possible?”

“Surely it is worth a try.”

I could see how eager he was to experiment. Indeed, I too was eager to give it a try. But I would not give in so easily. “Let us negotiate, Adam. I will agree to be your subject if you agree to be mine. Allow me to paint your portrait.”

From the way he winced one would have thought I had suggested pulling out all his strong, white teeth. “You do not want to waste your fine talent on a likeness of me,” he said. “Nor can I spare the time to sit for you.”

Determined to capture his features before I left Plumford, I persisted. “Then let me at least make a plaster cast of your face, Adam. That would take half an hour at most.”

“Very well,” he conceded. “But I believe you to be the winner of this bargain. I shall have my poor mug smothered in wet plaster, whereas you shall have pleasant remembrances of your mother.”

He sat me down in the consultation chair by the desk and extracted his timepiece from his waistcoat pocket. “Dr. Braid has subjects focus on his lancet case, but I think a watch is less intimidating,” he said. He held the watch about a foot from my face, dangling it by its chain. “All you have to do is keep your body relaxed, your eyes fixed on the watch, and your mind riveted on its movement, Julia. You will not lose consciousness. You will simply descend into a deep, restful state of mental concentration. You will hear my voice and obey my instructions. And at the end of this session I will clap my hands, and you will immediately come out of the hypnotic state.”

I did as I was told, and it wasn't long before my lids began to close involuntarily. From that moment on I remember nothing till I heard the sharp sound of a clap near my ear. My eyes flew open, and I saw Adam kneeling before me.

“Please tell me all is well with you, Julia,” he said.

“Why should it not be?”

“Because I have acted imprudently.” He handed me his handkerchief. “Dry your eyes and try to forgive me.”

I touched my cheek. It was moist from tears. “Whatever happened?”

“I asked you to go back to when you were a girl so that you could relive happy times with your mother. Instead, you began to relive her last agonizing hours. Go back farther, I kept urging you, and at last you did.”

“To before she became ill?”

“Long, long before that.”

“Over twenty years ago when I was but a babe?”

“To before you were even born.”

“You speak in riddles, Adam.”

“I do not mean to. But your recollection was so unexpected and confusing.”

“Just tell me what I told you.”

“You claimed you were in a garden encircled by colonnades and filled with fig and olive trees.You said it overlooked the Tiber River, and you could see a large amphitheater in the distance.You must have been recalling Rome.”

“But I have never been there,” I told Adam. “Nor to any part of Italy. My father never obtained a portrait commission there, and we could ill afford to travel for our own amusement. Besides, we speak not a word of Italian between us.”

“Yet you speak Latin quite fluently.”

“I know nothing of that ancient language, Adam.”

“You must have picked up a smattering of Latin somehow,” he insisted. “You rattled off a few phrases of it whilst in a hypnotic state.”

“Really? What exactly did I say?”

Adam shrugged. “My own Latin is not as good as it could be. I know just enough to understand medical terms.”

“Well, never mind about that. Recount more of this vision of mine.”

“You said there was a statue of Dionysus in this garden, overlooking a shallow pool.”

“Were there other people about?”

He hesitated. “There were a number of them.”

“Did I describe them?”

“You said the men were wearing togas and the women stolas.”

“How wonderful! Pray, who were these antiquated people?”

Adam looked away from me. “The rest of what you said was rather vague.”

“But my description of the garden sounds so explicit. Can you not tell me more details?”

“I cannot,” Adam said. “You suddenly started crying again, and I clapped my hands to awaken you.”

“Why can I not recall any of this?”

“Most likely because I did not instruct you to. And that was for the best. Otherwise you would have been left with fresh memories of your dear mother's passing.”

“But now I am left most curious about my Roman remembrance. Could that too have been dredged up from my past?”

“I thought you said you have never been to Rome, Julia.”

“Well, not in
this
life. Perhaps in a previous one, though.”

“Nonsense,” Adam said. “It was merely a dream made more vivid by your unnatural sleep.”

“Well, whatever it was, you must hypnotize me again and bring me back there, Adam. Only this time pray instruct me to remember the visit.”

He stood up abruptly and frowned down at me. “I will do no such thing. This experiment should not be repeated. Who knows where it could lead us.”

“That is what makes it so exciting!”

“No, Julia. That is what makes it so perilous. Please do not argue with me about it anymore.”

I did not. I have found that arguing with Adam only makes him dig in his heels all the deeper. We are much alike in that regard, he and I. But I have not given up trying to persuade him to hypnotize me again. How I wish he would cease being so protective toward me. It can be most irritating.