August 10, 1931
Sparrow Crest
Brandenburg, Vermont
Today I saw it for the first time: Sparrow Crest. Our new home.
Will drove us there, little Margaret on my lap, chatting, pointing at and naming the sights along the way:house,cow,horse,car,man,lady,dog,tree. She’s such a clever girl and has become quite the talker, knows a dozen words and uses them again and again. Will says she is very advanced for her age.
Everything is such a delight to her! And to Will and me, now that we see the world through her eyes.
She giggled with delight at each cow.
“And what noise does a cow make?” I asked. “Does a cow saymoo?”
“Moo!” she cried. “Moo, moo, moo!”
Will was nervous, fidgety as a little boy—he so wanted me to be pleased with the house. He wanted it to be everything I’d hoped and dreamed for.
We drove through town, passing the general store, the church, the post office, the little schoolhouse.
I am Mrs. Monroe, and my family and I live here in Brandenburg now, I told myself as I took it all in, trying to make it real, to make it sink in. I imagined us all walking through the doors of the church on Sundays, buying bread at the store, introducing ourselves to our new neighbors, Margaret one day being old enough to go to school.
When we turned up the road to the house, Will told me to close my eyes.
“Keep them closed and no peeking, darling wife,” he said. “You too, little sparrow,” he added, and Maggie covered her eyes with her hands as I did, giggling. She started counting, the way she did when we all played hide-and-seek. Only she hadn’t quite learned to count and just listed the numbers she knew: “One, four, six, one.”
He drove another minute, then stopped the car. “Keep them closed,” he instructed. He came around and opened our door. I stumbled out, holding Maggie in my arms, Will guiding me.
“Okay, open your eyes.”
I gasped. Will, I’m sure, took it as a gasp of awe and delight. But really, it was fear. I sucked air into my chest, which felt as if it was being crushed by a giant fist. I held Maggie tightly in my arms, and we gazed upon Sparrow Crest. It was so much more massive than I had imagined, like a great stone fortress. It truly was like the castle I had dreamed of living in when I was a little girl. The front door was heavy wood with a rounded top. The windows were arched with leaded glass. Two stories high with an attic, the roof had steep peaks and was covered in gray slate shingles. There was a large half-round window in the attic at the very front of the house.
The whole building seemed alive to me; it felt as though it was a part of the landscape, as if it had risen up right out of the rocky soil. It fit the backdrop of trees on the hill behind it perfectly. The windows and door looked like a fierce face under the steeply angled rooftop.
The front door stood open, a mouth waiting to gobble us up.
“Oh, Will,” I said, taking a step back away from it, wanting to get back in the car and drive as far away from this place as we could.
But it was too late. We had nowhere else to go. This was our home now.
Will took Maggie from me, swooped her though the air as if she were flying. “And what do you think of your new house, little sparrow?”
She laughed with delight and pointed. “House,” she said.
“Your house,” he told her. “Sparrow Crest. Shall we go inside?”
I followed him on shaky legs.
A work crew was inside, as well as the movers, who had come ahead of us, trucks loaded with our furniture and all of our belongings in baskets and boxes. All the men scuttled to and fro like ants.
Will introduced me to the foreman, Mr. Galletti. He was a broad-shouldered man with dark hair and a thick, bushy mustache. “A true pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Monroe,” he said.
The front hall was magnificent—heavy, dark wood-paneled walls, a stone floor, built-in benches to sit on while we take off boots and coats. Off to the right, a large living room with a stone fireplace. There was a mason pointing the cement between the stones with a tiny trowel. He tipped his hat to me. Beyond the living room, a dining room connected by a hall to the kitchen. Oh, the kitchen! It’s enormous.
“You could cook a feast every night!” Will said. There were plenty of deep wooden cupboards and a large pantry. A huge soapstone sink. The newest and fanciest gas stove.
“It’s big enough to get lost in,” I told him.
