The Golden Willow by Harry Bernstein Page B

depressed and disappointed. It was a Sunday, so there was no work being done, and the people I had hoped to see were no longer there, except one.
    Yes, there was one, and she came running out to greet us, having recognized me from her window in the one house that was still occupied. It was Annie Green, whom I remembered so well as a young woman then, now an old woman, bent over, huddled in a shawl that covered her head and showed fringes of white hair, and a toothless mouth that shouted warm greetings.
    Annie took us into her house and served us tea and biscuits and an abundance of information about the people who had once lived here and what had happened to them in all the years since I had gone away. Ruby and I came away refreshed and warmed, glad now that we had come.
    A week of sightseeing in London and Paris followed, and by that time we were eager to get home and be with our kids again. Perhaps until then we had not realized how important a part of our life they had become. To be sure, we missed the lazy Sunday mornings when we could loaf in bed as long as we liked and spend all the time we wanted over breakfast with the Sunday
Times
scattered about us, the ease of not having to take care of anyone but ourselves, the untroubled days when we did not have children with their noise, their constant demands, their fevers and sore throats, and the worry over their school grades. But the pleasure we derived from seeing them grow and develop, and the love that came from them, made up for all that.
    F ROM THE START , we realized that our two children were almost exact opposites, two separate individuals with different characteristics and personalities. Charlie was outgoing; he made friends easily and had lots of them—too many, we often thought—and his mind was more on having fun with his friends, less on schoolwork. Hewas big for his age. Before he was twelve, when he was still in grade school, he towered over all his classmates.
    Ruby and I collaborated on an article about him that was published in
Parents
magazine. “Big for His Age” was the title, and we told how it could be as much a disadvantage to a boy as an advantage. It could command the respect of other boys, but if he got into a fight with one who was his age but much more normal and smaller in height, he would be called a bully, and if he turned away from it, as he did sometimes for fear of hurting the other one, he would be labeled a coward. He was handy around the house for Ruby when it reached a point where he was taller than she was and she had to reach up for something on a shelf that was too high up for her; he did it for her with perfect ease. But generally, we pointed out in the article, far more was expected of him than he was capable of doing.
    However, he weathered the period until his peers caught up with him in height without any bad psychological effects, and he grew into his adolescence as cheerful and outgoing as ever, with an abundance of friends that soon began to include girls, and with that he paid less attention to his schoolwork than ever.
    “Charlie, did you do your homework?”
    I can remember that remark coming from both Ruby and myself almost without fail every day. The reply was generally no. He was always truthful. I once thought his inability to tell a lie was due to lack of imagination, but I was being unjust to him. He was simply a straightforward, honest kid who could not lie to us, and it often brought on difficulties for him and for us. He could be on his way out, all dressed up, his long hair slicked back, on his way to a party or to some other kind of pleasure, and we'd stop him and ask the question: “Have you done your homework?”
    “No,” came the reply.
    “Then do it.” Ruby was the disciplinarian. I was inclined to be more lenient, and I would have let him go. But Ruby was firm, and there was good reason for it. She more than anyone could appreciate the value of schools. She'd had to wait until she was eleven