SOb
ALAN
SILLIT O E
of escaping from his. He simply dug deeper and deeper into it, and
stayed that way.
In
spite of this necessary but unthinking loyalty to his own
identity, much of it maintained at the expense of others, Burton's
children ended up diffident and civilized, good-natured and with
a sense of humor, which was probably due more to the benign influ·
ence of Mary-Ann than the stern eye and often hard fist of Burton.
The most consistent charge leveled against him was that he was an
"interfering old bogger." Whatever was going on in house and
family he would comment on, usually in a derogatory fashion, poking
his nose into things with such dominant advice that he was known
only as a bully by his grown-up children.
Only one daughter he was not allowed to bully as a child, one
who was a little backward until later in life. She was the daughter
whom Mary-Ann loved most, in that she never left her alone for a
moment, but as a child took her eyerywhere so that no more harm
would come to her. She grew up in fear of Burton nevertheless, but
with no thought of resentment or rebellion like the others. She did
not become mentally ill, and was able all her life to earn her living
and maintain a certain humor against the world.
She got involved with the church, but only after Burton had
died, for while he lived he either paralyzed them, or damned them \
by his nagging. Two of his daughters never married while he was
alive, and they blamed this on him. Being the sort of man he was,
his daughters fared worse in life than his sons. Those three daughters
who married hard and impossible men met no peace until each of
their husbands were dead.
"Burton" is an old gypsy or didacoi name, though I never
heard it said that he actually came from such people. Still, he did
have a way with horses and women. He also smoked, drank, and
fined himself with fat, and died at nearly eighty with never an
illness in his life. The three remedies he occasionally used to keep
himself in sorts were Friars Balsam, Fullers Earth, and Epsom Salts.
He smoked Robin cigarettes, or Park DriYe, though often he sat at
the parlor table making his own. He was a good customer of Ship–
stones Ales.
He has gone now, and nobody knows where to, though some
