up without mortar sixteen and eighteen courses high and steeply battered. I've looked at barns and houses and bridges and factories and chimneys and walls and in thousand structures I've never seen a misplaced stone. In form and design and scale and structure and proportion I've yet to see an example of the old work that was no perfectly executed. They were designed by the men who built them and their design rose out of necessity. The beauty of those structures would appear to be just a sort of a by—product, something fortuitous, but of course it is not. The aim of the mason was to make the wall stand up and that was his purpose in its entirety. The beauty of the stonework is simply a reflection of the purity of the mason's intention. Carly says I have this mystique thing about stone masonry. She says nobody understands it Even my father thinks it's crazy. She says no one know what I'm talking about. She says no one cares. In all this of course she's right. And she says you can't change his story and that ruins should be left to ruin. And she's right But that the craft of stonemasonry should be allowed to vanish from this world is just not negotiable for me Somewhere there is someone who wants to know. Nor will I have to seek him out. He'll find me.
SCENE IV
The kitchen, afternoon, GUESTS and their CHILDREN in Sunday clothes are leaving, going out through the living room. Mama is saying goodbye to cousins and other kin and a PHOTOGRAPHER thanks her and shoulders up his camera and tripod and exits. Maven is nine months pregnant. Ben is in the kitchen talking to a REPORTER . The other guests all leave and the lights dim out in the living room and Mama goes upstairs and Maven goes to the basement apartment.
R EPORTER ( Looking through his small notepad ) His name is spelled conventionally isn't it?
B EN Yes. Just Edward. There wasn't any creative spelling back them. Blacks couldn't spell.
R EPORTER I guess that's right.
B EN He was a grown man before he learned to read and write. His wife taught him. My grandmother.
R EPORTER Where did she learn?
B EN She taught herself.
R EPORTER I would think that would be hard to do.
B EN I would too. She worked for a family as a live-in maid in Evansville Indiana and they had twin daughters about school age and after she got them put to bed at night she'd sit down with their primers [prim-ers] and study by candlelight until one and two in the morning and then get up again at five thirty and get breakfast for the family. She did that for several years and then one day the woman—the lady of the house—went in her room and found some of their books there. My grandmother had a room up over the carriage house and she'd sneak books out of the house and read them at night and this woman found them and thought she was stealing the books to sell them—back then books were valuable—and she was going to fire her and my grandmother sat down and read for her and she let her stay.
R EPORTER She must have been a remarkable woman.
B EN She was. Later she was the first black registered nurse in the state of Indiana. But she read all her life. And she remembered what she read. She could quote poetry by the hour. She could quote Scott's Lady of the Lake in its entirety and it runs about a hundred pages. When I was in high school she used to help me with my algebra. It never occurred to me to wonder where she learned it.
R EPORTER And your grandfather. Does he read?
B EN ( Smiling ) Constantly.
R EPORTER What does he read.
B EN The King James version of the bible.
R EPORTER Is that it?
B EN That's it.
R EPORTER You said he read constantly.
B EN He does.
The reporter nods and smiles.
R EPORTER Well. He certainly seems to be in remarkable health for a man a hundred and two years old. I know he gets tired of people asking him the secret of his longevity but I couldn't get anything out of him at all. He just said that somebody had to live to be a hundred and it looked like it was him.
SCENE IV
The kitchen, afternoon, GUESTS and their CHILDREN in Sunday clothes are leaving, going out through the living room. Mama is saying goodbye to cousins and other kin and a PHOTOGRAPHER thanks her and shoulders up his camera and tripod and exits. Maven is nine months pregnant. Ben is in the kitchen talking to a REPORTER . The other guests all leave and the lights dim out in the living room and Mama goes upstairs and Maven goes to the basement apartment.
R EPORTER ( Looking through his small notepad ) His name is spelled conventionally isn't it?
B EN Yes. Just Edward. There wasn't any creative spelling back them. Blacks couldn't spell.
R EPORTER I guess that's right.
B EN He was a grown man before he learned to read and write. His wife taught him. My grandmother.
R EPORTER Where did she learn?
B EN She taught herself.
R EPORTER I would think that would be hard to do.
B EN I would too. She worked for a family as a live-in maid in Evansville Indiana and they had twin daughters about school age and after she got them put to bed at night she'd sit down with their primers [prim-ers] and study by candlelight until one and two in the morning and then get up again at five thirty and get breakfast for the family. She did that for several years and then one day the woman—the lady of the house—went in her room and found some of their books there. My grandmother had a room up over the carriage house and she'd sneak books out of the house and read them at night and this woman found them and thought she was stealing the books to sell them—back then books were valuable—and she was going to fire her and my grandmother sat down and read for her and she let her stay.
R EPORTER She must have been a remarkable woman.
B EN She was. Later she was the first black registered nurse in the state of Indiana. But she read all her life. And she remembered what she read. She could quote poetry by the hour. She could quote Scott's Lady of the Lake in its entirety and it runs about a hundred pages. When I was in high school she used to help me with my algebra. It never occurred to me to wonder where she learned it.
R EPORTER And your grandfather. Does he read?
B EN ( Smiling ) Constantly.
R EPORTER What does he read.
B EN The King James version of the bible.
R EPORTER Is that it?
B EN That's it.
R EPORTER You said he read constantly.
B EN He does.
The reporter nods and smiles.
R EPORTER Well. He certainly seems to be in remarkable health for a man a hundred and two years old. I know he gets tired of people asking him the secret of his longevity but I couldn't get anything out of him at all. He just said that somebody had to live to be a hundred and it looked like it was him.
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