We exchanged very few words.
And it was our custom, when together, Ruth and I, to hold long
discussions concerning the methods and technique of the English poets,
especially the earlier ones.
This morning Baxter's secretary rose and left part of her breakfast
uneaten, hurrying into the house as if to avoid something which she had
seen and dreaded.
* * * * *
I ate a long time, dreaming.
Darrie came out, followed immediately by Daniel. Daniel was in an
obstreperous mood ... he cried out that I must be his "telegraph pole,"
that he would be a lineman, and climb me. I felt an affection for him
that I had not known before. I played with him, letting him climb up my
leg.
He finished, a-straddle my shoulders. I reached up and sat him still
higher, on my head. And he waved his arms and shouted, as if making
signals to someone far off.
Darrie laughed.
"Which would you rather have, a son or a daughter?" she asked me.
"I don't know," I replied, letting Daniel slide down, "but I think I'd
rather have a daughter ... the next generation will see a great age of
freedom for women ... feminism....
"Then it would be a grand thing, too, to have a beautiful daughter to go
about with ... and I would be old and silver-haired and
benignant-looking ... and people would say, as they saw the two of us:
"'There goes the poet, John Gregory, and his daughter .
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