LITMIR.BIZ

      Bill did have one childhood friend who remained close throughout his life. Mark Whalon was nine years older than Bill and actually remembered hearing Emily’s cries on the morning Bill was born. (He later appears in Bill’s letters and recollections as “my friend the postman,” because he became the rural letter carrier in East Dorset.)

      Although there were inner conflicts developing in Bill’s childish heart, he was hardly regarded as a troublesome or unfriendly youngster. On the contrary, “I never heard anyone say they didn’t like Bill,” a former classmate recalled. “He was a mighty nice fellow, very popular. He was very tall and well built, with broad shoulders — a nice-looking boy.’’

      Bill showed an early interest in science, and while they were living in Rutland, he made himself a chemistry laboratory in the woodshed. He almost blew up the shed — and himself. “I remember how horrified my father was, when coming home one night, he found that I had mixed certain acids — I should imagine sulphuric and nitric — to make actual nitroglycerin in the back shed, and when he arrived, I was dipping strips of paper in the nitroglycerin and burning them. You can imagine what a sensation this made with a man accustomed, as he was in his quarry business, to the use of dynamite, which is but a pale imitation of the real stuff. I remember how very gingerly Dad lifted that dish, dug a very large hole, which he wet, and gingerly spread the evil stuff about it, and just as gingerly covered it up.’’

      Another experiment Bill tried was a telegraph set. He and his friend Russ communicated by Morse code with a set Bill made.

      In 1906, Emily, Bill, and Dorothy moved back to East Dorset. Some of Bill’s letters from that period have survived:

      “Nov. 12, 1906: Dear Mama, It snowed today quite hard and at school there was a great deal of snowballing. Dorothy is well and so am I and I hope you are well too. We got our ‘jacks’ haloween and I called mine Punch and Dorothy called hers Judy.

      “You were asking me when you make N what happens after you light the P. The fumes of phosphoric anhydride, P2O5, at once rise and fill the jar with dense white fumes which after standing the H20 absorbs the P20. As the P burns it consumes the oxygen of the jar, thus leaving the nitrogen nearly pure. Air is composed of 1/5 oxygen, 4/5 nitrogen. As the oxygen is consumed by the burning P the water rises 1/5 the height of the jar. So that is what happens.’’ . . .

      “Nov. 13: On haloween night they had a haloween party at the hall. They had shadow pictures and all sorts of games. Had refreshments. The room was entirely lit by ‘jacks’ and ‘Jap’ lanterns. Had a great time. I can’t think of any more. Your loving son, Willie Wilson. P.S. I have not yet been to Rutland to see Rus.”

      A note on the letter carries the comment: “He happens to know what happens, doesn’t he? Isn’t this too funny? I think he can beat his mother in the art of letter writing.’’ That may have been written by Emily or by one of Bill’s grandparents in enclosing the letter for mailing.

      There is no date on the following letter, although the reference to Valentines suggests it may have been February or March 1907.

      “Dear Mama, We are well and I hope you are. Have not found time to write. We have to study day and night. Can just pinch along and so can the rest.

      “Today I wrote a composition on the ‘iron and steel industry.’

      “The valentines you sent were all gone before breakfast the next morning. We got them at night. We could have sold 50 more if we had had them. Dorothy says she wants you to send some Easter cards.

      “Do you remember Mr. Parent?, the little girls father her name was Lillie, she used to come to play with Dorothy. Well the mill shut down here. Lillie’s father went to work at West Rutland. He was going across the crossing. He had his cap pulled over his ears, so he didn’t hear the train that was coming that killed him. It was to bad.

      “About that medicine. When I came from Russels house I came down Centre Street. I got Dorothy a set of doll dishes. I thought there was something more I had to buy but couldn’t think of it. I got to the depot in time to catch the train and never thought of it till I got home. I am sorry. Your loving son Will.’’

      There was a reason for Emily’s prolonged absences. “All unbeknown to Dorothy and me, a rift was developing between my mother and my father,” Bill recalled. “I recollect, too, my mother was having what they said were nervous breakdowns, sometimes requiring that she go away for extended periods to the seashore, and on one occasion to the sanitarium.

      “Though I did not know it, and though my father never became an alcoholic, he was at times a pretty heavy drinker. Like me, he was a person to be pretty much elated by success and, together with some of his marble quarry friends and their financial backing in New York, would have extended sprees. Though I never knew the details, I think one of these episodes had consequences that

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