by John Pipkin
Eliot accepts the shovel, though he does not think the situation so dire as Dickerson claims. “Is the town truly at risk?”
Dickerson points toward the center of the crowd, and Eliot puts on his spectacles to better see the man standing on a barrel, speaking to the gathering. His face and clothes are blackened with ash, and he is describing the fire in the woods with great sweeping motions of his arms, as if he were trying to take flight.
“The way he tells it,” Dickerson says, “we'll all be standing in ashes by nightfall if this wind does not abate. Nothing more than a few hundred acres of dry forest stands between Concord and the flames.”
“Does he know how it began?”
“Says it was an accident. That's Squire Hoar's son, Edward Sherman, a trustworthy fellow.”
More men arrive, and Edward Sherman Hoar continues to describe the height of the flames and the speed of their advance, but he offers no thoughts on how to combat it. A man in overalls at the front of the crowd nudges him from the barrel and climbs up in his stead. This man shouts in a commanding voice, suggests that the women and children of Concord, and anyone else incapable of swinging a shovel, should be sent out of the path of destruction.
“He's right,” Dickerson says to Eliot. “We ought to empty the town, before the fire does it for us.”
Eliot pictures the Concord Road jammed with horses and wagons, carts piled high with valuable belongings. “Surely it will not come to that.”
Dickerson swings his boiled head to indicate the homes along Main Street. “I reckon there are almost two thousand souls hereabouts,” he says, “and if the fire comes—the plague could do no worse.”
Eliot imagines the homes of Concord ablaze, pictures the Shakespeare Hotel collapsing under the heat and smoke; he thinks of his own impotent attempts at describing such a blaze in The House of Many Windows. And in that moment he can hardly believe this fortunate turn of events. It is no wonder that he has not been able to realize his vision for the play's final scene. The problem is suddenly clear to him. Eliot wants the audience to feel the heat of the fire, wants them to experience the dismay of his hero, Marcus DeMonte, but he cannot hope to describe what he has never experienced for himself.
While the men of Concord debate how best to attack the fire, Eliot envisions the scene from The House of Many Windows as it should appear onstage. In the foreground, DeMonte wrings his hands, frozen in agony. The entire set will be destroyed and rebuilt every night, a massive endeavor, but Moses Kimball has convinced him that the Boston Museum Theater has handled bigger spectacles than this. Eliot must simply finish the play He pictures DeMonte summoning courage to enter the burning house and rescue his infant son. He thinks he might allow DeMonte a soliloquy at the end as he stands before his ruined home, a poignant reflection on his unexpected freedom from material possessions. Eliot revises the title in his head: The House of Many Windows; or The Second Chance. Concord must be saved, he thinks, but there is valuable experience to be garnered first.
Eliot clutches the handle of the shovel from Dickerson's shop and watches the men in the crowd argue over the best course of action.
“People need to be more careful with their blasted lucifers,” Otis Dickerson says. Eliot nods in agreement, and then quietly slips back through the crowd, taking the new shovel with him.
19
Oddmund
Just before Odd reaches the center of Concord, he sees a stranger approaching him with long, deliberate strides. In the presence of such men, Odd feels something shrink behind his rib cage. Even as he tells himself that they are no better, no more deserving than himself, he feels his breath diminish, as if to acknowledge that he has no claim to their air. The man before him looks like a wealthy merchant, with his bright yellow vest and the rectangular spectacles balanced on his nose. He carries a bright new shovel, cradling it in his arms as if he were unsure how to put it to use. Odd puts his head down and scuttles sideways, but the man is on him in an instant and their paths meet next to a narrow wooden watering trough. Odd studies the bottom of the empty trough, avoiding the man's stare.
“There is a conflagration in your forest,” the man tells him. He speaks loudly and punctuates his words with the handle of the shovel.
Odd sucks in a deep, undeserved breath. His tongue finds the little black tooth. His news is already old, his trip wasted. He smiles nervously and again tries to step past, but the man slips in front of him once more.
“I shall not tarry while your townsmen deliberate. With each passing minute, another acre disappears into the fiend's gaping maw.” The man raises his shovel like a sword and waves it at the horizon.
“This fire,” Odd says, looking at the man sideways, “it is utstrakt… ah, most very large. It is more than one man can do, I think.”
“Then you intend to wait for the others?” the man says. “Well and good. Each man must choose according to his will. I am a man of action, and today I shall act.”
The man taps the handle of the shovel to his forehead and marches off. Odd wonders if he has any idea what he is headed into. He watches the man stride away in the direction of the unfurling ribbon of smoke, the blade of the shovel shining over his shoulder.
The men Odd has come to inform are already gathered at the center of town. There are a hundred or more, as far as Odd can tell. Odd knows most by sight and a few by name. They are arguing quietly, trying to restrain their panic.
“We must stop it before it reaches the town,” someone shouts. “If it comes here, it will go to Boston.”
“We must surround it.”
“Get to its source, strike at its heart.”
“I have shovels enough for all.”
Between each comment, murmurs and nods float through the crowd. Odd knows that he should return to Woburn Farm at once. These men do not need his help, and he feels foolish now for having left Emma unprotected.
“We'll need more axes,” someone yells. “Who'll collect more axes?”
Odd watches the crowd grow denser, pressing inward with the utterance of each new idea. Then he is startled by a voice that materializes an inch from his ear.
“Mr. Hus, what do you expect to accomplish empty-handed?”
Otis Dickerson stands beside him, perched on his toes, holding two rust-spotted axes, one of which he apparently has been trying to give him. “I've no more shovels. You'll have to content yourself with one of these. Not so dull as they appear.”
Odd takes one of the axes without looking at it, and Mr. Dickerson shakes his head in mild exasperation.
“What were you dreaming about?”
Odd feels his face redden. It is his apology for simply being here. He blushes the way that some men block punches. Odd steps away, but Otis Dickerson places an avuncular hand on his shoulder.
“You ought think only of what you are doing when you are doing it. Dreaming will get you killed in that fire. I've seen a man swallowed whole in a house fire, and what we're facing is tenfold in size.”
Odd nods. He thinks of Emma and he feels foolish for having left her in danger. He thinks of the usual errands that bring him into Concord, thinks of the simple lists written in her careful script, the beautiful smudges of her thick fingers in the damp ink: soap, flour, salt, beans. The thought of living out his days on this narrow path of austere intentions makes his throat constrict with happiness. Then he thinks of what Dickerson has just described to him, and he pictures Emma trapped in the burning farmhouse, waiting for rescue.
“Odd!” Otis Dickerson startles him from his thoughts and seizes his arm behind the elbow. “You had better stay close to me. Do what I do, so you don't get misplaced. You don't want to be caught in the fire alone.”
Odd imagines the size of the fire loose in the woods, and the vision fills him with dread.
“I cannot go into the fire,” Odd blurts out.
“Why have you come if not to help beat down the inferno?”
Odd cannot argue with the man. Why has he come? He has done
so for the same reason that he does most things. He is here because Emma asked it of him. She asked him to come to town to tell the people of Concord what they already knew. He should have realized before leaving that the smoke would have alerted everyone long before he arrived. He should have realized that, once here, it would be impossible for him not to help. These men will rush into the fire, when the sensible thing would be to run away, as far as the ocean if necessary. Odd feels the shiny, scarred flesh on his forearm tighten. He hopes that Emma has sense enough to run before the fire reaches her.
He turns to tell Otis Dickerson that he truly cannot help them, that he is needed back at Woburn Farm, that he will not know what to do when he encounters the fire, that a man who has already been burned is the last man he should want standing beside him when the flames advance. But when Odd turns to plead his case he finds that he has somehow been swept into the midst of the army of volunteers. Otis Dickerson is a half step behind him, pushing him along with a gentle pressure on his elbow. The men have already begun to move, and Odd is moving along with them.
20
Eliot
Eliot follows the rising plume of smoke as far as the road out of Concord takes him, and then he turns into the woods. The fire is not here yet, but the smell of the burning is everywhere. Flurries of white ash drift through the untouched trees like snow. If the men do not act soon, he thinks, the fire will certainly fall upon the town. Eliot walks quickly, but the smoke is an elusive guide, shifting direction, coiling and uncoiling above the trees. Eliot pretends he is tracking the slithering tail of a dragon, the kind of mythic beast that the modern world lacks. The great quests have all been undertaken, he thinks, oceans crossed, continents discovered; there are few means left by which a man might prove himself. The untamed expanse of the American continent promises adventures, but not of the kind once embraced by explorers of uncharted seas; the Western territories promise only the opportunity to contribute to the slow, inevitable population of inhospitable land.
Eliot is not entirely certain what he will do when he reaches the fire. The stupendous clouds of smoke confirm what the quiet man at the watering trough has just told him: the fire is surely too large for a single man to inhibit its progress. But Eliot wants to stand alone in front of the maelstrom, to let its heat and thunder wash over him, before the other men interfere. After today, he will understand what it means to confront this most elemental force of nature.
Eliot thinks of his play as he tramps through the woods; he envies DeMonte. His hero will lose everything to the flames, but he will gain the opportunity to start anew. Eliot imagines himself standing next to Margaret and their children, watching the house on Beacon Street crumble to ash, and suddenly another possible ending for The House of Many Windows comes to him. Eliot stops walking, drops the shovel, and pulls out his pocket memorandum and pencil. DeMonte, he decides, will announce his transformation through a courageous soliloquy. Eliot writes quickly, with the taste of smoke at the back of his throat: “I am a man simplified! Through the accident of the purging flame, I have discovered the benefit of reducing life to elemental wonders. Simplify! What other men see as tragedy, I view as a miracle.”
This fire in the Concord Woods is more than an accident, Eliot thinks; it is evidence of the Fates in action, and he knows he is meant to take a lesson from it. Eliot has spent too many hours studying his ledgers, paying bills, filling invoices, satisfying one need only to create new ones. He wonders if he might convince Margaret that they really do not need the large house on Beacon Street. At the very least, perhaps he can make her see that they do not need so many servants. He thinks he could surrender his carriage, or purchase a smaller one. If he cannot render his life as simple as DeMonte s, then he will strive to make it less complicated. He will find a way. The fire will show him how to rework the final scenes of the The House of Many Windows. Once he faces the heat and smoke, he will better understand what DeMonte should feel, what he should say and do. Eliot knows that Moses Kimball is impatient for the finished manuscript, but once he has seen the revision he will understand why it has taken so long.
Eliot had always intended that The House of Many Windows would reach its climax with the burning of DeMonte's home, but he had thought the effect might be achieved simply through a combination of foot lamps and undulating scrims of painted flames. He had not considered setting the entire stage aflame, not until he had spoken to Moses Kimball of the Boston Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts.
Eliot had not set foot in the Boston Museum until the day he met with Mr. Kimball. In fact, he had avoided the place since its opening in 1841. Eliot had heard enough about the cheap entertainments to be found inside. Aside from the occasional operetta or tableau vivant, the venue mostly offered diversions of a nontheatrical sort, but by 1843 Mr. Kimball had decided to begin showing full-length plays. Eliot had reason to be hopeful. It seemed a likely possibility that a new theater looking to establish a regular audience might be open to the work of an untested playwright.
The museum inhabited a large building at the corner of Tremont and Bromfield Streets. On the day that Eliot brought the pages of his unfinished manuscript to Mr. Kimball, he found the entrance to the museum plastered with faded placards advertising past appearances by “Mary Gannon the Juvenile Delineator,” “Wyff Kloff the Russian Giant,” and “P. T. Barnum's Japanese Mermaid.” Eliot understood why Mr. Kimball might need to rely on such attractions to underwrite his theatrical productions, and he could find no fault with a man who sought to turn a profit. A sign above the entrance to the museum announced:
Admission 25 ¢
Grieving a Beloved Pet?
Taxidermy While You Wait!
Art must make concessions to commerce, Eliot thought. He took another look at the crude drawing of the simian mermaid, stuffed his play resolutely under his arm, and stepped through the doors.
There were no visitors to the museum this early in the day, and Eliot's footsteps echoed off the high ceiling. In the foyer, a twelve-foot-tall giraffe greeted him with an embalmed smirk. The vast space was crammed with cages, each promising a curiosity more astounding than the last. Glass cases bore rows of greasy smudges: at bottom, smears of little palms and flattened noses; higher up, the demonstrative prints of large fingertips. Behind the glass prowled lifeless beasts featuring exotic colors and strange deformities: an orang-outang, a grounded flock of dodoes, a dog with an extra foreleg, a cat with two heads. Shelves and pedestals held jars of cloudy brine in which floated pickled creatures one would never encounter in the forests or rivers of New England.
And there were humans on display as well, figures cast in wax. A kneeling woman pleaded for her life with a trio of red-skinned savages, all of whom shared the same drooping, glass-eyed indifference. Next to this, a more grisly scene of madmen drenched in gore: “The Pirates' Cabin—A lesson to discourage the young lads of Boston who would play at being pirates on the river Charles.” Between these displays sat a replica of a pneumatic railroad and a functioning model of the gigantic cataract at Niagara.
Eliot sidestepped the spears of sunlight reaching from the tall windows near the ceiling; motes of dust eddied around him as he made his way to the back office. His knock went unanswered, and when he looked around the edge of the half-opened door he caught his breath and nearly dropped his manuscript. At the desk slumped a man, his head lolling back at an impossible angle, his throat cut from ear to ear, eyes white, shirt soaked through with blood. A whiskey bottle protruded from his coat pocket, and his lifeless hand still clutched a bloody knife.
Eliot jumped away from the door and stumbled into Moses Kimball himself. The man laughed and slapped him roughly on the back.
“Our newest display!” Kimball said proudly. “We're calling it ‘The Drunken Reward; or The Deadly Fruits of Dissipation.’ Church folks love this kind of thing. Can't get a penny from them for a play but dress up a moral lesson and they'll gladly give over a silver eagle to look on the bloodiest predicaments. You must be
the man with the new play Calvert, is it?”
“Eliot Calvert.” Eliot was surprised by just how deeply the bloody figure had affected him. He tried to laugh good-naturedly but succeeded only in clearing his throat.
Moses Kimball was ordinary-looking, with a high forehead and a sharp nose, but he wore his dark, thick hair unusually long, and he was dressed entirely in black: boots, breeches, coat, shirt, cravat. He stepped around his desk, pulled up an empty chair, and motioned for Eliot to take a seat across from him. Kimball's office was jammed with displays in need of repair. A giant bear spilled straw from its hindquarter, and next to this a fragile landscape of the city of Dublin rendered in paper and wood four inches high, bore the large, unruly imprint of a child's foot at its center. Eliot noticed that the naked wax figure in the corner bore a woman's head, and he hurriedly turned his eyes back to Kimball.
“Well, let's have it,” Kimball said. He flipped through the hundred-odd pages Eliot handed him and sighed. “The gist, man. The gist! I haven't time for tedium.”
Eliot gave his best summary, half wondering if he was expected to evoke some approval from the bloody figure seated next to Kimball.
“A fire, you say?” Kimball's eyes were shut, his forefingers touched at his nose.
“At the end, yes.”
“There's no language in this, is there?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Curses, man! Blasphemies. We'll have none of that at the Boston Museum. If there are objectionable ejaculations—O, Providence! O, Heaven! O, lud! O, paradise!—you'll have to cut them right out.”
“Of course not.” Eliot fiddled with the buttons on his waistcoat. “So am I to take it that you are, in fact, interested?”
“What do I know of plays? But the fire you mentioned, now that's something!”
