Just beyond the gateway father hid the lighted lantern in the near-by bushes over a grave and told me to wait there unless I heard somebody coming. He expected me to be grown up at the age of ten. Nerves meant sickness; if any child cried out in the night it was merely considered “delicate.” Consequently I obeyed and watched, shivering with cold and excitement, darting quick glances at the ghostly forms of some of father’s monuments which loomed out of the darkness around me. I could hear the steady chunk, chunk, chunk of his pick and shovel, and the sharper sound when suddenly he struck the coffin.
Father had taken it as a matter of course that I should understand and had not explained what he was about to do. But I never questioned his actions. I did not know there was a law against a man’s digging up his own dead child but, even had I known, I would have believed that the law was wrong.
We traveled back the long, weary way, arriving home in the early hours of the morning. Nothing was said to mother or to the others about that amazing night’s adventure; I was not told to keep silent, but I knew there was mystery in the air and it was no time to talk.
For two evenings I worked with father, helping him break the death mask, mold and shape the cast. I remember the queer feeling I had when I discovered some of the hair which had stuck in the plaster. On the third day, just after supper, father said to us all, “Will you come into the studio?” With tender eyes on mother he uncovered and presented to her the bust of the dead little boy.
She was extraordinarily comforted. Though to me the model, perfect as it was, seemed lifeless, every once in a while she entered the studio, took off the cloth which protected it from the dust, wept and was relieved, recovered it and went on.
Not one of us dared to utter a word of criticism about mother’s adored and adoring husband; nevertheless her soul was harassed at times by his philosophy of live and let live, by his principles against locked doors and private property. She was merely selfless. Often when one of her children was feverish she went to the kitchen pump for water so that it might be cooler and fresher for parched lips. Once, groping her way on such an errand, she stumbled over a tramp who had taken advantage of the unlatched door and lay sprawled on the floor. She rushed back to arouse father, telling him he must put the man out. But he only turned over on his side and muttered, “Oh, let him alone. The poor divil needs sleep like the rest of us.”
Another night mother was awakened by noises outside. “Father,” she called, “there’s somebody at the hencoop!”
“What makes you think so?” he answered sleepily.
“I hear the chickens. They wouldn’t make a noise unless somebody was in there. Get up!”
Obediently father put on his trousers and coat; not even before thieves would he appear in his nightshirt out of his bedroom. He proceeded to the kitchen door, and, holding a lamp on high, addressed the two men, one of whom was handing out chickens to the other, “Hey, you, there! What do you mean by coming to a man’s house in the middle of the night and shtealing his chickens? What kind of citizens are you?”