Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters Seymour An Introduction.docVIP

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters Seymour: An Introduction Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters One night some twenty years ago, during a siege of mumps in our enormous family, my youngest sister, Franny, was moved, crib and all, into the ostensibly germ-free room I shared with my eldest brother, Seymour. I was fifteen, Seymour was seventeen. Along about two in the morning, the new roommates crying wakened me. I lay in a still, neutral position for a few minutes, listening to the racket, till I heard, or felt, Seymour stir in the bed next to mine. In those days, we kept a flashlight on the night table between us, for emergencies that, as far as I remember, never arose. Seymour turned it on and got out of bed. The bottles on the stove, Mother said, I told bin. I gave it to her a little while ago, Seymour said. She isnt hungry. He went over in the dark to a bookcase and beamed the flashlight slowly back and forth along the stacks. I sat up in bed. What arc you going to do? I said. I thought maybe Id read something to her, Seymour said, and took down a book. Shes ten months old, for Gods sake, I said. I know, Seymour said. They have ears. They can hear. The story Seymour read to Franny that night, by flashlight, was a favorite of his, a Taoist tale. To this day, Franny swears that she remembers Seymour reading it to her: Duke Mu of Chin said to Po Lo: You are now advanced in years. Is there any member of your family whom I could employ to look for horses in your stead? Po Lo replied: A good horse can be picked out by its general build and appearance. But the superlative horse - one that raises no dust and leaves no tracks - is something evanescent and fleeting, elusive as thin air. The talents of my sons lie on a lower plane altogether; they call tell a good horse when they see one, but they cannot tell a superlative horse. I have a friend, however, one Chin-fang Kao, a hawker of fuel and vegetables, who in things appertaining to horses is nowise my inferior. Pray