Who Do You Think You Are

had run from the window to the stairwell.
    Flo came from wherever she was to look out the side window. “He won’t hurt it,” said Flo surprisingly. Rose had thought she would chase him with the broom. Afterwards she wondered: could Flo have been frightened? Not likely. It would be a matter of Milton Homer’s privileges.
    “I can’t sit on the seat after Milton Homer’s sat on it!”
    “You! You go on back to bed.”
    Rose went back into the dark smelly measles room and began to tell Brian a story she thought he wouldn’t like.
    “When you were a baby, Milton Homer came and picked you up.” “He did not.”
    “He came and held you and asked what your name was. I remember.”
    Brian went out to the stairwell.
    “Did Milton Homer come and pick me up and ask what my name was? Did he? When I was a baby?”
    “You tell Rose he did the same for her.”
    Rose knew that was likely, though she hadn’t been going to mention it. She didn’t really know if she remembered Milton Homer holding Brian, or had been told about it. Whenever there was a new baby in a house, in that recent past when babies were still being born at home, Milton Homer came as soon as possible and asked to see the baby, then asked its name, and delivered a set speech. The speech was to the effect that if the baby lived, it was to be hoped it would lead a Christian life, and if it died, it was to be hoped it would go straight to Heaven. The same idea as baptism, but Milton did not call on the Father or the Son or do any business with water. He did all this on his own authority. He seemed to be overcome by a stammer he did not have at other times, or else he stammered on purpose in order to give his pronouncements more weight. He opened his mouth wide and rocked back and forth, taking up each phrase with a deep grunt.
    “And if the Baby— if the Baby— if the Baby— lives —”
    Rose would do this years later, in her brother’s living room, rocking back and forth, chanting, each if coming out like an explo sion, leading up to the major explosion of lives .
    “He will live a—good life—and he will—and he will—and he will— not sin . He will lead a good life —a good life —and he will not sin. He will not sin !”
    “And if the baby—if the baby—if the baby— dies —”
    “Now that’s enough. That’s enough, Rose,” said Brian, but he laughed. He could put up with Rose’s theatrics when they were about Hanratty.
    “How can you remember?” said Brian’s wife Phoebe, hoping to stop Rose before she went on too long and roused Brian’s impatience. “Did you see him do it? That often?”
    “Oh no,” said Rose, with some surprise. “I didn’t see him do it. What I saw was Ralph Gillespie doing Milton Homer. He was a boy in school. Ralph.”
    M ILTON HOMER’S OTHER PUBLIC FUNCTION , as Rose and Brian remembered it, was to march in parades. There used to be plenty of parades in Hanratty. The Orange Walk, on the Twelfth of July; the High School Cadet Parade, in May; the schoolchildren’s Empire Day Parade, the Legion’s Church Parade, the Santa Claus Parade, the Lions Club Old-Timers’ Parade. One of the most derogatory things that could be said about anyone in Hanratty was that he or she was fond of parading around, but almost every soul in town—in the town proper, not West Hanratty, that goes without saying—would get a chance to march in public in some organized and approved affair. The only thing was that you must never look as if you were enjoying it; you had to give the impression of being called forth out of preferred obscurity; ready to do your duty and gravely preoccupied with whatever notions the parade celebrated.
    The Orange Walk was the most splendid of all the parades. King Billy at the head of it rode a horse as near pure white as could be found, and the Black Knights at the rear, the noblest rank of Orangemen—usually thin, and poor, and proud and fanatical old farmers—rode dark horses and wore the ancient father-to-son top hats and swallow-tail coats. The banners were all gorgeous silks and embroideries, blue and gold, orange and white, scenes of Protestant triumph, lilies and open Bibles, mottoes of godliness and honor and flaming bigotry. The ladies came beneath their sunshades, Orangemen’s wives and daughters all wearing white for purity. Then the bands, the fifes and drums, and gifted step-dancers performing on a clean haywagon as a movable stage.
    Also, there came Milton Homer. He