the end of his Winnipeg chapter. His mother is dead. His faith is exhausted. His thirty-three-year-old body frightens him with its perversities. The world frightens him, too, even as it beckons to him brightly, offering him whatever he desires, or almost. He must turn a page now, and move forward, eastward, Ottawa to be precise, the capital of the Dominion.
And my father, Cuyler Goodwill of Tyndall, Manitoba, has finished his tower. How does he know it is finished? The proportions tell him so, the wholly pleasing correspondence of height, width, circumference; one more course around the top and the thing would grow unbalanced; he looks at it and his thoughts become easy, almost lazy. And there have been so many visitors lately, and so many newspaper reporters. (He suspects that visitors are carrying away pieces of his worked stone, and all he can do when he hears such gossip is shrug.) These visitors have distracted him to the extent that lately he has forgotten the impulse that launched the tower. He talks willingly, even eagerly, with those who come, but shies away from the root of his obsession. Why exactly have you persevered with your tower, Mr. Goodwill? Well, now, a person starts a piece of work and the work takes over. God has receded, a mere shadow, and as for Mercy—her grave so sunken and grown over—he cannot recollect the look of her face or the outline of her body. His brief marriage, his conversion—these seem no more than curious intersections in a life that is stretching itself forward.
A letter has come from Professor Barker Flett in Winnipeg concerning the breakdown of guardianship arrangements and the problem of what is to be done for Daisy’s future care.
Another letter has come, only yesterday, from the president of the Indiana Limestone Company of Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. Expert stone carvers are urgently needed. An extravagant wage has been named. A comfortable apartment on Cross Street in Vinegar Hill (whatever that may be) is available for his occupancy. Transportation will be arranged for himself, his family, and his household effects. Does Mr. Goodwill have a family? Immediate reply requested. Please wire.
Bessie Perfect got blamed for giving Daisy Goodwill the measles.
With her fever and sore throat, Bessie should have been home in bed instead of standing at the Fletts’ very doorstep, handing Daisy her overdue botany notes, apologizing in great girlish splutters, and sneezing into the child’s susceptible eleven-year-old face.
The disease went wafting through Daisy’s respiratory passages, and soon she had all the symptoms. Aunt Clarentine (for this is how Daisy has always addressed her) peered into the child’s mouth and leapt back with horror—spots everywhere. The poor little thing was put to bed in a darkened room. The door was kept shut, with Aunt Clarentine her only visitor, and no one could say the woman was not a devoted nurse. She brought the sick child cool, wet rags to soothe her fever, a solution of boracic lotion to douche her eyes morning and night, herbal creams of her own making to assuage the itching, and trays of soft food to pick at—poached eggs, stewed fruit—after which Daisy was adjured to cleanse her mouth with a forefinger wrapped in cotton wool. She began to get better, and, simultaneously, to grow bored. And then, suddenly, she became much, much worse.
The doctor—whom I am unable, or unwilling, to supply with a name—announced bronchial pneumonia, and sketched, for Aunt Clarentine’s edification, a drawing of the bronchial tree. Nowadays a course of sulfonomide or antibiotic drugs would make short work of the girl’s condition, but at that time bed rest, fluids, and heat constituted the only treatment. This went on for some weeks, and since no one remembered to open the curtains or provide a light, the period of Daisy Goodwill’s secondary illness was also spent in darkness. In addition, the blocked smell of dust and feather
And my father, Cuyler Goodwill of Tyndall, Manitoba, has finished his tower. How does he know it is finished? The proportions tell him so, the wholly pleasing correspondence of height, width, circumference; one more course around the top and the thing would grow unbalanced; he looks at it and his thoughts become easy, almost lazy. And there have been so many visitors lately, and so many newspaper reporters. (He suspects that visitors are carrying away pieces of his worked stone, and all he can do when he hears such gossip is shrug.) These visitors have distracted him to the extent that lately he has forgotten the impulse that launched the tower. He talks willingly, even eagerly, with those who come, but shies away from the root of his obsession. Why exactly have you persevered with your tower, Mr. Goodwill? Well, now, a person starts a piece of work and the work takes over. God has receded, a mere shadow, and as for Mercy—her grave so sunken and grown over—he cannot recollect the look of her face or the outline of her body. His brief marriage, his conversion—these seem no more than curious intersections in a life that is stretching itself forward.
A letter has come from Professor Barker Flett in Winnipeg concerning the breakdown of guardianship arrangements and the problem of what is to be done for Daisy’s future care.
Another letter has come, only yesterday, from the president of the Indiana Limestone Company of Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. Expert stone carvers are urgently needed. An extravagant wage has been named. A comfortable apartment on Cross Street in Vinegar Hill (whatever that may be) is available for his occupancy. Transportation will be arranged for himself, his family, and his household effects. Does Mr. Goodwill have a family? Immediate reply requested. Please wire.
Bessie Perfect got blamed for giving Daisy Goodwill the measles.
With her fever and sore throat, Bessie should have been home in bed instead of standing at the Fletts’ very doorstep, handing Daisy her overdue botany notes, apologizing in great girlish splutters, and sneezing into the child’s susceptible eleven-year-old face.
The disease went wafting through Daisy’s respiratory passages, and soon she had all the symptoms. Aunt Clarentine (for this is how Daisy has always addressed her) peered into the child’s mouth and leapt back with horror—spots everywhere. The poor little thing was put to bed in a darkened room. The door was kept shut, with Aunt Clarentine her only visitor, and no one could say the woman was not a devoted nurse. She brought the sick child cool, wet rags to soothe her fever, a solution of boracic lotion to douche her eyes morning and night, herbal creams of her own making to assuage the itching, and trays of soft food to pick at—poached eggs, stewed fruit—after which Daisy was adjured to cleanse her mouth with a forefinger wrapped in cotton wool. She began to get better, and, simultaneously, to grow bored. And then, suddenly, she became much, much worse.
The doctor—whom I am unable, or unwilling, to supply with a name—announced bronchial pneumonia, and sketched, for Aunt Clarentine’s edification, a drawing of the bronchial tree. Nowadays a course of sulfonomide or antibiotic drugs would make short work of the girl’s condition, but at that time bed rest, fluids, and heat constituted the only treatment. This went on for some weeks, and since no one remembered to open the curtains or provide a light, the period of Daisy Goodwill’s secondary illness was also spent in darkness. In addition, the blocked smell of dust and feather
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