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The Putnam Tradition By: Sonya Dorman (1924-2005) |
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Through generations
the power has descended,
now weaker, now stronger.
And which way did the
power run in the four year old
in the garden, playing
with a pie plate?
the
putnam
tradition By S. DORMAN Illustrated by SCHELLING
It was an old house not far from the coast, and had descended generation
by generation to the women of the Putnam family. Progress literally went
by it: a new four lane highway had been built two hundred yards from the
ancient lilacs at the doorstep. Long before that, in the time of Cecily
Putnam's husband, power lines had been run in, and now on cold nights
the telephone wires sounded like a concert of cellos, while inside with
a sound like the breaking of beetles, the grandmother Cecily moved
through the walls in the grooves of tradition. Simone Putnam, her granddaughter; Nina Putnam, her great granddaughter;
the unbroken succession of matriarchs continued, but times the old woman
thought that in Simone it was weakened, and she looked at the
four year old Nina askance, waiting, waiting, for some good sign. Sometimes one of the Putnam women had given birth to a son, who grew
sickly and died, or less often, grew healthy and fled. The husbands were
usually strangers to the land, the house, and the women, and spent a
lifetime with the long lived Putnam wives, and died, leaving their
strange signs: telephone wires, electric lights, water pumps, brass
plumbing. Sam Harris came and married Simone, bringing with him an invasion of
washer, dryer, toaster, mixer, coffeemaster, until the current poured
through the walls of the house with more vigor than the blood in the old
woman's veins. "You don't approve of him," Simone said to her grandmother. "It's his trade," Cecily Putnam answered. "Our men have been carpenters,
or farmers, or even schoolmasters. But an engineer. Phui!" Simone was washing the dishes, gazing out across the windowsill where
two pink and white Murex shells stood, to the tidy garden beyond where
Nina was engaged in her private games. She dried the dishes by passing her hand once above each plate or glass,
bringing it to a dry sparkle. It saved wear on the dishtowels, and it
amused her. "Sam's not home very much," she said in a placating voice. She herself
had grown terrified, since her marriage, that she wouldn't be able to
bear the weight of her past. She felt its power on her and couldn't
carry it. Cecily had brought her up, after her father had disappeared
and her mother had died in an unexplained accident. Daily she saw the
reflection of her failure in the face of her grandmother, who seemed
built of the same seasoned and secure wood as the old Putnam house.
Simone looked at her grandmother, whom she loved, and became a mere
vapor. "He's not home so much," Simone said. Her face was small, with a pointed chin, and she had golden red hair
which she wore loose on her shoulders. Nina, too, had a small face, but
it was neither so pale nor so delicate as her mother's, as if Sam's
tougher substance had filled her out and strengthened her bone
structure. If it was true that she, Simone, was a weak link, then Sam's
strength might have poured into the child, and there would be no more
Putnam family and tradition. "People don't change that easily," the old woman said. "But things " Simone began. The china which had a history of five
generations slipped out of her hands and smashed; Sam's toaster wouldn't
toast or pop up; Simone couldn't even use the telephone for fear of
getting a wrong number, or no number at all. "Things, things!" her grandmother cried. "It's blood that counts. If the
blood is strong enough, things dissolve. They're just garbage, all those
things, floating on the surface of our history. It's our history that's
deep. That's what counts." "You're afraid of Sam," the young woman accused. "Not afraid of any man!" Cecily said, straightening her back. "But I'm
afraid for the child. Sam has no family tradition, no depth, no talent
handed down and perfected... Continue reading book >>
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Genres for this book |
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Fiction |
Literature |
Psychology |
Short stories |
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