Mr. Bromwell was all fired up about digging a new well, and he had a dowser come, a famous one, who charged by the day. He looked and he looked. He couldn’t find anything. So another dowser was called in, and bingo! He knew where to drill, but on drilling day, who should show up but Dowser Number One, who stood there disagreeing with where the dig should begin. He’d had a dream that he woke up from with tingling fingertips, he said, which had happened to him ten times previously, and every single time he’d been right: he’d envisioned the property in his dreams, and his fingertips had started to tingle, so that when he sat up in bed, he was pointing toward some part of the scene that remained as clear to him as if he were watching a movie. Then he’d sort of sleepwalk toward it—a gulley or a shaded area under oak trees—and his fingertips would turn hot and stop having that funny feeling, but when the digging began, it was always the right place.” She turned toward Duff Moulton. “So, Chip—I mean, Duff: your late father, I believe he came up with the solution of not having either of the dowsers work for him, because he thought the man with the itchy fingers was clearly crazy, yet he’d cast enough doubt that he didn’t want the other guy doing the work, either. When the well ran dry, someone else in the family called in the person who drilled a new one, so a well did get drilled successfully while Mr. Bromwell was still with us.”
“If you don’t think it’s too forward of me, Mr. Moulton, how is it that your father was named Bromwell, and you Moulton?” I asked.
“Not forward, at all! Don’t they complain that young people never ask questions? I was the first and last baby born to my parents, and my mother could never have another because they had to remove her inner workings when I was born. She was so sad, she cried for days, and finally my father said, “Well, why not name him for your side of the family, since we don’t want the Moultons to die out.” He cleared his throat and pretended to switch the tobacco plug from one cheek to the other. “That was a little joke. The Moultons aren’t about to die out. Not before the Smiths do, anyway. All of that might take another meteor. But anyway, he was an enlightened man, or at least an unusual one. He’d get a gold medal now from the women’s liberation front.”
I looked at Mrs. Terhune. I suspected I shouldn’t correct him and say he shouldn’t say “front.” I don’t know why I bothered to send her a silent look, because she wasn’t the kind of woman to return another woman’s glance, and if a man looked at her for agreement, she’d only squint.
So that was more or less my evening with my landlady and the neighbor. Enough information was revealed to provide me with material for several books. Anyone prudent would have asked if they’d mind being recorded, but it wasn’t until the next day that this possibility hit me, and then—in spite of being a bit shy—I went first to Mr. Moulton and asked, calling what he’d provide “an essential oral history,” and also flattering him—I hoped I wasn’t frightening him—about using his stories in my writing, someday. I figured that if I went to him first, Mrs. Terhune might also agree, but I missed my guess. “You go ahead and put your recorder in my fine neighbor’s house, if he agrees, but I don’t hold with wiring turtles or setting up a machine to talk into every time a thought pops into my head. No, I wouldn’t want to sit around and do that. Most things are best forgotten. With that Shackleton man, you’ve got enough information to write for a lifetime! You go ahead and record Chip, I mean Duff, but Duff’s done enough. You’ll have to excuse me for saying no.”
Mrs. Terhune—in fact, everyone in New England—was unwilling to rethink anything, so that was that. I thanked her and made plans to proceed with Duff (as he asked me to call him). I drove to Radio Shack to
“If you don’t think it’s too forward of me, Mr. Moulton, how is it that your father was named Bromwell, and you Moulton?” I asked.
“Not forward, at all! Don’t they complain that young people never ask questions? I was the first and last baby born to my parents, and my mother could never have another because they had to remove her inner workings when I was born. She was so sad, she cried for days, and finally my father said, “Well, why not name him for your side of the family, since we don’t want the Moultons to die out.” He cleared his throat and pretended to switch the tobacco plug from one cheek to the other. “That was a little joke. The Moultons aren’t about to die out. Not before the Smiths do, anyway. All of that might take another meteor. But anyway, he was an enlightened man, or at least an unusual one. He’d get a gold medal now from the women’s liberation front.”
I looked at Mrs. Terhune. I suspected I shouldn’t correct him and say he shouldn’t say “front.” I don’t know why I bothered to send her a silent look, because she wasn’t the kind of woman to return another woman’s glance, and if a man looked at her for agreement, she’d only squint.
So that was more or less my evening with my landlady and the neighbor. Enough information was revealed to provide me with material for several books. Anyone prudent would have asked if they’d mind being recorded, but it wasn’t until the next day that this possibility hit me, and then—in spite of being a bit shy—I went first to Mr. Moulton and asked, calling what he’d provide “an essential oral history,” and also flattering him—I hoped I wasn’t frightening him—about using his stories in my writing, someday. I figured that if I went to him first, Mrs. Terhune might also agree, but I missed my guess. “You go ahead and put your recorder in my fine neighbor’s house, if he agrees, but I don’t hold with wiring turtles or setting up a machine to talk into every time a thought pops into my head. No, I wouldn’t want to sit around and do that. Most things are best forgotten. With that Shackleton man, you’ve got enough information to write for a lifetime! You go ahead and record Chip, I mean Duff, but Duff’s done enough. You’ll have to excuse me for saying no.”
Mrs. Terhune—in fact, everyone in New England—was unwilling to rethink anything, so that was that. I thanked her and made plans to proceed with Duff (as he asked me to call him). I drove to Radio Shack to
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