The Buffalo

This is not my earliest memory, but it's one of the earliest. We were living in the yellow "tenant house" on the Bates' farm in Melrose. My brother and I were outside on the porch when he told me to look at that buffalo on the porch of the main house, brick as I recall, across the driveway. "A big black buffalo,"he said, "just standing there." So I looked and saw the big black buffalo, just standing there, exactly as he'd said. I don't think I thought any more about it: I definitely wasn't scared, thought it was interesting. But later, I remember my mother questioning me in a serious tone: what had I seen? It turned out, it seems, that my brother had become sick and was running a fever, one of the few things my mother was terrified of. She had been inside--Dorothy must have been a little baby then, or maybe even not yet born. Joseph had been raving and talking about the buffalo on the porch next door, as well as (I think at that time) being very afraid of the furniture legs that had animal carvings on them. I have one of those vivid memories of being questioned by my mother as to what I'd seen , and I knew it was important, though didn't understand why. You should understand that back in those days, and certainly in our family, adults seldom asked children questions about anything, what answers could kids possibly have? I know I told my mother I'd seen the buffalo, remember describing where it was standing, what it looked like. I don't know whether I reassured her or not. I was so little at the time I'm thinking I just accepted whatever my older brother told me. I have a memory of my mother saying it must have been a large black stray dog that we'd both seen. But you know, in my mind, I can still today see the image of that big black buffalo. It was standing at an angle facing toward the back part of the porch. And I'm not scared.