Read Online The Diviners by Margaret Laurence - Free Book Online
Authors: Margaret Laurence
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the second sight and the good eye and the strength of conviction.
What means The Strength of Conviction?
Morag sleeps.
THREE
T oday would be better. Today Pique would phone, or there would be a letter from her, saying she had decided against hitching west or else that she and Gord were back together and were going west for a while but all was well.
Morag went downstairs, made coffee and sat at the table, looking out at the morning river. The sky was growing light. Exact use of words, that. The sky actually was growing light, as though the sun, still hidden, were some kind of galactic plant putting forth tendrils.
Idiotic to have got up so early. As you grow older, you require less sleep. Could it be that she would become a consistently early riser? Two hours’ work done before breakfast? A likely thought.
The swallows were of course awake and flittering out from the nest under the eaves, just above the window, zinging across the water, swooping and scooping up insects to feed their newly hatched fledglings. For years Morag had hardly noticed birds, being too concerned with various personal events and oddities. In the last few years she had become awareof creatures other than human, whose sphere this was as well, unfortunate them. Even plants were to be pitied, having to share home with the naked apes.
Across the river came a boat, its small outboard motor chuffing fitfully. A-Okay Smith and Co. Maudie and Thomas. At five, apparently, Tom could read, taught by Maudie, so that in Grade One he had been to some extent ostracized by the other kids. Now at eight he was full of exotic knowledge. The Smiths were enlightened almost to a fault. Morag, while exceedingly fond of them, sometimes felt ignorant in their presence, which caused her to react towards them with a degree of resentment and chagrin. Also, they believed, somewhat touchingly, that their enlightenment would mean that Tom would be spared any sense of alienation towards them later on, in his adolescence. Morag had, once upon a time, held that belief herself. One of the disconcerting aspects of middle age was the realization that most of the crises which happened to other people also ultimately happened to you.
The boat came to a jolting standstill alongside Morag’s dock, and the Clan Smith clambered out and straggled up to the house. Tom, deceptively cherub-faced, was heard to announce that he was going along the road to Royland’s. Praise God. Spared his hideously knowledgeable remarks for perhaps an hour, if lucky. Those birds are not Blackbirds, Morag–the Rusty Blackbird is like that, only smaller and with shorter talons and tail–those are Grackles, Common Grackles. Tom could confidently be depended upon to know the nesting, breeding and living habits (many of them disgusting) of the Common Grackle, from conception to death. Probably he wanted to pick Royland’s brains on the habits of the muskie, pickerel, rock bass and other fish inhabiting the waters of southern Ontario.
“Hi, Morag.”
The Smiths entered without knocking, which Morag did not mind. They had, after all, lived here last year until they got the place across the river. A-Okay and Maude were one thing, but a winter enclosed in the farmhouse with the encyclopaedic Thomas was not to be highly recommended. Odd how much she now missed the kid, however, all things considered.
“I brought you some poems,” A-Okay said in his earnestly jokey young voice, attempting nonchalance but totally without success.
“Alf read them to me last night,” Maudie added, a testimonial, “and I thought they were Right On.”
Right On. Dear little Lord Jesus, what did that mean? Like saying Great, Stupendous. No meaning at all.
I’m just as bad. Even if I think the poems are rubbish, I always say Very Interesting, at least before clobbering him with my real opinion. Please God, let them be better than the last couple of bunches. Well, some of those would’ve been a-okay if he’d worked on
What means The Strength of Conviction?
Morag sleeps.
THREE
T oday would be better. Today Pique would phone, or there would be a letter from her, saying she had decided against hitching west or else that she and Gord were back together and were going west for a while but all was well.
Morag went downstairs, made coffee and sat at the table, looking out at the morning river. The sky was growing light. Exact use of words, that. The sky actually was growing light, as though the sun, still hidden, were some kind of galactic plant putting forth tendrils.
Idiotic to have got up so early. As you grow older, you require less sleep. Could it be that she would become a consistently early riser? Two hours’ work done before breakfast? A likely thought.
The swallows were of course awake and flittering out from the nest under the eaves, just above the window, zinging across the water, swooping and scooping up insects to feed their newly hatched fledglings. For years Morag had hardly noticed birds, being too concerned with various personal events and oddities. In the last few years she had become awareof creatures other than human, whose sphere this was as well, unfortunate them. Even plants were to be pitied, having to share home with the naked apes.
Across the river came a boat, its small outboard motor chuffing fitfully. A-Okay Smith and Co. Maudie and Thomas. At five, apparently, Tom could read, taught by Maudie, so that in Grade One he had been to some extent ostracized by the other kids. Now at eight he was full of exotic knowledge. The Smiths were enlightened almost to a fault. Morag, while exceedingly fond of them, sometimes felt ignorant in their presence, which caused her to react towards them with a degree of resentment and chagrin. Also, they believed, somewhat touchingly, that their enlightenment would mean that Tom would be spared any sense of alienation towards them later on, in his adolescence. Morag had, once upon a time, held that belief herself. One of the disconcerting aspects of middle age was the realization that most of the crises which happened to other people also ultimately happened to you.
The boat came to a jolting standstill alongside Morag’s dock, and the Clan Smith clambered out and straggled up to the house. Tom, deceptively cherub-faced, was heard to announce that he was going along the road to Royland’s. Praise God. Spared his hideously knowledgeable remarks for perhaps an hour, if lucky. Those birds are not Blackbirds, Morag–the Rusty Blackbird is like that, only smaller and with shorter talons and tail–those are Grackles, Common Grackles. Tom could confidently be depended upon to know the nesting, breeding and living habits (many of them disgusting) of the Common Grackle, from conception to death. Probably he wanted to pick Royland’s brains on the habits of the muskie, pickerel, rock bass and other fish inhabiting the waters of southern Ontario.
“Hi, Morag.”
The Smiths entered without knocking, which Morag did not mind. They had, after all, lived here last year until they got the place across the river. A-Okay and Maude were one thing, but a winter enclosed in the farmhouse with the encyclopaedic Thomas was not to be highly recommended. Odd how much she now missed the kid, however, all things considered.
“I brought you some poems,” A-Okay said in his earnestly jokey young voice, attempting nonchalance but totally without success.
“Alf read them to me last night,” Maudie added, a testimonial, “and I thought they were Right On.”
Right On. Dear little Lord Jesus, what did that mean? Like saying Great, Stupendous. No meaning at all.
I’m just as bad. Even if I think the poems are rubbish, I always say Very Interesting, at least before clobbering him with my real opinion. Please God, let them be better than the last couple of bunches. Well, some of those would’ve been a-okay if he’d worked on
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