Jesse Ball: The Lesson

By this he would never mean that an accident of one sort or another might happen there.

So, the kitchen table at one end, and windows all along, looking out. A stove in a corner, and shelves hanging here and there between windows. Pots, pans, herbs, etc., also hanging. Chairs of a delicate character, long-limbed, thin-armed chairs which drew many compliments always, doubly. That is to say, one complimented first their appearance, and then one sat, and complimented again, saying the appearance, however fine, was no match for the actual experience of sitting.

Sadly, such a thing would be lost on Stan, being that he lacked the appropriate proportion to truly understand the chairs. He clambered up into one as Loring opened the windows and flung out the shutters.

She fetched a cushion from a closet, and gave it him. He, in putting the cushion down, stood on the chair, and had a look around.

Out the window (for now he could see well through the window) there was a fine sight.

an absolute armada of hot air balloons flooding into view from the west.

— Do you see that?

Loring turned.

— Ah, yes, the Jubilee.

She spat on the floor. I suppose in the kitchen, with all the sawdust on the floor, spitting was allowed.

— Many balloons is a jubilee?

— It would not be a bad definition, said Loring.

She continued her small tasks, putting the kettle on for tea, lighting the gas, etc.

Stan watched the procession thread its way through the air. The wind must have changed, or the pilots had decided something, for now the parade led seemingly to the house itself. Balloon after balloon loomed into view and was dragged away out of sight, just when disaster might have come. The people on the balloons were all holding hands and their mouths were shut.

How difficult it is for a child to understand such things!

Finally Loring came over, book in hand.

— Are you ready?

He sat on the cushion, and curled up in the wide chair.

— How many balloons does it take to make a jubilee?

— At least a hundred, said Loring. Any fewer, and it would be paltry. No one would come to see it.

Now, you may imagine that she was testing him by reading from this particular book, which, as anyone who has read a biography of Ezra Wesley knows, was the late master’s favorite book. He had read it dozens of times, and this copy was the copy he took with him on long train rides. It was said by some that his compulsive carrying of this book was especially ridiculous on the basis that he had in fact memorized the book. That, though, had never been completely established, for although he had on numerous occasions recited from it, he had never actually recited it in its entirety. In any event, if it was a test, it was a test that began when she started to read, for it was not from the book that she read at all! She had opened another, smaller book, within the first book, and looking down at the boy, who could see none of this, read aloud from it.

— It was a cold day, and the dogs were dying one by one. As they drew farther into the wilderness, the will of the rider seemingly intensified until the dogs obeyed him even before the desperate pleas of their own ragged frames. They had dragged him for days through that bleak landscape, and now, crossing some invisible barrier in the monochrome world, they all at once set to perishing. And so it was that when the last dog died, the man alit from the dogsled, and continued on foot.

— What is a dogsled? interrupted Stan.

— You know what a dog is?

He frowned at her.

— You know what a sled is?

— Of course.

— Make the dogs pull the sled and you have a dogsled. People say that this really happens in the coldest parts of the world, but I have never seen it. Do I believe there are dogsleds? I don’t believe it or disbelieve it. It does seem unlikely, though, that dogs could be found who would want to do this.

— Is this the second book of a series?

— No.

— Then, how do we know where the man was before?

— We don’t, yet.

— All right. What’s monochrome?

— We’ll get nowhere if I define everything for you. Just listen and pick things up by what they might seem to mean.

She drew a breath and began again.

— The snows began to end, then, as he ascended that final hill. At its crest, the weather broke, and there was green grass, stretched out like a promise. The man fell to his knees there, and tears ran down his face. Then the dogs were licking at his face again, climbing over their own harnesses, to wake him, and he was leaned over the front of the sled, confused by the cold, biting wind cutting into his eyes, and there were miles still to…

Stan was asleep. He was always falling asleep, this one. She moved closer and put her face near his, listening. A small rasping sound accompanied his breathing.

— Would you have stayed awake for the other book? she asked.

Of course, the boy said nothing.

Customarily, this day was passed by Loring in that upstairs room. Sitting there in the kitchen, with the daylight and the distances the balloons had made just beyond the window, she felt drawn too far out of herself and her habits. She left the boy sleeping and went back upstairs, and sat again.

And now, the problem was before her, presenting itself, like an occasion of laughter, generously and all at once. Should she open the box?

It was in its new place, where the boy had moved it. She did not dare to touch it to move it back. The lines on the table where it had been, faint dust lines, remained. It was almost like there were two boxes now. It troubled her to think of what the difference would be now, in opening it when it had been moved.

She stirred then to open it, but stood instead, and then sat down again. The walls of the little room were a thin color, and she felt that she could see into the distance, despite all evidence to the contrary.

A dog was whining on the street below. She heard its mistress speaking. The woman said,

— The last one is coming. We can see it best from over here. No, no.

And then there was a knocking at the door.

Loring came down the stairs, as swiftly as she could, and looked through the little window to the right of the door, which opened with a flap. There was indeed a woman outside, and holding a dog.

— What do you want?

— Excuse me, excuse me.

— What do you want?

— I live just down the road. I wonder, I know it is far too much to ask, and I would never want to presume, but I have seen this house so many times and thought how lovely it must be inside, and I was wondering, there is the Jubilee, did you know, the Jubilee is this week, and I was wondering if it might be possible to observe the final balloon from your window, as you see, it is heading into the distance there, and can’t really be seen from the street and by the time I got to the top of the hill, it would already be gone. Might I?

— You want to look at the balloon from my window? That’s what you’re saying?

— I hope it isn’t the wrong thing to say? Did I say that, the wrong thing? I’m terribly sorry if I did. My dog, of course, must come, if I come in. I can’t leave him behind. He is so anxious.

Now, here’s the thing. It wasn’t a dog at all. This woman had her husband on a leash.

Loring stared dumbfounded at the pair. From behind her, in the house, a voice came.

— How long was I asleep for?

Stan was there, rubbing his eyes and looking out at the strange scene.

— For a hundred years! yelled the woman.