Notes From My Knapsack 10-21-10
Jeff Gill
Twelve Years Old In Granville – 1833
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She felt, rather than heard the rumble of feet through the frame of the house itself. Her sister slept, just six years old, in the bed across the loft from her, and their three month old brother was gurgling downstairs in the corner of their parents' room, closer to the hearth and the last glowing embers of the evening fire.
Living in a fairly new frame house, you could tell without even opening your eyes if someone had on their boots, or was padding about in their wool stockings. The vibrations traveled across the floor planking, into the wall joists and up to the loft, along the puncheon floor, up the lathe-turned legs and through the cords that wound under the ticksack mattress.
It was full dark outside this November night, but there was a glow, coming and going oddly through the heavy, rippled glass of the one window at the gable end. Late as it was, to feel booted feet walking about downstairs was unusual, so she slipped on her shift and moved over to the head of the steep ladder down.
There was a creak of the door hinges, and a chill draft blowing up from below, then a distant sound of muttering voices, punctuated by the baby's muted cries. She turned, and slid down the ladder, catching the last wide rung with her bare feet and stepping down gently to the floor.
Her mother was not in bed, either, but standing near the front window, which had a set of city glass panes which were thinner and more transparent.
"What's going on, Mother?" the girl asked.
Mother jumped, then strode over to where her daughter stood and wrapped an arm around her tightly.
"The world is ending, dear; we must be brave."
Even for a twelve year old, accustomed to the oddity of adult conversation, this was strange, but not as terrifying as it might seem. She had been worrying that the strange lights outside were a neighboring house with a chimney fire, as so often happened, endangering their own snug home. Somehow, the world ending didn't sound quite as bad.
"How do you mean?" Before the older woman could form an answer, the door swung open again, and Father stood there, shaking his head.
"That fool Humphrey boy is just laying out there in the Broadway watching the show; he's going to get himself run over by a farmer coming home late." As he spoke, the church bell downtown began to ring steadily.
"Is it the . . ." the girl began to ask.
"No, darling," he answered, his glance taking in both wife and daughter with the endearment. "The Good Lord Almighty seems to be having us on a bit, for his own purposes."
The three of them walked out on the front step, and before looking up, saw that lamps were flickering into life through windows all along Elm Street, and people, mostly barefoot, stood outside as they did.
Above, the skies were filled with streaks of fire, bursts of golden-orange light shooting from a common point overhead, burning to the horizon in all directions. They were mostly all the same, and each one different.
Except to go in and pull on stockings, and check the baby, they sat there all night, until dawn overwhelmed the still flaring falling stars. "We may never know what that was, but it was surely glorious," said Father as the sun rose, and Mother went back inside to make them all a hot breakfast.
(This is the second of a series of stories, each called "Twelve Years Old in Granville." Some will be based in fact, as in the "Night the Stars Fell" on Nov. 12, 1833, and others will require a bit more creative guesswork and imagining. I hope you find them all informative and intriguing.)
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