April Morning Read Free

To him it was a principle. In two minutes, my father could lead any argument or discussion around to being a principle.
    So he said grace glaring across the table at the imaginary point where he placed God, and I always felt that God had the worst of it. My father couldn’t just begin a meal with something direct and ordinary, like “Thank Thee, O Lord, for Thy daily bread and the fruit of the harvest.” Oh, no—no, he had to embellish it. If there was no guest at the meal, God was always present, and tonight my father said sternly:
    â€œWe thank thee, O Lord, for the bread we eat, but we are also conscious of seed we have planted, of the hands that guided the plow and the back bent in toil. The ground is dry as dust, and I will take the liberty of asking for a little rain. I know that Thou givest with one hand and Thou takest away with the other, but sometimes it seems to me to go beyond the bounds of reason. Amen!”
    Then he turned to his soup. Granny lifted her head and stared at him, and finally said, “Moses?”
    â€œYes, Mother?”
    She sighed, and we all began to eat.
    â€œYes, Mother?”
    â€œNothing,” Granny said. “Nothing at all.”
    â€œWhatever is on your mind, Mother, I would appreciate your coming out with it and saying it.”
    â€œEat your soup, Moses,” she sighed.
    He was inordinately fond of soup, and during the soup he left conversation to the women and children. I did not have much to say to Levi, being occupied with my own thoughts, some of them about Ruth Simmons and also some thoughts about going to sea. If you had respectable kin in Boston, it was generally understood that one of the younger sons would go to sea and learn the trade, since there was no better way to end up with a fine house and a wife in silks and laces, and good, imported furniture as well as some standing in the community. I was not a younger son, but one day in Boston, Captain Ishmael Jamison, my uncle on my mother’s side, had felt my muscles, asked me a number of questions, and finished by wondering how I would like to sign on with him as bottom junior on a voyage to the Indies. I was remembering this, contemplating it, and speculating on whether there weren’t more interesting girls in the world than Ruth Simmons, whom I had seen at least every day of my life. I also kept in back of my mind a picture of my father’s rage if I came out with so much as a hint about going to sea.
    At the same time, Mother and Granny talked about the quilt competition. There were those in the village who held that any sort of competition was vain and sinful, and no better than another form of pride. Granny put out that it was pure nonsense that the acknowledgment that one person did something better than another was sinful. She made the best and most colorful quilts in town, and had been quietly pumping for a competition for years.
    â€œIt’s not for the sake of a prize or money,” Granny said. “I do suppose that if there was something to be won or gained, it might be likened to a form of gambling.”
    â€œWhat’s this about gambling?” my father demanded. He had finished his soup.
    â€œIf Sarah Livingston could win, not likely, since she can’t sew three stitches straight, we’d have the contest, she being married to the elder, be sure of that,” Mother said.
    â€œGambling?”
    â€œEat your supper,” Granny told Father. “What is a turkey shoot but gambling and sin? What is the lottery they hold each year in Boston?—and don’t tell me that only High Church buys the tickets.”
    â€œDid I say that?”
    I helped Mother take the empty dishes off and bring on the platters of meat cakes and potatoes and parsnips and boiled pudding.
    â€œYou were about to, Moses.”
    â€œWhat is all this talk about gambling?”
    â€œIt’s woman talk. Pass me your plate.”
    It did me good to see Granny