66

Ah, bless the Lord, O my soul! bless him for
wildness, for crows that will not alight
within gunshot!

Journal, January 12, 1855

It was mid-autumn in Concord. Sugar maples flamed along Walden Street. The swamp maples had already lost their leaves, revealing on the ends of their bare branches the dirty clotted handkerchiefs of tent caterpillars. Petunias disappeared, chrysanthemums came on strong. Yellow buses lumbered to and fro, carrying the children of Concord to schools called Alcott and Thoreau and Sanborn, Willard and Pea-body. Along Route 2 the farm stands were colorful with baskets of red apples and mountains of orange pumpkins. Flocks of red-winged blackbirds settled in the trees around Gowing’s Swamp, just passing through, and one day the myrtle warblers stopped over in Concord, fluttering between branches, soaring in dipping arcs, lacing the trees together, then rising all in a body to migrate farther south. And all over town the Canada geese flew back and forth from pond to pond, keeping up a restless shout, informing each other that winter was coming.

If it was coming for the Canada geese, it was coming for Sarah Peel and her friends. Something had to be done about them right away, but what? Like the judge in the county courthouse, Homer Kelly didn’t know what the hell to do, but he threw himself into the task of figuring it out. While Sarah and Dolores and Christine and Doris and Almina and Carl and Bobbsie and Bridgie were passed around among the Kellys’ long-suffering friends, Homer made a study of the Hugh Cargill land, a large triangular parcel near the center of town.

“It used to be the Concord poor farm,” he told his wife. “Hugh Cargill left it to the town in 1798 for the benefit of the poor.”

“I remember the house before it was torn down,” said Mary. “It was right there on Walden Street across from the police station.”

“Right. And you remember what happened. The trustees sold off most of the property and used the profits to build affordable housing elsewhere, because most of the Cargill parcel is wetland. But look at this.” Homer unfolded one of the maps he had been using in his explorations of Thoreau country. “This little piece right here, that’s not wetland. Why couldn’t they put a bunch of house trailers right there?”

“House trailers?” Mary gasped. Then she laughed.

Homer looked at her in surprise. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s Roger Bland and all those other people. People like us, good conservationist types, you have to admit we’ve been looking forward to the eventual closing down of Pond View, which is the trailer park we’ve already got.” Mary went off into another gale of laughter. “And here you are, putting another one right in the middle of everything. I tell you, Homer, it won’t be easy.”

And it wasn’t. While Sarah and her friends were gently shifted from house to house, and Doris Harper wore out her welcome with one hostess after another, Homer befriended the Hugh Cargill trustees, he pleaded with the affordable housing commission, he pressured the planning board and the board of appeals, he hounded the finance committee, he pestered the Concord Public Works Department. As a result of his efforts a new zoning change was inserted in the warrant for the April town meeting, along with an article for a change in the bylaws to permit subsidized housing in the shape of mobile homes.

The town meeting was stormy. “What about sewage?” demanded Roger Bland, rising from the audience to protest. “Those trailers will contaminate the town well.”

“If you will examine the rest of the warrant,” said Homer, speaking from the rostrum, “you’ll see another article requesting that the town sewer be extended across Walden Street from the courthouse. That will take care of the town well.”

Roger was on his feet again, waving his hands, hardly able to express his outrage. “What’s to prevent all the homeless people in Boston from coming out to Concord and expecting to be housed?”

“What indeed?” murmured the chairman of the finance committee to Selectwoman Betsy Beaumont.

Oliver Fry leaped up. “If all the suburban towns around Boston act as responsibly as we’re doing, that won’t happen.” There was huge applause. One of Betsy’s eight children was old enough to vote at Town Meeting, and he whistled through his teeth.

The sewage proposal passed. So did the change in the bylaws, by a narrow margin. The zoning change was the trickiest, since it required a two-thirds vote. Homer Kelly gave an impassioned speech. People shot out of their seats and waved their arms to be recognized and spoke with irrefutable logic on both sides. The discussion went on and on. When the moderator at last called for a voice vote, there was a tremendous clamor of ayes, followed by a huge chorus of nays.

The moderator frowned around the hall and declared himself in doubt. “Will the aye voters please stand? Tellers, will you record the vote?”

It was a near thing, but it squeaked by. “The motion is passed,” thundered the moderator, whamming down his gavel and moving on to the next item on the warrant. “Article fourteen, public works, the purchase of a snowplow. Does anyone wish to speak to this motion?”