All time seemed to have passed, all history to have been written, all deeds done, and she was but part of the season's walking, a cycle that came around again and again, on time, like the clanging trolley that passed our door.
The world changed; its talk grew as bad as its manners, its heroes were fools and madmen, and again, soon, the sky was to burn and the corners of the world to smell; but she knew, somehow, that it didn't matter, that in her time the world would still hold together, that anything that was to happen, would happen after her. …
She had been a great walker, but now her walks grew shorter; she had been a reader of many things, now a few passages from her best-kept books were enough. Of all the graces, she had the best of all—dignity. The dignity of being human, of being a member of a race that, even though it still made footprints across its own many-colored faces, was very shortly to begin to learn that Mama was right, that without dignity one did not live, but merely existed.
One day there was a great art show of a dead man's paintings. And they wrote to Mama to borrow her painting, The Handsome Torso. It hung in our living room, very high up, and very few people noticed it. If they did, they only mocked and said it was nothing as good as the last out-house painter that America was trying to accept as a great artist. But Paul's painting outlived the rage over Benton, Wood, Marsh, Curry, and the other barn boys … and the great show in New York was a huge success.
I remember Papa crating The Handsome Torso, and looking at its sliding forms, its great lines, and the bold, flat colors.
“Now, Sara, don't worry. It will be packed right.”
Mama shook her head. “I hope so … I always had trouble with Fran in those days.”
Papa hit his thumb and dropped the nails. “Who?”
“I remember the day Fran posed for it.”
Papa picked up his hammer. “I'd better crate it fast … Jed and Fran are coming to dinner.”
Mama nodded, and Papa drove in the nail, and Mama stood there as tiny and straight as ever, and somehow Papa knew and I knew she was thinking how fast you could finish with your past; and the shortness of life was in every hammer blow Papa drove home.
And Mama smiled and pinched my ear, and I guess there isn't more to tell about Mama, except that I think she was one of the great men of our time. …
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