PALM SUNDAY
53
belonged
in
the past, and link them to me and the present by
whatever associations were convenient or· true. Going along the
tiny lake where the waves slapped against the dock I kept thinking
of the big waves that pounded against the breakwater on Lake
Ontario where we used to live; and then as we rounded the tennis
court, soft and yellow and soon to be rolled and made ready for
the summer, I thought of that other tennis court years ago where I
used
to watch the older fellows play on hot summer afternoons, and
how once one of the men came over to me as they were changing
courts and said, "For gosh sakes, I should think you'd roast in
that Indian suit, on a day like this." For no reason at all, all these
things that kept coming up
in
my mind made we want to stop and
~d
of savor them, but now we were at this neighbor's house and
Ted
and his father lifted the cellar door and we went down.
The boat was held up by some props or a cradle of some sort
(I don't know what the right name of it is) an<l looked indeed a
very fine and workmanlike job and even a professional one. We
stood
around and looked at it, filled with surprise and genuine
admiration. It was about twelve feet long, oval of course and
blunted at each end, with a rectangular depression cut out in the
middle where you'd sit and handle the tiller or raise and lower the
keel.
This depression wasn't cut out, though; it seemed to have been
built
first and then the rest of the boat, or what in a larger boat
would have been the deck, had been shaped around it, the fine
boards curving beautifully and delicately from the stem to the
stem. The whole thing, ·especially the smooth glistening deck,
seemed
to have been made of very fine wood, fitted almost like
inlay work, hut Ted and his father said this was only because of
the varnish.
Lying along a rack on the side wall was the mast. It was about
eighteen feet long, strong-looking and perfectly shaped. It was
varnished bright like the boat (in fact everything was varnished a
bit too much for my taste hut Ted and his' father said this was for
protection against the water), and, like the boat, it had been made
entirely by Ted. He had gone into the woods and picked out the
cedar himself, cut it down and lugged it home, and now it was this
beautiful mast shining in the rack along the side wall like a long
solden icicle, as foreign to the woods from which it came as it was
to
this damp sunless cellar. My brother and I and our friend could
