draw me out by asking what birds I had seen, or he made up a bird and asked me what it was. In the spring and summer, he brought me birdsâ eggs and feathers, bouquets of wild flowers. This upset me in a way that I did not understand. It made me uneasy that he knew about my collection of birdsâ eggs, my shoebox of feathers, and my book of pressed flowers. I did not see why he should bother to know anything at all about me. He was an adult, and I was a child. His attentions made me more quiet and solemn than I generally was. When I did not respond as other children did, Honnimer was further delighted by what he called my âinfant seriousness.â
Everyone else adored him. He and his wife, Lucy, were the most popular couple on the campus. Lucy had blond hair and wore cashmere sweaters. She often went to his lectures and sat in the front row, smiling up at him. When he ran out of cigars, he would look down at her and she would hand him one. She either could not have or did not want children. The two of them kept three large black cats, one of whom produced a litter a year. There was a waiting list for these kittens and also an unofficial lottery to see who got to drive with Honnimer when he took his sports car to the next county to be serviced. If Lucy went with him, they always left a few disappointed students hanging around the parking lot, watching Honnimer and Lucy drive off with the top downâHonnimer in his army jacket, Lucy with a silk scarf over her hair. Undergraduates fell in love with the idea of them.
Honnimer crept up on me little by little. When I went out with my fishing gear or field glasses, he always spotted me. He was either in his car on the same road or crossing my path on his way to the tennis courts. I became so used to these encounters that I started to expect them. As soon as I saw Honnimer, I saw myself: a long-legged, black-haired child wearing khaki shorts and carrying a fishing rod. I could scarcely take my field glasses off their peg without thinking about myself.
Besides learning how to be an Indian, I taught myself to ice-skate. My parents started me on the college pond, holding out a broom handle for me to steady myself with. As soon as I got my balance, I began to watch the better skaters. I studied what they did and imitated it. Once you get the feel of ice, it doesnât fight you.
When the ice on the pond got mushy or started to crack, my parents gave me bus fare to go to the rink in town. There the townies sat in the bleachers, drinking hot chocolate and kissing. My peers shouted and fell down on the ice. In the center of the rink, away from falling children, the serious skaters worked out. I hung around the perimeter, watching. I did not want to be taught to skate. I wanted that mastery all to myself. The things you teach yourself in childhood are precious, and you have endless patience for them. My parents knew that I skated, but they knew that I did not want to be encouraged or given fancy skating sweaters for Christmas. I did not want them to witness my achievement, or comment on it, or document it. I did not want praise for effort.
My colleagues in childhood were the precocious children of intellectualsâferocious, noisy kids who learned calculus at the age of nine and were trilingual at ten, sources of pride to their parents. My parents, I felt, were simply pleased with me. They were interested in my pastimes but kept their distance. We had three sets of amusements: mine, theirs, and ours. My father loved to go fishing and taught me to tie flies. In the spring, we trekked to a trout pool and spent the day in water up to our hips, pushing gnats out of our eyes. My mother took me bird walking, and from her I learned my orderly habits of observation and notation. But they left me alone, liking to be left alone themselves.
I would have felt my life to be entirely unremarkable and happy if it had not been for Honnimer. He was studying me. He knew what sort of
Everyone else adored him. He and his wife, Lucy, were the most popular couple on the campus. Lucy had blond hair and wore cashmere sweaters. She often went to his lectures and sat in the front row, smiling up at him. When he ran out of cigars, he would look down at her and she would hand him one. She either could not have or did not want children. The two of them kept three large black cats, one of whom produced a litter a year. There was a waiting list for these kittens and also an unofficial lottery to see who got to drive with Honnimer when he took his sports car to the next county to be serviced. If Lucy went with him, they always left a few disappointed students hanging around the parking lot, watching Honnimer and Lucy drive off with the top downâHonnimer in his army jacket, Lucy with a silk scarf over her hair. Undergraduates fell in love with the idea of them.
Honnimer crept up on me little by little. When I went out with my fishing gear or field glasses, he always spotted me. He was either in his car on the same road or crossing my path on his way to the tennis courts. I became so used to these encounters that I started to expect them. As soon as I saw Honnimer, I saw myself: a long-legged, black-haired child wearing khaki shorts and carrying a fishing rod. I could scarcely take my field glasses off their peg without thinking about myself.
Besides learning how to be an Indian, I taught myself to ice-skate. My parents started me on the college pond, holding out a broom handle for me to steady myself with. As soon as I got my balance, I began to watch the better skaters. I studied what they did and imitated it. Once you get the feel of ice, it doesnât fight you.
When the ice on the pond got mushy or started to crack, my parents gave me bus fare to go to the rink in town. There the townies sat in the bleachers, drinking hot chocolate and kissing. My peers shouted and fell down on the ice. In the center of the rink, away from falling children, the serious skaters worked out. I hung around the perimeter, watching. I did not want to be taught to skate. I wanted that mastery all to myself. The things you teach yourself in childhood are precious, and you have endless patience for them. My parents knew that I skated, but they knew that I did not want to be encouraged or given fancy skating sweaters for Christmas. I did not want them to witness my achievement, or comment on it, or document it. I did not want praise for effort.
My colleagues in childhood were the precocious children of intellectualsâferocious, noisy kids who learned calculus at the age of nine and were trilingual at ten, sources of pride to their parents. My parents, I felt, were simply pleased with me. They were interested in my pastimes but kept their distance. We had three sets of amusements: mine, theirs, and ours. My father loved to go fishing and taught me to tie flies. In the spring, we trekked to a trout pool and spent the day in water up to our hips, pushing gnats out of our eyes. My mother took me bird walking, and from her I learned my orderly habits of observation and notation. But they left me alone, liking to be left alone themselves.
I would have felt my life to be entirely unremarkable and happy if it had not been for Honnimer. He was studying me. He knew what sort of
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