biographical facts. My full name is Joseph Ferdinand Gould, and I was named for my grandfather, who was a doctor. During the Civil War, he was surgeon of the Fourth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, and later on he was a prominent obstetrician in Boston and taught in the Harvard Medical School. The Goulds, or my branch of them, have been in New England since the sixteen-thirties and have fought in every war in the history of the country, including King Philipâs War and the Pequot War. Weâre related to many of the other early New England families, such as the Lawrences and the Clarkes and the Storers. My grandmother on my fatherâs side was a direct descendant of John Lawrence, who arrived from England on the Arbella in 1630 and was the first Lawrence in this country, and she could trace her ancestry back to a knight named Robert Lawrence who lived in the twelfth century. She used to say that the Lawrence line, or this particular Lawrence line, was not only one of the oldest clearly traceable lines in New England but also one of the oldest clearly traceable lines in England itself, and that we should never forget it.â
Gould abruptly began scratching himself. He went about it unself-consciously. He scratched the back of his neck, and then he thrust his hand inside his shirt and scratched his chest and ribs.
âI shouldâve been born in Boston,â he continued, âbut I wasnât. My father, whose name was Clarke Storer Gould, was also a doctor. He was a Bostonian, but he had been prevailed upon to move out and practice in Norwood, Massachusetts, and he and my mother had been living there only a few months when I was born. Norwood is a fairly good-sized old Yankee town about fifteen miles southwest of Boston. Itâs a residential suburb, and it also has some printing plants and some sheepskin tanneries and an ink factory and a glue works. I was born at high noon on September 12, 1889, in a flat over Jim Hartshornâs meat market. In Norwood, by the way, thatâs pronounced âJim Hatson.â A year or so later, my father built a big house on Washington Street, the main street of Norwood. Four-eighty-six Washington Street. It had three stories and twenty-one rooms, and it had gables and dormers and ornamental balconies and parquet floors, and it was one of the show places of Norwood. There was a mirror in our front hall that was eight feet high and decorated with gold cherubim. There were beautiful terra-cotta tiles around the fireplaces. There were diamond-shaped windows at the stair landings, and they had red, green, purple, and amber panes.
âAs I said, my grandfather and my father were doctors, and when I was growing up I was well aware that my father hoped I would follow in his footsteps, just as he had followed in his fatherâs footsteps. He never said so, but it was perfectly obvious to me and to everybody else that that was what he wanted. I loved my father, and I wanted him to think well of me, but I knew from the time I was a little boy and fainted at the sight of blood when I happened to see our cook wring the neck of a chicken that I was going to be a disappointment to him, because I really couldnât stand the idea of being a doctor; I kept it to myself, but that was the last thing in the world I wanted to be. Not that I had anything else in mind. The truth is, I wasnât much good at anythingâat home or at school or at play. To begin with, I was undersized; I was a runt, a shrimp, a peanut, a half-pint, a tadpole. My nickname, when anybody thought to use it, was Pee Wee. Also, I was what my father called a catarrhal childâmy nose ran constantly. Usually, when I was supposed to be paying attention to something, I was busy blowing my nose. Also, I was just generally inept. Not long ago, looking up something in the unabridged dictionary, I came across a word that sums up the way I was then, and, for that matter, the way I am
Gould abruptly began scratching himself. He went about it unself-consciously. He scratched the back of his neck, and then he thrust his hand inside his shirt and scratched his chest and ribs.
âI shouldâve been born in Boston,â he continued, âbut I wasnât. My father, whose name was Clarke Storer Gould, was also a doctor. He was a Bostonian, but he had been prevailed upon to move out and practice in Norwood, Massachusetts, and he and my mother had been living there only a few months when I was born. Norwood is a fairly good-sized old Yankee town about fifteen miles southwest of Boston. Itâs a residential suburb, and it also has some printing plants and some sheepskin tanneries and an ink factory and a glue works. I was born at high noon on September 12, 1889, in a flat over Jim Hartshornâs meat market. In Norwood, by the way, thatâs pronounced âJim Hatson.â A year or so later, my father built a big house on Washington Street, the main street of Norwood. Four-eighty-six Washington Street. It had three stories and twenty-one rooms, and it had gables and dormers and ornamental balconies and parquet floors, and it was one of the show places of Norwood. There was a mirror in our front hall that was eight feet high and decorated with gold cherubim. There were beautiful terra-cotta tiles around the fireplaces. There were diamond-shaped windows at the stair landings, and they had red, green, purple, and amber panes.
âAs I said, my grandfather and my father were doctors, and when I was growing up I was well aware that my father hoped I would follow in his footsteps, just as he had followed in his fatherâs footsteps. He never said so, but it was perfectly obvious to me and to everybody else that that was what he wanted. I loved my father, and I wanted him to think well of me, but I knew from the time I was a little boy and fainted at the sight of blood when I happened to see our cook wring the neck of a chicken that I was going to be a disappointment to him, because I really couldnât stand the idea of being a doctor; I kept it to myself, but that was the last thing in the world I wanted to be. Not that I had anything else in mind. The truth is, I wasnât much good at anythingâat home or at school or at play. To begin with, I was undersized; I was a runt, a shrimp, a peanut, a half-pint, a tadpole. My nickname, when anybody thought to use it, was Pee Wee. Also, I was what my father called a catarrhal childâmy nose ran constantly. Usually, when I was supposed to be paying attention to something, I was busy blowing my nose. Also, I was just generally inept. Not long ago, looking up something in the unabridged dictionary, I came across a word that sums up the way I was then, and, for that matter, the way I am
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