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took out his skewer. “There’s another one of your women with electric fluid.”
    â€œOh, for heaven’s sake,” said Mary. (Don’t let him get away with it. Jump, Mary, jump.)
    She began, halting and stuttering, defending Emily. She was the greatest, the best, she saw the supercharged significance in humble things, in natural objects …
    â€œOh, that old transcendental fallacy, that things seen are purposeful symbols of things unseen. I knew a man once who found enormous significance in people’s license plates. He was crazy as a coot.” Homer looked at Mary’s flushed cheeks. What were those pinkish flowers like gramophone horns? Petunias?
    â€œLook,” said Mary, “you can’t use a madman’s ravings to dispose of a whole philosophical position.”
    â€œCalm down, for Pete’s sake.”
    Mary took a new stand on higher ground. She began to reel off ribbons of Emily’s sharp, bright verse. Homer listened. John and Annie at last got their pancakes, and they all sat down. Mary sang on, disdaining food.
    â€œThere now, listen to that,” said Homer, waving his fork. “’Twere better far, or something like that, to fail with land in sight (how’s it go?)

    â€¦ Than gain my blue peninsula
    To perish of delight.…

    â€œYou see? Always turning aside, withdrawing from the experience, afraid to get their feet dirty. And another thing. Here they were always swooning and perishing with delight over things, but they couldn’t stand the sight of each other. Old Emily up in her chamber, refusing to come downstairs to see visitors. She knew she’d scare them with her electric fluid. And you know what Waldo said. ‘We descend to meet.’ And Henry Thoreau was the worst—exalting his solitariness into a kind of solipsism almost.”
    O, Blasphemy. And this was the so-called expert. “Solipsism! Oh, really, you just don’t understand them at all.”
    â€œThank you,” said the expert in a pained tone, wounded to the quick. Mary felt around for her coat. Oh, good for you. Insulting the country’s most celebrated Emersonian scholar. That was well done.
    On the way out they got in another argument over who should pay, and Mary unfortunately won. She scuttled the children off to her car, and Homer strode off the other way, wrenching at his tie.

Chapter 12
These martial strains seemed as far away as Palestine, and reminded me of a march of crusaders in the horizon, with a slight tantivy and tremulous motion of the elm tree tops which overhang the village. This was one of the great days; though the sky had from my clearing only the same everlastingly great look that it wears daily, and I saw no difference in it.
HENRY THOREAU
    Preliminary report of the Committee on Public Ceremonies and Celebrations …

19 April, 9 A.M .
Ceremonial parade leaves State Armory, Everett Street, for North Bridge.

    The weather had turned out well. Everybody in the family was marching in the parade except Mary and Freddy and Grandmaw. They took up a position on the Milldam in front of Vanderhoof’s Hardware Store. American flags, like something pretty invented by Grandma Moses, were stuck into special holes in the sidewalks along Main Street. Jimmy Flower’s policemen directed surges of traffic out of the parade route. There were balloon men on the corner of Walden and Main, their arms floating high with buoyant clusters of gas balloons and fans of plastic pinwheels, blurry flags and feathery celluloid dolls on sticks. The balloons were transparent, with polka dots and stars. Mary bought a red one for Freddy, and tied it to his wrist. He tossed his arm around to make it bounce up and down. He was too young to have had one before. Somebody else lost his and it went sailing up in the blue sky. There was a braying sound of a distant band, and everyone peered down the street. Hello, there was Homer Kelly in his fur hat,