Ten
I need to stop a moment or two—to rewind
Time a little bit to help you understand more clearly what this clue was—and
how I came to realize it.
As I wrote and described in the earlier
two installments of these Papers, Father’s intense reading habit quickly
passed on to me. Just he and I lived in the house—he and I and countless books
that stuffed the many shelves, that stood in piles on the floor, that occupied
just about every spare space in our house. Crammed in just about every
available space.
Early in my life, I followed Father’s
recommendations about books, but as I grew older, more independent, I began to
read whatever I wanted to. Sure, I would listen to Father’s suggestions—and
would often pursue them. He did the same thing with my recommendations as I
aged. We were a team, a reading team.
Well, some months ago—before Gil entered
my life—Father suggested we read, together, Cooper’s The Leatherstocking
Tales, a series of five books that he had published between 1823 and 1841.
They followed the life of his main character, a woodsman named Natty Bumppo,
from young manhood to his death.
But Cooper did not write them in
chronological order. The first was The Pioneers in 1823. In that one,
Natty is an older man.
Then came The Last of the
Mohicans (1826) when Natty—now called “Hawk-eye,” as I said—is at the
height of his considerable powers as a woodsman, hunter, rifleman (you can tell
how he got his nickname in this one!).
In 1827, here came another one—The
Prairie—which shows us an old and diminished Natty—and this one ends with
his death. Throughout he’s called only “the trapper” or “the old man.”
Next, The Pathfinder (1840) and
Natty is middle-aged and, as you see, has a new nickname.
Finally, the last he wrote—but the first
in the series—was The Deerslayer, the name Natty has in his twenties.
Through most of the books he has a
Delaware Indian companion—Chingachgook—and they are fiercely loyal to each
other. And as Natty gets older, he and Chingachgook drift farther into the
West: They prefer the wilderness to settlements and civilization.
Anyway, Father convinced me these were
important books in American literary history, and so off we went. He would read
the book first, then pass it on to me. Oh, and we read them in the order of
Natty’s age, not the order Cooper had written them. Seemed to make more sense
to both of us—to follow his life from youth to age. More … normal that way, we
thought.
I have to admit that, at first, it was a
bit of a struggle for me. Cooper’s language and style were, well, different.
Wordy, long-winded, full of long descriptions of woodlands and people. I wasn’t
sure I could do this project with Father.
But, slowly, the stories captured me—as
did Natty’s generous, honest manner—as did his brotherly relationship with
Chingachgook. Soon, both Father and I were racing through all the books. Sometimes I would finish one
before he did and had to urge him to finish his—and fast! (I was growing
impatient as I moved toward my teens.)
There’s a great, important scene in The
Last of the Mohicans. Hawk-eye is trying to lead into safety some others
whom he has rescued from an attack on a fort where the commander is the father
of one of those whom Hawk-eye rescues.
But there are too many Indians pursuing
them; they must find a place to hide.
And they do—in what Cooper calls “a
narrow, deep, cavern” behind a waterfall in what is now Glens Falls, New York.[i]
In The Last of the Mohicans Cooper
provided a footnote about the falls—which he calls “Glenn’s.” Here’s what he
wrote:
Glenn's Falls are on the Hudson [River],
some forty or fifty miles above the head of tide, or that place where the river
becomes navigable for sloops [boats]. The description of this picturesque and
remarkable little cataract, as given by the scout, is sufficiently correct,
though the application of the water to uses of civilized life has materially
injured its beauties. The rocky island and the two caverns are known to every
traveler, since the former sustains the pier of a bridge, which is now thrown
across the river, immediately above the fall ….[ii]
When Father and I talked about this
setting for a key scene, I did a little research at the library and discovered
that in 1824 Cooper, traveling with some others, had seen the falls himself—had
been in that cavern. One of the friends had suggested it as a setting for a
novel, and Cooper thought so, too.
Later, after the publication of The
Last of the Mohicans, Cooper wrote to his publisher to make sure he sent a
copy of the book to that friend.
Here’s what he wrote: “He, and I, were,
together, in the caverns at Glen’s falls, and it was there that I determined to
write the book ….”[iii]
Back to the story: Though Hawk-eye and the
others are hidden in the cavern, the Indians find them, and those hiding
realize they can’t stay—not all of them. Cora (one of the young women) insists
they leave without her and her sister, and, reluctantly, they do, leaving
behind the women and two others. Hawk-eye promises the women he will come
rescue them again, and off they go into the river and away.[iv]
Father and I talked about this moment so
much—about the falls, about Cora urging the others to leave them there, about
the cavern, about the falls, about the falls, about the falls. And this memory
was how I finally realized why William Godwin appeared—to remind me of James
Fenimore Cooper, of Glens Falls. And now I was certain that going there would
help me find Father.
It didn’t take long to convince the
others—where else could we go?
But as we piled into the Karmann Ghia,
questions spun through my mind like whirlwinds: How did William Godwin get
here? How are people coming and going so quickly—people like John? How are we
traveling so swiftly? How …?
But then the familiar fog rolled in once
again; I could see nothing; and Time abandoned, once again, its ordinary rules.
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