The Seeker A Novel (R. B. Chesterton) by R. B. Chesterton Page B
Authors: R. B. Chesterton
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plodding, they showed up in a flat patch of pasture and camped for the night.
I told Granny I’d seen them, shadows in the fog, and she’d told me to keep my imagination in check and would hear no more of it.
Granny loved a good ghost story, and she told me plenty, but none explained the things I saw. I learned quickly, though, that it was best to keep my visions to myself.
Poring over land records, I hoped to find some trace of Bonnie Cahill’s existence. The journal included dates and specific events I hoped to match up with items in the local paper, but that wasn’t the primary evidence I would need to defend my thesis.
Knowing the academic world as I did, I expected resistance. My dissertation took aim at a beloved figure of literature, a man whose writing had supported a generation of sit-ins as peaceful protests. Civil disobedience—the hippies took it to heart and changed a nation. While tactics of peaceful protest go far back in history, Thoreau was the father of peaceful protest in modern America. The view of him, alone, wandering the woods of Walden, bordered on sacred. My work would appear to some to be an attack on an icon. The virginal hermit of Walden Pond had consorted with a woman.
I wanted all the corroborating documentation I could find.
I searched every record available and could find no mention of a Cahill. The long-ago issues of the local newspaper were on microfilm, and I went through those. There were public notices of Emerson’s lectures, of the school built by Bronson Alcott, of the stimulating school of philosophy brewing in Concord. The dates mentioned in Bonnie’s journal bore fruit, but nowhere was Bonnie’s name included. Though this substantiated the journal to some degree, I needed much more.
To my surprise, I realized that the Concord of the 1840s was not a small town in the middle of a forest. Most of the forest had been cut down for fuel, with the exception of Walden Pond.
Thoreau had settled in the one area where his comings and goings weren’t visible to his neighbors. He wanted privacy. Because of Bonnie?
My imagination conjured them, walking along the rim of the pond. The bright green of new spring leaves unfurled in pale yellow sunlight. I heard Bonnie’s laugh and watched as she grasped Thoreau’s hand, swinging around to face him. His dour, bearded face broke into an expression of delight.
This was fancy, but I hoped Bonnie had such golden moments with her lover, for ultimately that romance was fated to die a brutal death. One of the latter entries in her journal spoke of the intervention of Thoreau’s family.
The bitter scene unfolded in Bonnie’s words. Her handwriting, normally elegant and controlled, belied her sorrow and frustration. Henry’s father appeared at Walden Pond and demanded that his son return to the family. Curses and damnation rained down on Bonnie as she refused to step aside. She held her lover’s hand and stood firm against the derision. Thoreau broke, possibly to spare her further humiliation. He acquiesced to his father’s demands that he leave Walden Pond, leave her.
An entry in Bonnie’s journal followed shortly after that confrontation and Henry’s abandonment of her.
I hold no grudge or judgment against Henry. He wanted only solitude when he came to Walden Pond. My presence shocked his system, as well as offered the comforts of companionship and the love of an open heart. Together we explored the natural world and the wonders of this small woodland. He taught me of the simple joys of a scented breeze or the bloom of a flower. My gift to him was a way to face the future with courage. I do not believe he now will fear his own mortality. He is a gentle and kind man, and while the balm of love and the nurturing elements of nature have kept deterioration at bay, he is not a healthy man. He would have left me eventually, but oh, the pain of such an abrupt ending.
I never told him of my condition. He nor his family will ever know. I
I told Granny I’d seen them, shadows in the fog, and she’d told me to keep my imagination in check and would hear no more of it.
Granny loved a good ghost story, and she told me plenty, but none explained the things I saw. I learned quickly, though, that it was best to keep my visions to myself.
Poring over land records, I hoped to find some trace of Bonnie Cahill’s existence. The journal included dates and specific events I hoped to match up with items in the local paper, but that wasn’t the primary evidence I would need to defend my thesis.
Knowing the academic world as I did, I expected resistance. My dissertation took aim at a beloved figure of literature, a man whose writing had supported a generation of sit-ins as peaceful protests. Civil disobedience—the hippies took it to heart and changed a nation. While tactics of peaceful protest go far back in history, Thoreau was the father of peaceful protest in modern America. The view of him, alone, wandering the woods of Walden, bordered on sacred. My work would appear to some to be an attack on an icon. The virginal hermit of Walden Pond had consorted with a woman.
I wanted all the corroborating documentation I could find.
I searched every record available and could find no mention of a Cahill. The long-ago issues of the local newspaper were on microfilm, and I went through those. There were public notices of Emerson’s lectures, of the school built by Bronson Alcott, of the stimulating school of philosophy brewing in Concord. The dates mentioned in Bonnie’s journal bore fruit, but nowhere was Bonnie’s name included. Though this substantiated the journal to some degree, I needed much more.
To my surprise, I realized that the Concord of the 1840s was not a small town in the middle of a forest. Most of the forest had been cut down for fuel, with the exception of Walden Pond.
Thoreau had settled in the one area where his comings and goings weren’t visible to his neighbors. He wanted privacy. Because of Bonnie?
My imagination conjured them, walking along the rim of the pond. The bright green of new spring leaves unfurled in pale yellow sunlight. I heard Bonnie’s laugh and watched as she grasped Thoreau’s hand, swinging around to face him. His dour, bearded face broke into an expression of delight.
This was fancy, but I hoped Bonnie had such golden moments with her lover, for ultimately that romance was fated to die a brutal death. One of the latter entries in her journal spoke of the intervention of Thoreau’s family.
The bitter scene unfolded in Bonnie’s words. Her handwriting, normally elegant and controlled, belied her sorrow and frustration. Henry’s father appeared at Walden Pond and demanded that his son return to the family. Curses and damnation rained down on Bonnie as she refused to step aside. She held her lover’s hand and stood firm against the derision. Thoreau broke, possibly to spare her further humiliation. He acquiesced to his father’s demands that he leave Walden Pond, leave her.
An entry in Bonnie’s journal followed shortly after that confrontation and Henry’s abandonment of her.
I hold no grudge or judgment against Henry. He wanted only solitude when he came to Walden Pond. My presence shocked his system, as well as offered the comforts of companionship and the love of an open heart. Together we explored the natural world and the wonders of this small woodland. He taught me of the simple joys of a scented breeze or the bloom of a flower. My gift to him was a way to face the future with courage. I do not believe he now will fear his own mortality. He is a gentle and kind man, and while the balm of love and the nurturing elements of nature have kept deterioration at bay, he is not a healthy man. He would have left me eventually, but oh, the pain of such an abrupt ending.
I never told him of my condition. He nor his family will ever know. I
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