For some reason, in all my recent writing about memories of Holden and Worcester, memories inevitably about animals because I grew up on a 100-acre farm on Shrewsbury Street, in Holden, I have not written about Moriarty. By the time Moriarty came into my life, I was in college, returning home many weekends, and every summer, to where the Donways then lived in Birchwood Acres, the housing development that my dad, Raymond, built on that enchanted and irreplaceable domain of farmyard, fields, brooks, and woods. By then, we had left the old farmhouse on the corner of Shrewsbury Street and (the relatively new) Birchwwod Drive, to live in several houses in the expanding development. Often, we simply moved to a new house deeper in the development that might not have found a ready buyer--or because a broker brought us an offer on our home too good to refuse. Whatever the reason, we tended to live on the edge of the development as it cut deeper and deeper into the woods. I liked this arrangement because we were not surrounded by other houses and it worked well for dad because the job--new houses under construction--was near to hand. It was the summer, I think, between my junior and senior years at Brown University, that I again returned to Holden to work with dad on the development. To be on the job might mean walking to the end of the next segment of road--in this case, Plymouth Drive, I think. To hang out around the yard wasnt much different: the workmen, the various contractors, came and went from our house. We had a wood chopper--not surprisingly a French-Canadian guy--who would clear the path of the advancing road, or, at times, clear the site of the new house on a lot. Mom and Dad (I now apologize, formally, for earlier saying that dad built the housing development; mom did so much) were distressed at every tree that had to fall on a new lot; they dreamed of homes that would materialize as if by magic among the trees. Was it a financial calculation? Sure it was. But only a financial calculation? I dont believe so. I never heard dad speak of how much profit he earned in building the development. He would say, Weve built a beautiful thing, here. The wood chopper, rather in the tradition, was a short, wiry man, who could work all day at top speed. He was tough with his men, and just plain tough. Remarkably, he often would mention a tree and identify it by spitting: a tight, hard shot that might fly six feet to strike the tree. I still recall the sound; but you dont want to know. Well, one sunny morning in June, I think, or early July, dad and I were standing in our front yard, a circular driveway through a small forest--not one tree felled to yield a lawn--when the wood cutter came up the driveway. His creased, nut-brown face was ran with tears and he held before him, in both hands, his dirty tweed cap. Mutely, he held it out to us. Dad and I looked down. In the cap, all tumbled together, were four fleshy, light-pink, squirming baby squirrels, still blind, their unopened eyes dark purple lumps, almost twitching as though ready to open to the light of the world. Let me not parody the poor mans accent or the tremor in his voice. He told us, quite simply, he had felled a high white birch, then gone over to strip its limbs and cut it into logs--and there, on the ground was the sloppy, sprawling next of twigs, half broken, and four blind pink baby squirrels. He said he did not know that there was a family in the tree. He must go home and give his wife these babies to feed; he would be right back. He wanted my dad to know that he would not charge for his time away to do this errand. I could take one, I said. But I did not reach out. What did you do? It was like picking up a live sushi. Besides, which of the four did I pluck our of the cap and from its brothers and sisters? And would it thrive, or even survive, alone, without the others? I settled for Dads white handkerchief, as a bed, and took my orphan in both hands and bore it into our house. I must resist, here, another story. I only will say that this was not the first abandoned baby bird I had nursed. Readers of my book on Holden will know Jake, the pure white Tumbler pigeon I rescued from the coop floor and raised to become a pigeon-show winner; or Pedro, the baby crow with a breast bone twisted by rickets that I raised. I nursed and raised my blind baby squirrel. That summer, my brother, Roger, and I, had been reading the immortal stories and novels of Arthur Conan Doyle about Sherlock Holmes. Not for the first time, but with renewed passion, we reread these stories (52) and novels (4) that have become the foremost hobby and passion of thousands of men and women worldwide--a passion that increases as decades pass. And so, on a whim, thoughtlessly, I named the innocent pink baby rodent Moriarty, after the Napoleon of Crime, the professor of genius and ruthless evil, that Holmes risks his life to defeat. Moriarty opened his eyes, and sprouted his grey fur, sucking voraciously on the eye dropper with warm milk, and then the syringe with Pablum. But the three babies taken by the wood chopper all died. It is easy to underestimate the commitment required of a mother--even a stand-in squirrel mother. Our wood chopper was astonished and delighted to see the healthy, bounding, fully furred squirrel, even if the name Moriarty meant little. Moriarty lived in a cage in the basement family room of our home--a room of picture windows, full of light, elegantly finished--in the best Birchwood Acres style. A flap door let Moriarty dive outside anytime he wished, day or night, and another door opened on the room; he was no ones prisoner. We did feed him in the cage, and his water was there; but he ranged through the whole house, eating what he found. We would sit playing Scrabble and an attentive, motionless Moriarty would sit up at the edge of the board, as though scrutinizing the letters, never interfering, just pleased to be with the family. His family. My father, to his credit, did not oppose any of these ventures of mine with stray pigeons, crows, or squirrels. He always had advice. If I needed a hand building the cage, he was there to help. I think he enjoyed Moriarty more than any of my other sundry adopted creatures. Moriarty bonded with our family, including my German Shepherd, Smokey, and, I think, followed dad some days on his travels through the development--except that Moriarty, of course, followed along through the trees. My Dad told me, in tones reserved for revelation, that he would be talking to a sub-contractor, or a potential customer, and, utterly without warning, Moriarty would leap from a tree onto his shoulder and begin rubbing against his ear. And dad, an appreciative joker, would keep talking as though nothing had happened... Oh, what? A squirrel? Oh sure, hello, Moriarty. As I recall it, now, Moriarty desired no more than to be with his family. Generally, he did not intrude or nuzzle or demand petting; he was content to be present, to watch. Sure, if we had popcorn, he wanted his share. He ate constantly because that was his nature. Did he conceal a thousand acorns in instinctive foreknowledge of winter? I dont believe so. Growing up in the cage, fed with eyedropper and syringe, and then from an always full dish... Perhaps he not learn, or not express the instinctual, hoarding behavior. During my senior year at Brown University, I met my first girlfriend, Allegra. I mean she was the first ever and I dared not part from her when the year ended and she declared her intention to spend the summer in Toronto. I went, too. But that is another story. It was in Toronto, in mid-July, a most unhappy summer, that I received a brief note from my brother, Roger. Moriarty, reared to trust, disarmed as humans will disarm an animal, had let himself be seized by a dog. I am not sure, here, of the sequence, but the dog seized him in its jaws, shook him, and, somehow, Moriarty was rescued. Or, at least, pulled from the jaws. He was rushed to the Holden vet, examined, and pronounced all right. I am happy that by then the Donways cared about Moriarty. But it did no good; they found Moriarty in his cage the next day, still, cold, dead. In his note to me, my brother, Roger, said merely, Moriarty is dead. Sic transit gloria mundi. And, in a far away city, I held the brief note, nodded, and thought how a silly and sentimental accident, back in Holden, had involved me with a blind infant rodent who had become a member of our family, and how, so suddenly, Moriarty, the squirrel, was gone now--and how I realized, at last, how much he had meant to me. How much he always would mean.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 02:19:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015