of Snuffy, who had never learned to read or write, and who had taken his teeth out and washed them in the water trough, and then a sign had been put up: No Washing Teeth Here! And the jokes about Snuffy not being able to read the sign. Snuffy had died a few years ago. Many—most—of the men he had worked with at the mill were now dead. Somehow, tonight, Denny felt a quiet astonishment at that fact.
And then his mind returned to his children. They were quiet, he thought. Too quiet. Were they angry with him? All three had gone to college; his sons had moved to Massachusetts, his daughter to New Hampshire; there had seemed to be no jobs for them here. His grandchildren were okay; they all did well in school. It was his children he wondered about as he walked.
Last year, around the time of Denny’s fiftieth high school reunion, he had shown his eldest boy his yearbook, and his son had said, “Dad! They called you Frenchie?” Oh sure, Denny said, with a chuckle. “It’s not funny,” his son had said, adding, “Mrs. Kitteridge, way back in seventh grade, she told us this country was supposed to be a melting pot, but it never melted, and she was right,” and he had gotten up and walked away, leaving Denny with his yearbook open on the kitchen table.
Mrs. Kitteridge was wrong. Times changed.
But Denny, who had turned to walk along the river, now saw his son’s point: To be called “Frenchie” was no longer acceptable. What Denny’s son had not understood was that Denny had never had his feelings hurt by being called “Frenchie.” As Denny kept walking, digging his hands deeper into his pockets, he began to wonder if this was true. He realized: What was true was that he, Denny, had accepted it.
To accept it meant to accept much: that Denny would go to work in the mills as soon as he could, it meant that he did not expect to go on to school, to pay attention to his studies. Did it mean these things? As Denny approached the river, and could see in the moonlight how the river was moving quickly, he felt as though his life had been a piece of bark on that river, just going along, not thinking at all. Headed toward the waterfall.
* * *
The moon was slightly to the right of him, and it seemed to become brighter as he stopped to look at it. Is this why he suddenly thought of Dorothy Paige?
Dorie Paige had been a beautiful girl—oh, she was a beauty! She had walked the halls of the high school with her long blond hair over her shoulders; she was tall and wore her height well. Her eyes were large, and she had a tentative smile always on her face. She had shown up at the end of their sophomore year, and she was the reason Denny had stayed in school. He just wanted to see her, just wanted to look at her. Otherwise he had been planning on quitting school and going to work in the mill. His locker was not far from Dorie’s, but they shared no classes, because Dorie, along with her astonishing looks, had brains as well. She was, according to teachers, and even students said this, the smartest student to have come through in a long time. Her father was a doctor. One day she said “Hi” as they were at their lockers, and Denny felt dizzy. “Hi there,” he said. After that, they were sort of friends. Dorie hung around with a few other kids who were smart, and those were her real friends, but she and Denny had become friends too. “Tell me about yourself,” she said one day after school. They were alone in the hallway. “Tell me everything.” And she laughed.
“Nothing to tell,” Denny said, and he meant it.
“That’s not true, it can’t be true. Do you have brothers and sisters?” She was almost as tall as he was, and she waited there for him while he fumbled with his books.
“Yeah. I’m the oldest. I have three sisters and two brothers.” Denny finally had his books, and now he stood and looked at her. It was like looking at the sun.
“Oh wow,” Dorie said, “is that wonderful? It sounds wonderful. I only have one brother and so the house is quiet. I bet your house isn’t quiet.”
“No,” said Denny. “It’s not too quiet.”