Classic Poem

“That was a funny thing. I guess you were startled
Finding it that way underneath the stairs.”

“Startled I was, and something a good deal more.
For I was thinking of nothing but my ball
And how I couldn't say that I had lost it
Not being allowed to play with it indoors.
I didn't want a licking or a lecture,
But mightily I wanted back my ball,
And fumbling round there in the dark I touched
Stone, shivering stone, a cold long stretch of slate,
Waist-tall, about, going clear down to the floor.
I hardly dared to trust the feel of it,
So I struck a match and there it was, a head-stone
With writing on it, good, square, marching letters;
I saw that much before the match went out.
The dark was rather awful afterwards.
Being twelve years old by our Bible, and a healthy chap,
I didn't really suppose that any one
Was buried there under Grandfather's staircase,
But I couldn't help thinking a little it might be so.
It might—and then I went and got a candle.
Of course there wasn't any grave; the stone
Just stood there, leaning up against the stair-back,
Dusty the way old furniture is dusty,
House-dust, you know, not weather-dust, no rain
Had run its mark upon it, top to bottom;
There were no bird-stains, nor snail trails, nor anything
Like creeper smears, it might have been a table
Without its legs, shoved out of the way in there,
But for the letters. They were plain enough,
And so I read them: ‘Here lies the mortal body
Of Joseph Crocker, entered into rest . . .’
After that came a gap with nothing on it,
Where the surface was all neatly scraped and chiselled
So that the date was gone, but down below
I read again: ‘Beloved Son of Joel
And Maryum Crocker,’ and then there came some poetry,
A hymn, I think, but I don't remember that;
My mind was taken up with Joseph Crocker
Whose tombstone stood here like a table-top
Gathering household dust under the stairs.
I crept out, sober enough, as you may think,
And left the ball behind me with the stone.
A stone without a grave didn't seem religious;
It shocked me, and I couldn't figure why.
I didn't like the fact of its being there,
With all the family going up and down
Over the legend of a ‘mortal body,’
Which wasn't there as it should have been, and shouldn't;
That would be worse, of course, and yet more fitting.
It was rather a nasty riddle for a boy
Of twelve, set down so in the family Bible,
And as the sixth James Crocker. But that was why
I knew immediately I couldn't take it
As an omen or anything like that. I couldn't
Recollect a single Joseph. We had Johns,
And Amoses and Joels, and lots of others,
But not a Joseph could I bring to mind.
Yet it would seem that once there must have been one,
For people don't keep gravestones as ornaments
With fancy names on them, at least, not now,
Perhaps they used to, that I didn't know.
I didn't like it anyway, and after a time
I liked it so little I screwed my courage up
To speak to Grandfather. How well I see
The old book-room, with the October sun
Shining on gold and leather up and down
The walls, and getting a sort of extra spryness
From the crimson maple-leaves outside the window.
The fire, a sunny fire, crackled and tried
To burn with solar brilliance, and impress
As white a star in the balls of the brass andirons.
Grandfather was smoking and reading as he always did
Just before sunset until supper time.
I sidled in and wandered round the room
Staring at the book-backs I knew by heart,
And fingering the pistols Great Uncle John
Had used in Egypt on his famous tour,
And pretty soon Grandfather saw me there.
‘Well, Jim,’ said he, taking his spectacles off,
‘What do you want here at this time of day?’
That was a good beginning, I knew the signs,
Twelve years might say a word to seventy
When seventy laid its spectacles aside.
I ventured round the table and sat down
Gingerly in the writing-table chair,
And perching on its edge I said my word,
Somewhat in haste as doing a fearful thing,
And one not altogether warranted,
But which admitted of a subtle doubt
As to its perfect impropriety.
Armed with this doubt to cover my intrusion,
If such it were, on ground where trespassers
Would not be welcomed, I advanced my query.
‘Grandfather,’ said I, for I was in it then,
Committed to the hazard of even chances,
‘Why do you keep a gravestone under the stairs?’
My ears sang in the silence that came after.
The ticking of the banjo clock on the chimney
Was brass and fury banging on chill doom.
The fire roared like a great conflagration.
But Grandfather put his finger-tips together
And carefully tapped them one upon another.
Then he looked up and smiled, and with a sigh
I settled my unbroken back against the chair-back,
Wondering a little, but vastly comforted,
And found the fire good, and the sun most pleasant,
And thought how pretty all the gold and calf-skin
Book-backs were looking, and the maple-tree
Crimson-red, standing outside the window.
‘So you've found the tombstone,’ Grandfather was saying,
When I got back enough to listen to him
After considering the beauty of the world
And all its special attributes just there
And then, where I was at the moment sitting.
‘It's a curious tale, my boy, but you shall have it,
It will tell you something of your family.
You know, of course, we're comfortably off,
Very well off indeed. Well, we owe that
To thrifty forebears. Prudence was their motto.
They saved their pennies, perhaps a bit too much
For modern notions. My great-grandfather
Was a certain Joel Crocker, a driving man
Who farmed this place and pulled good crops by force
Of will out of the rocks, and made them yield
More profit by double than his neighbours' land,
Or they themselves, could ever learn the trick of.
He worked the farm alone with his two sons.
James, a steady lad, was like his father,
But Joseph favoured his mother's people more.
He wasn't wild or bad, but he hated farming,
And used to steal what time he could to read
Geography, always geography, he was daft about it,
Could name the cities of China like a teacher,
And tick off rivers as fast as you could count,
While as to exports and imports, you couldn't stump him
Jumping all round the map. He used to draw
India and Asia from memory, and all the Islands
That men then knew of in the Pacific Ocean,
And give them to his mother, and she would frame them
With bits of silk and ribbon from her piece-bag
And hang them in her bedroom. It didn't please Joel
To have him do it, but after all 'twas better
Than hanging round the store where they kept a bowl
Of rum punch on the counter all the time.
So Joel said nothing, and Joseph made his maps.
One Winter, James came down with a sudden fever.
Three days sufficed, poor chap, for him to turn
His toes up, and there was an end of James,
The very darling of his father's heart.
Old Joel was staggered, James was more than the apple
Of his eye, more like the eye itself he was,
The ripe, sweet kernel of his father's soul.
As I have said, Joel was a thrifty man,
And hated like blazes to part with hard-earned money;
But James, the rapture of his life, was dead.
He had not given much to James when living,
It had not been his way, but now he grieved
At things he did not speak of, only he went
A whole day's journey down to Nashua
To Jacob Crufts, the mason, and ordered a stone
Of fine blue slate to put at James's grave.
Well, by and by, the stone came home, but somehow
Jacob had blundered at the name and carved
“Joseph” where he should have chiselled “James.”
Old Joel was just beside himself to see it.
The whole stone spoilt and the money gone for nothing.
He loaded that stone into a cart at once,
Although the sun had just that moment gone
Down behind Greyback. He wouldn't wait for supper
He was so angry, but took it in a pail,
And jogged the night long down to Nashua,
And there he got at dawn, fussed as a rooster
All spurred and spanked up for a cocking bout.
Crufts was in bed, but Joel had him out
In no time, and standing with him in the street,
He damned and tongue-lashed very hand-somely,
Not caring a brass farthing who might hear.
He told Crufts he had ordered plainly “James,”
But Crufts said “No, 'twas Joseph was the name.”
Joel said that couldn't be, he never thought
Of Joseph, never, and he always thought of James,
And more than usual now that he was dead.
Crufts didn't know anything about that, of course,
And said so with an acid sullenness,
Business was business, and his was making gravestones.
Joel, being a father, knew which son was dead
As he insisted. Crufts, a dogged man,
Replied that might be so or not, he couldn't say,
But Joseph was the name was given him.
“Joseph's alive,” roared Joel. “That's a pity,”
Admitted Crufts, “for it's a handsome stone.”
Joel said he wouldn't pay a cent for it,
Crufts might have it back, but Crufts declared
It was no use to him, which fact indeed
Was evident. Finally when they'd been at it
Hot and heavy for an hour or more,
Crufts was visited by inspiration.
“But you have a son named Joseph,” he shouted out,
“And he'll die some day, keep the stone for him.”
Joel, indignant, pointed to the date,
“He'll die some time,” he said, “but not that time.
That's passed.” A quivering argument to plant
In the other's bosom. Poor Crufts scratched his head.
Then suddenly he swore, “By Gum! I have it!
The date's done shaller, I can cut it out.
You take the stone at half price, and set it by
Till such time as it's needed. And I'll make another
And put ‘James’ on it right as a trivet this time.”
So the bargain was struck with no great satisfaction
On either side, but the best that could be done.
The stone with “James” was set up in the graveyard,
And the “Joseph” stone put by for later use.
Now whether it was the presence of his gravestone
Here in the house, or the lonesomeness now James
Was gone, or what it was, Joseph grew moody.
He couldn't stand the farm, he almost sickened
At staying on it, and one fine Summer morning
He ran away to Portsmouth and went to sea.
He came back three years later for a week,
But after that he never came again,
And they heard at last that his ship and every soul
On board of her was lost. Joel was sorry,
Of course, but no one ever rightly knew
Which he was sorrier for, the loss of Joseph
Or the fact that now he couldn't use the tombstone.
However, after his first grief was over,
He used to say, “There'll be another Joseph
Some day, and they'll be glad to have this gravestone
Handy, so they won't have to buy another.”
But he was wrong, there's been no other Joseph,
It seems like flying in the face of Fate
To give a boy a name that's on a tombstone,
As if you put him like money in a bank
Waiting until it's called for. No Crocker woman
Would name a son of hers Joseph. No, Jim,
There never will be another Joseph Crocker.’
Then I, with all the bravery of twelve,
Rose from my chair and solemnly averred
That I would name my first son Joseph. But
I have not kept that vow, though I've five sons.
Do you think my wife would ever agree to Joseph?
A bachelor is prodigal with vows,
Wait till you're married, my friend, and you will see.”