Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour.
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Children’s Hour
“THIS, O Best Beloved, is another story of the High and Far-Off Times.”
Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Beginning of the Armadillos’, Just So Stories
I am an unrepentant early riser and am typically working at my computer in the silence of a sleeping house. Of course, the cats are always up and about, but they are creatures of stealth and not often heard at such an hour – unless, of course, they demand to be fed or let out (or in, or out); and at each dawn the birds conduct their celebration over the sun’s safe return as if they were neo-pagans worshipping within the sacred confines of Stonehenge during a summer solstice. Other than these occasional interruptions, peace and quiet reign throughout the house during the earliest morning hours – those hours before Helen, a chronic late-to-bed, arises to begin the earnest portions of our shared day.
Things are not the same in my oldest son’s home in Belmont, Massachusetts. Following my usual routines, I am often the first adult to rise when we visit there. Once dressed, I creep carefully down two flights of narrow stairs to sit in the living room and read my current book. But sooner or later the inevitable slight noises begin from above: a bedroom door creaks slowly open; tiptoed, stealthy footsteps (the kind made by bare feet on polished hardwood floors) are heard; careful noises of hopeful investigation follow as the first of my granddaughters to wake peers into her sister’s room to see whether her sister still sleeps; and, eventually, bare feet patter down carpeted stairs until they come to rest in the silence reigning behind me, and I become aware of being watched as the wakened granddaughter peers cautiously around the living room doorway to see if Granddad might be up and available for a story or a discussion over a topic of interest to a six or nine-year-old mind (discussions usually conducted by means of the sort of incessant interrogation that springs from a sense of wonder and excitement over the inexplicable ways of the wide, wide world).
Such times are precious, both because they happen all too infrequently given the distances between our respective homes and because of their intimacy and warmth. During these early morning visits with whichever granddaughter might prove to be first awake, Don and Sarah’s home is otherwise quiet and our business is, at first, conducted in the hushed voices of respect that honor the rights of those yet sleeping. Even the inevitable giggles are restrained and intimate, given forth from behind a small, sheltering hand – at least until such time as the second sister awakes and makes her presence known, and the unrestrained, high-spirited, ritual of joyous reunion that is the essence of each morning’s sisterly re-engagement begins. It is then that silence is flung aside as arms are swung wildly about and restless feet are made to shuffle, skip, and prance in their excitement over each new day’s unknown promise.
But I am now back at the Farm and the morning rituals of Don and Sarah’s home are three thousand miles away and three time zones in the past. Yet, as I write these words, I feel a tingle occasioned by the shy glance around our library’s entryway made by an incorporeal, gap-toothed sprite – the same little girl who called, using her father’s iPhone FaceTime, on our first day back to ask me whether I would go up to the library and show it to her again on camera in order that she might better remember where she and her sister sleep among the books, on futons, when visiting the Farm. Ghostly as her glance and giggles are in these early morning hours here on a farm so far away from Belmont, MA, they nonetheless warm my heart and make me smile – for they are as real to me as the morning’s sunshine.
