10 / CHRONICLESnVIEWSnTHE GRANDFATHER WITH THEnTEAR-GAS FOUNTAIN PEN by Russell KirknHard by the railroad station at the Michigan town ofnPlymouth there stands a bungalow so huge as to benalmost majestic, now a kennel for well-bred poodles. TherenI was born, in 1918. The house—which belonged to myngrandfather, Frank Pierce—was one of the earliest ofnprefabricated dwellings, purchased from Sears, Roebuck,nand Company, complete with bricks for the fireplace andnthe tall chimney, veranda, entrance-hall, handsome oaknRussell Kirk is author of Eliot and His Age (SherwoodnSugden) and was the 1984 recipient of The Richard M.nWeaver Award for Scholarly Letters.nnnwoodwork, leaded-glass bookcases and cupboards built in, anlong living-room bench of a single heavy oak plank (all ofnmy birthplace that now remains to me), 10 rooms, twonbathrooms. Night and day, the steam locomotive puffednand hooted 50 yards distant.nA good town to be born into, Plymouth had beennfounded by New Englanders in the late 1820’s. Althoughnonly 20 miles to the west of Fort Street Station in Detroit,nPlymouth throughout my boyhood remained a tranquilnplace with handsome old houses (all but one of themnvanished today), streets shaded by great elms and maplesnand oaks, and a square on the New England pattern,ncomplete with bandstand and cannon. The town marshalnand deputy sheriff, living next door to my grandfather’snhouse, made cigars in a shed at the back of his garden: Thisnamiable German, George Springer, suflEced for the policenpower in our town of 3,000 souls.nI grew up in Plymouth’s North End, or Lower Town, thenquarter of the railroad yards and the millpond. The town’snrelative prosperity had for its source the air-rifle factoriesnand the great roundhouse, rip-track, and yards of the PerenMarquette Railroad. Eighteen passenger trains stoppedndaily then, across an alley from my grandfather’s house. Mynstrong, quiet father was a locomotive engineman—thoughnhe liked horses better.nIt was this railway junction that had drawn my grandfathernto Plymouth from the town of Williamston, where henhad been a bank manager. Beside the passenger station atnPlymouth, he had put up a large frame building, F.J.nPierce’s Restaurant, for railwaymen and passengers, with angood many sleeping rooms on the second floor. I stillnpossess a number of the pencils he passed out to customers:n”A lunch or a warm meal at any time, day or night.” Mynformidable grandmother, who was given to quoting Pope’snEssay on Man and Combe’s Dr. Syntax, daily baked annincredible number of admirable pies.nWith a banker’s sagacity, my grandfather generouslynextended credit to railwaymen, selling them monthly mealntickets with punch-holes; the Pere Marquette would deductnthe month’s bill from the pay envelope at the end of thenmonth. A boomer switchman not so privileged, and in debtnto F.J. Pierce’s Restaurant for a month’s food and lodging,nleft his handsome oldfangled pocket watch in pledge; hennever returned, and that watch ticks in my pocket as I typenthese lines.n