Their Appointed Rounds by Adeline Adams
Two travelers, a boy and an aging fugitive, converge under the pines above a Revolutionary soldier's grave, disliking each other on sight though neither knows why. The boy, Royal, seventeen, carries a poem about a maiden he calls Amaryllis (really a girl named Maimée) and has slipped away from home on a solitary walking tour, having wrung reluctant permission from his mother while his father worked in the city. His twin brother Peter, more practical and artistic in paint rather than ink, resents being left behind. Royal's uncle, a psychiatrist referred to as Uncle Tom, has privately diagnosed him as simply a poet growing into himself. Royal's week of wandering takes him through hay-cart and truck rides, an unplanned night in a boxcar, a night among Polish immigrant boarders, and a night in a village jail after being falsely suspected of stealing an automobile. Questioned by a one-armed justice of the peace, he gives a fabricated name and address that collapses under scrutiny, and is locked in an old jail-room with his belongings, including a Greek-only Iliad his brother Peter swapped in for his usual annotated copy. Left alone, Royal escapes through a barred window by stacking packing cases, fleeing into the night and composing verses about the sumac bushes that broke his fall. Afterward he rides with a slow-moving furniture-van driver, shares food and talk with him, and later dodges a policeman in Falmouth. Nearing home at last, Royal climbs to the pine hill to rest by the soldier's grave before finishing his poem. There he encounters the older stranger, unkempt, ill, and evidently hunted. The man picks up Royal's Iliad and recites from memory the passage from Book XXIII describing the slaying of twelve noble youths, sons of Troy, at a funeral pyre, unsettling the boy. Royal, uneasy, offers him food from his tin box, then leaves quickly, speculating fancifully that the man might be a murderer haunted by guilt, though he cannot stay and eventually reaches his own garden gate, greeted by the thought of his mother, a bath, and tea. The narrative then reveals the stranger's true identity and history: he is Jeremiah Burton, a descendant of the Revolutionary soldier buried on the hill, who had renamed himself Gerald Bertello for a stage and vaudeville career built on modest talent and self-indulgence rather than discipline. He is fleeing arrest for a specific, gravely stigmatized offense, having abandoned a stolen Ford near an inn after a suspicious look from a maid, and has since subsisted on grudgingly bought package food. Exhausted, thirsty, and ashamed, he eats the food Royal left him, momentarily considers letting a dropped, still-burning cigar set the dry pine needles ablaze around him, then stifles the flame himself. He rises and finds the grave of his ancestor, the original Jeremiah Burton, reading its epitaph beginning "A soldier of the Revolution and of God." Overcome by dizziness, he collapses, his hand falling against the toppled marble slab marking Thanksgiving Burton's grave, beside the fragment of psalm carved there: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that—" Below on the road, Remy Mariette, the young road commissioner, mason, choir bass, and newly appointed village constable, who carries in his pocket the warrant for Gerald Bertello's arrest, finishes his day's roadwork and climbs the hill to check on storm-damaged gravestones reported at the last town meeting. He finds the sleeping man, recognizes him at once as the wanted Gerald Bertello from movie-house screenings, and prods him, only to discover, kneeling beside him, that the man is dead. Moved despite his lack of self-reflection, Remy bares his head in a simple gesture of respect, decides to leave everything undisturbed and seek guidance from the village elders, and covers the dead man's face and hand with his coat. He notes the dead hand stretched toward the gravestone's inscription, and is struck by memory of the psalm's words from the choir's repertoire. A hermit thrush sings from a distant wood as sadness settles over the hillside with its graves.
By Adeline Adams · Genre: Literary Fiction, Coming of Age, Philosophical Fiction · 6 chapters · 8,856 words
First lines
They were destined to dislike each other on sight, those two whose appointed rounds, unexpectedly interlacing, had brought them together under the ancient pines keeping watch over the grave of a Revolutionary soldier. The man disliked the boy, because he himself had at that moment a loathing and a horror of himself and his probable fate, and the lad's pliant figure vividly recalled to him what his own had been, in days long past. The boy's reason for disliking the man was far more obscure, but no less potent.
What this Textopian page supports
Their Appointed Rounds is listed on Textopian as a short story by Adeline Adams, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Short story
- Author: Adeline Adams
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Literary Fiction, Coming of Age, Philosophical Fiction, Character Study, Gothic
- Length: 8,856 words
- Structure: 6 chapters, 64 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Their Appointed Rounds by Adeline Adams
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
- Readability and classroom-planning context
- Passage-specific claims should cite the exact /read/ URL for the relevant chapter or paragraph
Similar titles
- The Keys Of The Chest by Jane Barlow
- Raw Men by Frank Richardson Pierce
- Mustapha by Sabine Baring Gould
- Fausta by Edgar Saltus
- The Garden Of Resurrection by E. Temple Thurston
- A Womans Debt by William Le Queux
Genres
- Literary Fiction — The narrative prioritizes lyrical prose, sophisticated language, and artistic expression over plot mechanics. Dense metaphorical descriptions (e.g., 'L'Allegro and Il Penseroso had mingled their identities') dominate, and the focus is fundamentally on character interiority and thematic complexity rather than external action.
- Coming of Age — Royal's journey explicitly tracks his transition from adolescence toward maturity, marked by encounters with harsh social realities (false arrest, moral ambiguity, confrontation with darkness) that shatter his romantic idealism and force self-reflection on identity and responsibility.
- Philosophical Fiction — The narrative persistently interrogates morality, justice, identity, and the nature of good and evil. Central questions about judicial systems, human worth, artistic integrity, and how we misperceive others through limited perspective pervade the work.
- Character Study — Both protagonist and antagonist receive profound psychological excavation. The parallel exploration of Royal and Jeremiah/Gerald traces how parallel lives can diverge radically, examining motivation, moral compromise, and the cost of choices made in youth.
Tags
coming of age · poetry · adolescence · aging · journey · rural America · graveyard · death · guilt · shame · morality · fugitive