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Warm-up activity |
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Discovery of a Father
If they didn't come to our house they'd go off, say at night, to where there was a grassy place by a creek. They'd cook food there and drink beer and sit about listening to his stories.
He was always telling stories about himself. He'd say this or that wonderful thing happened to him. It might be something that made him look like a fool. He didn't care.
If an Irishman came to our house, right away father would say he was Irish. He'd tell what county in Ireland he was born in. He'd tell things that happened there when he was a boy. He'd make it seem so real that, if I hadn't known he was born in southern Ohio, I'd have believed him myself.
If it was a Scotchman, the same thing happened. He'd get a burr into his speech. Or he was a German or a Swede. He'd be anything the other man was. I think they all knew he was lying, but they seemed to like him just the same. As a boy that was what I couldn 't understand .
And there was Mother. How could she stand it? I wanted to ask but never did. She was not the kind you asked such questions.
I'd be upstairs in my bed, in my room above the porch, and Father would be telling some of his tales.
A lot of Father's stories were about the Civil War. To hear him tell it he'd been in about every battle.
He'd known Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and I don't know how many others. He'd been particularly intimate with
General Grant so that when Grant went East, to take charge of all the armies, he took Father along.
"I was an orderly at headquarters and Sam Grant said to me, ' Irve, ' he said, ' I'm going to take you along with me.Ħħ
It seems he and Grant used to slip off sometimes and have a quiet drink together. That's what my father said. He'd tell about the day Lee surrendered and how, when the great moment came, they couldn't find Grant.
"You know, " my father said, "about General Grant's book, his memoirs. You've read of how he said he had a headache and how, when he got word that Lee was ready to call it quits, he was suddenly and miraculously cured. "
"Huh, " said Father. "He was in the woods with me.Ħħ
"I was in there with my back against a tree. I was pretty well corned. I had got hold of a bottle of pretty good stuff.Ħħ
"They were looking for Grant. He had got off his horse and come into the woods. He found me. He was covered with mud. "
"I had the bottle in my hand. What'd I care? "The war was over. I knew we had them licked. "
My father said that he was the one who told Grant about Lee. An orderly riding by had told him, because the orderly knew how thick he was with Grant. Grant was embarrassed.
"But, Irve, look at me. I'm all covered with mud, " he said to Father.
And then, my father said, he and Grant decided to have a drink together.
They took a couple of shots and then, because he didn't want Grant to show up potted before the immaculate Lee,
he smashed the bottle against the tree.
"Sam Grant's dead now and I wouldn't want it to get out on him," my father said.
That's just one of the kind of things he'd tell. Of course, the men knew he was lying,but they seemed to like it just the same .
When we got broke, down and out, do you think he ever brought anything home? Not he. If there wasn't anything to eat in the house, he'd go off visiting around at farm houses. They all wanted him.
Sometimes he'd stay away for weeks, Mother working to keep us fed, and then home he'd come bringing, let's say, a ham. he'd got it from some farmer friend. He'd slap it on the table in the kitchen. "You bet I'm going to see that my kids have something to eat, " he'd say, and Mother would just stand smiling at him. She'd never say a word about all the weeks and months he'd been away, not leaving us a cent for food. Once I heard her speaking to a woman in our street. Maybe the woman had dared to sympathize with her. "Oh, " she said "it's all right. He isn't ever dull like most of the men in this street. Life is never dull when my man is about. "
But often I was filled with bitterness, and sometimes I wished he wasn't my father.
I'd even invent another man as my father. To protect my mother I'd make up stories of a secret marriage
that for some strange reason never got known. As though some man, say the president of a railroad company
or maybe a Congressman, had married my mother, thinking his wife was dead and then it turned out she wasn't.
So they had to hush it up but I got born just the same. I wasn't really the son of my father. Somewhere in the world
there was a very dignified , quite wonderful man who was really my father. I even made myself half believe these fancies.
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