John Irving: The Cider House Rules

And what of the fall? In his journal-his whatnot diary, his daily record of the business of the orphanage- Dr. Wilbur Larch wrote of the fall. Each of Dr. Larch's entries began, 'Here in St. Cloud's…'-except for those entries that began,'In other parts of the world…' Of the fall, Dr. Larch wrote: 'In other parts of the world, fall is for the harvest; one gathers the fruits of spring and summer's labors. These fruits provide for the long slumber and the season of ungrowing that is called winter. But here in St. Cloud's, the fall is only five minutes long.'

What sort of climate would anyone expect for an orphanage? Could anyone imagine resort weather? Would an orphanage bloom in an innocent town?

In his journal, Dr. Larch was demonstratively conservative with paper. He wrote in a small, cramped hand, on both sides of the pages, which were absolutely filled. Dr. Larch was not a man for leaving margins. 'Here in St. Cloud's,' he wrote, 'guess who is the enemy of the Maine forests, the villainous father of the unwanted babies, the reason the river is choked with deadwood and the valley land stripped, unplanted, eroded by the river floods-guess who is the insatiable destroyer (first of a logger with his hands pitchy and his fingers mashed; then of a lumberman, a saw-mill slave whose hands are dry and cracked, with some fingers only a memory), and guess why this glutton is not satisfied with logs or with lumber…guess who.'

To Dr. Larch, the enemy was paper-specifically, the Ramses Paper Company. There were enough trees for lumber, Dr. Larch imagined, but there would never be enough trees for all the paper the Ramses Paper {17} Company seemed to want or to need-especially if one failed to plant new trees. When the valley surrounding St. Cloud's was cleared and the second growth (scrub pine and random, unmanaged softwoods) sprang up everywhere, like swamp weed, and when there were no more logs to send downriver, from Three Mile Falls to St. Cloud's-because there were no more trees-that was when the Ramses Paper Company introduced Maine to the twentieth century by closing down the saw mill and the lumberyard along the river at St. Cloud's and moving camp, downstream.

And what was left behind? The weather, the sawdust, the scarred, bruised bank of the river (where the big log drives, jamming, had gouged out a raw, new shore), and the buildings themselves: the mill with its broken windows with no screens; the whore hotel with its dance hall downstairs and the bingo-for-money room overlooking the rough river; the few private homes, log-cabin style, and the church, which was Catholic, for the French Canadians, and which looked too clean and unused to belong to St. Cloud's, where it had never been half as popular as the whores, or the dance hall, or even bingofor-money. (In Dr. Larch's journal, he wrote: 'In other parts of the world they play tennis or poker, but here in St. Cloud's they play bingo-for-money.')

And the people who were left behind? There were no Ramses Paper Company people left behind, but there were people: the older, and the less attractive prostitutes, and the children of these prostitutes. Not one of the neglected officers of the Catholic Church of St. Cloud's stayed; there were more souls to save by following the Ramses Paper Company downstream.

In his A Brief History of St. Cloud's, Dr. Larch documented that at least one of these prostitutes knew how to read and write. On the last barge downriver, following the Ramses Paper Company to a new civilization, a relatively literate prostitute sent a letter addressed to: WHICHEVER OFFICIAL OF THE STATE OF {18} MAINE WHO IS CONCERNED WITH ORPHANS!

Somehow, this letter actually reached someone. Forwarded many times ('for its curiosity,' Dr. Larch wrote, 'as much as for its urgency'), the letter was delivered to the state board of medical examiners. The youngest member of this board-'a puppy, right out of medical school,' as Dr. Larch described himself-was shown the prostitute's letter as a kind of bait. The rest of the board thought that young Larch was 'the one hopelessly naive Democrat and liberal' among them. The letter said: THERE SHOULD BE A GODDAMNED DOCTOR, AND A GODDAMNED SCHOOL, AND EVEN A GODDAMNED POLICEMAN AND A GODDAMNED LAWYER IN ST. CLOUD'S, WHICH HAS BEEN DESERTED BY ITS GODDAMN MEN (WHO WERE NEVER MUCH) AND LEFT TO HELPLESS WOMEN AND ORPHANS!

The chairman of the state board of medical examiners was a retired physician who thought that President Teddy Roosevelt was the only other man in the world besides himself who had not been made from a banana.

'Why don't you look into this mush, Larch?' the chairman said, little knowing that out of this invitation a state-supported facility-for orphans!-would soon develop. It would one day gain at least partial federal support, and even that most vague and least dependable support offered by 'private benefactors.'

Anyway, in 190-, as the twentieth century-so young and full of promise-blossomed (even in inland Maine), Dr. Wilbur Larch undertook the task of righting the wrongs of St. Cloud's. He had his work cut out for him. For almost twenty years, Dr. Larch would leave St. Cloud's only once-for World War I, where it is doubtful he was more needed. What better man could be imagined for the job of undoing what the Ramses Paper Company had done than a man named after one of the world's coniferous trees? In his journal-as he was only beginning-Dr. Larch wrote: 'Here in St. Cloud's it is {19} high time something was done for the good of someone. What better place for improvement could there be- for self-improvement, and for the good of all-than a place where evil has so clearly flourished if not altogether triumphed?'

In 192-, when Homer Wells was born and had his little penis snipped and was named, Nurse Edna (who was in love) and Nurse Angela (who wasn't) had in common a pet name of their own for St. Cloud's founder, physician, town historian, war hero (he was even decorated), and director of the boys' division.

'Saint Larch,' they called him-and why not?

When Wilbur Larch granted Homer Wells permission to remain at St. Cloud's for as long as the boy felt he belonged there, the doctor was merely exercising his considerable, and earned, authority. On the issue of belonging to St. Cloud's, Dr. Larch was an authority. St. Larch had found his place-in the twentieth century-to be, as he put it, 'of use.' And that is precisely how Dr. Larch instructed Homer Wells, when the doctor sternly accepted the boy's need to stay at St. Cloud's.

'Well, then, Homer,' said St. Larch, 'I expect you to be of use.'

He was nothing (Homer Wells) if not of use. His sense of usefulness appears to predate Dr. Larch's instructions. His first foster parents returned him to St. Cloud's; they thought there was something wrong with him-he never cried. The foster parents complained that they would wake to the same silence that had prompted them to adopt a child in the first place. They'd wake up alarmed that the baby hadn't woken them, they'd rush into the baby's room, expecting to find him dead, but Homer Wells would be toothlessly biting his lip, perhaps grimacing, but not protesting that he was unfed and unattended. Homer's foster parents always suspected that he'd been awake, quietly suffering, for hours. They thought this wasn't normal. {20}

Dr. Larch explained to them that the babies of St. Cloud's were used to lying in their beds unattended. Nurse Angela and Nurse Edna, dearly devoted though they were, could not be rushing to each and every baby the second it cried; crying was not of much use at St. Cloud's (though in his heart of hearts Dr. Larch knew very well that Homer's capacity for withholding tears was unusual even for an orphan).

It was Dr. Larch's experience that foster parents who could so easily be deterred from wanting a baby were not the best parents for an orphan. Homer's first foster parents were so quick to assume they'd been given a wrong one-retarded, a lernon, brain-damaged-that Dr. Larch didn't extend himself to assure them that Homer was a very fit baby, bound to have a courageous long haul in the life ahead.