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Authors: Anne Tyler
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child-faced girl with a look of reluctance, of hanging back, which is accentuated by the dress style of the day with its backward-swept lines and the flounce at the rear of the skirt.
In 1880, only nine months after the wedding, Sarah Cantleigh died giving birth to Daniel. In 1881 Justin Peck remarried, this time into stronger stock-a German cutler's daughter named Laura Baum, who rescued Daniel from the old freedwoman who had been tending him. Laura Baum's portrait was never painted, but she lived long enough to be known personally even by Meg, her great-great-step-grandchild. She was a sallow, straight-backed woman who wore her hair in a knot. Although she was twenty when she married, observers said she looked more like forty. But then she looked forty when she died, too, at the age of ninety-seven. And it was clear that she made an excellent mother for little Daniel. She taught him to read and cipher when he was only three years old, and she made certain that his manners were impeccable. When Justin suggested that she stop taking Daniel with her on visits to her father she agreed instantly, even ceasing her own visits although Justin had not asked that of her in so many words. (Her father was very obviously a foreigner, an undignified little man given to practical jokes. His dusty jumbled shop by the harbor was a hangout for seamen and other rough types.) "Always remember, Daniel," she said, straightening his collar, "that you must live up to your family's name." She never explained what she meant by that. Her darkies broke into hissing laughter on the kitchen stairs and asked each other in whispers, "What family? What name? Peck?" but she never heard them.
In 1885, Laura had a son of her own. They called him Caleb. He was blond like his half brother, but his tilted brown eyes must have snuck in from the Baum side of the family, and he had his Grandpa Baum's delight in noise and crowds. Even as a baby, being wheeled along in his caramel-colored wicker carriage, he would go into fits of glee at the sight of passing strangers. He liked anything musical- church bells, hurdy-gurdies, the chants of the street vendors selling hot crabcakes. When he was a little older he took to the streets himself, riding an iron velocipede with a carpeted seat. He and Daniel were confined to the sidewalk in front of their house, but while Daniel obeyed instructions, leafing through The Youth's Companion on the front steps with his chick-yellow head bent low, Caleb would sooner or later be tugged southward by the fire bell or the gathering of a crowd or, of course, the sound of a street musician. He followed the blind harpist and the banjoist, the walking piano that cranked out Italian tunes and the lady who sang "The Pardon Came Too Late." Then someone would think to ask, "Where's Caleb?" His mother came out on the front steps, a fan of creases rising up between her eyebrows. "Daniel, have you seen Caleb?"
And search parties would have to be sent down all the streets running toward the harbor. Only everybody soon learned: if you wanted to find Caleb, hold still a minute and listen. Whenever you heard distant music somewhere in the town, maybe so faint you thought you imagined it, so thin you blamed the whistling of the streetcar wires, then you could track the sound down and find Caleb straddling his little velocipede, speechless with joy, his appleseed eyes dancing. The maid would touch his sleeve, or Daniel would take his hand, or Laura would grab him by the earlobe, muttering, "This is where I find you! Out with a bunch of ... well, I don't know what your father is going to say. I don't know what he's going to think of you for this."
Only she never told his father. Perhaps she thought that she would be held to blame. Sometimes, from the way she acted, you would think she was afraid of Justin.
On Sundays the Pecks went to church, of course, and on Wednesday evenings Laura had her Ladies' Circle. On holidays
In 1880, only nine months after the wedding, Sarah Cantleigh died giving birth to Daniel. In 1881 Justin Peck remarried, this time into stronger stock-a German cutler's daughter named Laura Baum, who rescued Daniel from the old freedwoman who had been tending him. Laura Baum's portrait was never painted, but she lived long enough to be known personally even by Meg, her great-great-step-grandchild. She was a sallow, straight-backed woman who wore her hair in a knot. Although she was twenty when she married, observers said she looked more like forty. But then she looked forty when she died, too, at the age of ninety-seven. And it was clear that she made an excellent mother for little Daniel. She taught him to read and cipher when he was only three years old, and she made certain that his manners were impeccable. When Justin suggested that she stop taking Daniel with her on visits to her father she agreed instantly, even ceasing her own visits although Justin had not asked that of her in so many words. (Her father was very obviously a foreigner, an undignified little man given to practical jokes. His dusty jumbled shop by the harbor was a hangout for seamen and other rough types.) "Always remember, Daniel," she said, straightening his collar, "that you must live up to your family's name." She never explained what she meant by that. Her darkies broke into hissing laughter on the kitchen stairs and asked each other in whispers, "What family? What name? Peck?" but she never heard them.
In 1885, Laura had a son of her own. They called him Caleb. He was blond like his half brother, but his tilted brown eyes must have snuck in from the Baum side of the family, and he had his Grandpa Baum's delight in noise and crowds. Even as a baby, being wheeled along in his caramel-colored wicker carriage, he would go into fits of glee at the sight of passing strangers. He liked anything musical- church bells, hurdy-gurdies, the chants of the street vendors selling hot crabcakes. When he was a little older he took to the streets himself, riding an iron velocipede with a carpeted seat. He and Daniel were confined to the sidewalk in front of their house, but while Daniel obeyed instructions, leafing through The Youth's Companion on the front steps with his chick-yellow head bent low, Caleb would sooner or later be tugged southward by the fire bell or the gathering of a crowd or, of course, the sound of a street musician. He followed the blind harpist and the banjoist, the walking piano that cranked out Italian tunes and the lady who sang "The Pardon Came Too Late." Then someone would think to ask, "Where's Caleb?" His mother came out on the front steps, a fan of creases rising up between her eyebrows. "Daniel, have you seen Caleb?"
And search parties would have to be sent down all the streets running toward the harbor. Only everybody soon learned: if you wanted to find Caleb, hold still a minute and listen. Whenever you heard distant music somewhere in the town, maybe so faint you thought you imagined it, so thin you blamed the whistling of the streetcar wires, then you could track the sound down and find Caleb straddling his little velocipede, speechless with joy, his appleseed eyes dancing. The maid would touch his sleeve, or Daniel would take his hand, or Laura would grab him by the earlobe, muttering, "This is where I find you! Out with a bunch of ... well, I don't know what your father is going to say. I don't know what he's going to think of you for this."
Only she never told his father. Perhaps she thought that she would be held to blame. Sometimes, from the way she acted, you would think she was afraid of Justin.
On Sundays the Pecks went to church, of course, and on Wednesday evenings Laura had her Ladies' Circle. On holidays
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