the other boys, too, had part-time jobs.
Mr. Blake's vacation was over; he had had to return to his work in the
city and only came out for weekends, but his weekend projects were so
numerous that, as he said, he had "to get back to the office to relax."
As for Mrs. Blake, she was seldom seen without something in her hands:
hammer and nails, or paint and paintbrush, or lengths of fabric. "You
really never get finished with a house," she said contentedly. But
sometimes she just wandered quietly from room to room, gloating.
The Villa Caprice continued to offer surprises: certain tall spikey
plants near the house turned out to be lilies: great freckled fragrant
ones. A drawer in the library desk was discovered to be full of jigsaw
puzzles, dominoes, playing cards, and a chess set. Some surprises
were not so pleasant: the leak that appeared in the dining room; the
peculiar temperament of the bathroom plumbing; the fact that the
drawing-room fireplace smoked in rainy weather.
Gradually they became familiar with the sounds peculiar to the house:
the stairtread in the hall stairs that chirped like a cricket when
anyone stepped on it; the swing door into the dining room that whooshed
and sighed; the way the chimneys rumbled when the wind was high. All
these were nice because they were the sounds of home.
"This place _is_ home, now," Portia said. "And the apartment in New
York is just the place we stay in in wintertime."
"Winter. Ugh," said Foster. "I wish it wouldn't get here for eleven
years."
But the summer, as summers are apt to do, was spinning itself out
fast, too fast. Already it was August.
"It's funny," Portia observed. "I never really believe in school in
summertime. I know it exists, and all, but it just doesn't seem really
_real_."
"Mine does," Lucy said. "I can smell it if I think about it. I can
smell the blackboard and the varnish on my desk and the wet floor in
the hall when they've scrubbed it."
"I move we change the subject," suggested Tom Parks. "Is there another
stuffed egg on the premises?"
They had met, all of them, for a picnic at Gone-Away--both the official
groups, of course: the members of the Fang Club, all two of them; the
members of the Philosophers' Club, all five.
It was exactly the sort of day for watermelon, so that was what they
had for dessert. Foster luxuriated, sinking two thirds of his face into
the icy pink slice.
"Hey, you know what, Dave?"
"No, what?"
"My new front teeth are getting to be more than just edges. I can sort
of bite with them now."
"I've been biting with mine for months," Davey said wearily.
Except for a watery crunching and slurping, there was silence; then
Foster said: "But you know what, Dave?"
"No, what?"
"When we've got our real full-grown front teeth, we won't be able to
call it the Fang Club any more, because we won't have any fangs."
"What will we call it then?"
"I don't know. We'll think of something."
"What about the Dental Maturity Club?" suggested Julian; but of course
they didn't pay any attention to _him_.
After the watermelon had been eaten right down to the rind, the little
boys repaired to Craneycrow and the girls went off to visit Mrs.
Cheever.
Tom Parks sighed and let his belt out a notch. Then he and Julian and
Joe, for no particular reason and not really thinking about it, climbed
up in the Vogelhart willow tree. Sun and food had made them lazy, and
each of them found a perching place and sat there like a sleepy baboon
high among the wind-sifting, sun-sifting leaves.
Swallows looped and dipped around Judge Chater's tipsy cupola.
"You know something, Jule?" Joe Felder said. "I bet you'd never dare
spend a night in one of these old dumps. Judge Chater's house, for
instance."
"I bet I would."
"I bet you wouldn't."
"I bet I would," but then Julian, who was a fairly honest boy, felt
compelled to add: "Not alone, though. _With_ somebody. You, maybe. How
about it? I dare you!"
It was a bright, lively afternoon. Foster and Davey could be heard
sparrow-chirping on their island, and Mr. Payton, distantly, could
be heard whistling in his garden. To the left, there was the
scatterbrained conversation of hens and a sound of feminine voices as
Mrs. Cheever and the girls came out of her house to go berrying.
The world was a safe place. Anyone could see that it was safe.
"O.K.," Joe said. "You say when."
"You too, Tom?"
"Well, I guess so." Tom agreed, but not with alacrity.
"We'll do it on the night of the full moon," Julian said. "That's only
three nights off, Thursday. We'll be able to find our way around better
by moonlight, and another thing is--another rule is--that we can't
bring any flashlights."
"Heck, why not?"
"That would make it too easy," Julian said happily. His very eyeglasses
sparkled with excitement. "We don't just want this to be an _easy_
sort of thing, do we? Because it has to be in the nature of a--of a
test."
"Why?" Tom wanted to know.
"For discipline," Julian replied. He had a noble feeling in his
forehead as he said it. "Self-discipline," he added.
"I don't know if I need it," Tom said. "I _get_ discipline. I get it
everywhere. I get it at home, I get it at school, I get it in the
mornings working at Bilmeyer's store."
"Oh, everybody needs it," Julian assured him. "And listen, you guys,
this whole operation has to be kept secret. Absolutely secret. From
everyone."
"Our families, even?"
"Especially our families. They might say no."
"From the girls, too?" asked Joe.
Julian just ignored him. That went without saying.
"We'll slip out after dark, see, when everything's quiet. We'll meet
here under the tree. I'll be spending the night at the Blakes so I can
get here fast, and you guys will have your bikes...."
Busily and happily he laid his plans, and soon his companions were
infected with his enthusiasm; even Tom.
"We'll bring some blankets in case we get sleepy," Julian said.
"And some food in case we get hungry," Tom added.
"And an alarm clock to wake us up in time to go home before they miss
us. I'll bring it," Joe volunteered.
Thursday came: fine and clear and very warm. Julian smuggled three
blankets into Judge Chater's house. He had also brought a bottle of
Mrs. Cheever's A.P. Decoction because at night the mosquitoes were apt
to be bad. He crawled cautiously up the rickety stairs that swayed and
swagged beneath his feet. Reconnoitering, the day before, he had found
that there was a fairly sound room on the second floor not quite so
littered and ruined as the rest. Besides, though he scarcely admitted
it to himself, to be upstairs seemed somehow--safer.
Now in the broad light of day even the hint of such a thought appeared
ridiculous. Sunshine blazed beyond the broken windows; flies buzzed in
and out. Everything looked perfectly ordinary and cheerful, however
shabby.
"Nothing to it," Julian remarked aloud, sweeping fallen plaster aside
with his foot and clearing a space to spread the blankets on.
"Hey, Jule," called Tom's voice below stairs. "Where are you anyway?"
"Up here; come on up! Take it easy on the stairs, though."
Tom came, carrying a tin box under his arm. He lifted the lid of it and
peered in lovingly.
"Three chocolate-almond bars," he recited. "Three bags of potato chips.
Three bags of salted peanuts. And Joe's bringing cold root-beer tonight
along with the alarm clock."
"Great," Julian said. "And I know where I can get some salami and a
bottle of dill pickles."
"M-m," murmured Tom wordlessly. The thought of dill pickles made his
mouth water; then he said: "You know, Jule, this doesn't seem like a
test, or discipline, or anything. It just seems like a neat thing to
do. It just seems like fun."
"I know," said Julian. "Let's hope we feel the same tomorrow morning."
13
_The Night of the Full Moon_
Julian thought that the Blakes' house would never quiet down that
night. He waited in his room, and waited. He felt himself getting
sleepy and fought himself awake again. But finally, after all the last
good nights were said, after all the tooth-brushings and murmurings and
yawns and the closing of doors, he was able to creep out of his room
and inch his way along the hall. Pressed against his chest, he held the
bag of salami and dill pickles as if to keep them quiet, too.
Going down the front stairs, he forgot about the chirping stair tread,
and of course it chirped loudly. Julian froze against the banister,
staring down at Miss McCurdy's dim figure on the newel post. He had
chosen to come this way because the back stairs were uncarpeted and
noisy, and now--But no one came; nothing happened. Soon he continued
down and tiptoed through the dark, watchful house to the back door.
Behind him, the kitchen clock ticked in a little scolding voice.
Outdoors the sound of crickets shimmered in the air; everywhere, all
over the summer land. The bright moon was small in the sky; it lighted
up the edges of the clouds that were swimming toward it. A small soft
wind moved forward, and the trees, dry with August, rustled their
leaves and whispered.
Julian hurried along the drive. Moon patches dappled the ground, moving
now as wind stirred the branches above. The honeysuckle trees were
frightening at night; they looked like stooping figures: old soldiers,
giants, in great dragging cloaks. Julian would not have admitted to a
soul that his heart was hurrying in his chest, but it was. He was glad
of the strong reassuring smell of the salami pressed against his ribs.
He slowed down when he came to the clearing, and his heart slowed down,
too. The clearing was blue with moonlight and humming with crickets.
The wind was warm. Far to the right there was a lighted window in Mr.
Payton's house. Far to the left there was another in Mrs. Cheever's.
Julian whistled a tune softly. He felt fine; everything was going
right, and there, sure enough, waiting under the willow, was good old
Tom Parks.
"Hey, where've you been! You're late!"
"Couldn't help it; they just wouldn't settle down and I had to wait.
Where's Joe?"
"Search me. I waited for him, too, but his house was all dark, and when
I threw pebbles at his window, they made such a racket, I was scared
his folks would wake up, so I scrammed out of there pretty fast."
"Well, there's no sense waiting any longer. Let's go in. I don't think
he chickened out, do you?"
"No, not Joe. He's no coward."
They entered the gaunt old house on tiptoe. It was still in there, and
stale. It smelled of age, of decay, of damp; and it was very dark. The
swimming clouds had caught the moon and covered it. Wind was beginning
to tease the house.
"Ow!" exclaimed Tom in an outraged whisper; he had barked his shin on
something. "I think it was a crazy idea not to bring a flashlight. I
think it was dumb. Ow!"
The stairway quivered and swung as the boys felt their way up, and then
felt their way to the room they had chosen. The moon tore itself free
from clouds just long enough to light them in; then it was seized and
darkened again. Far, far away there was a sort of shuddering. One could
hardly have called it a sound.
"Was that thunder?" Tom asked apprehensively.
"I don't think so," Julian said. He certainly hoped not. He walked over
to one of the windows and leaned his arms on the sill. Mrs. Cheever's
house was dark now; all the world was dimmed, but you could tell there
was a moon somewhere; the clouds could not quite smother its light.
Below, the Vogelhart willow tossed softly in the wind.
"What do you say we have a snack?" Tom suggested.
That seemed a good idea to both of them, and they spread the blankets
out on the floor and sat down. Tom rattled open the metal box. Julian
crackled open the paper bag. Soon the air was warmed with an odor of
peanuts and salami and dill pickle, and there was a sound of crunching.
In the darkness everything tasted perfectly delicious.
"But salty," Julian objected. "Do you realize, Tom, that every single
thing we brought is salty? Except the chocolate, and that always make
you thirsty anyway."
"Well, we counted on Joe and the root-beer. How could we know? I'm not
thirsty yet, though, are you? If we don't think about it, maybe we
won't be."
"Maybe not." Julian agreed doubtfully. But the more he tried not to
think about it, the more he thought about it. He could feel himself
inventing his own thirstiness.
"Doggone it, what do you suppose _happened_ to Joe?"
"I don't know. Fell asleep maybe, but there's no use worrying," Tom
said philosophically. He was clanging things back into the tin box.
"There's plenty left over for a snack later on if we need it."
He yawned a loud, satisfied yawn.
"Maybe we should sleep for a while."
"All right," Julian said, thinking about thirstiness; and they each
stretched out on a blanket--it was much too warm for covers--and were
quiet for nearly two minutes.
"Ow," Tom complained. "I never knew my bones had so many corners."
"You think _you_ have troubles. You've got good natural padding, and I
haven't. This is the hardest floor I ever felt."
"Well, we'll just have to get used to it. Soldiers do. Marines do."
"Rugs do," added Julian. "I don't mind the hardness of the floor
so much, but I'm getting so thirsty I may have to drink the A.P.
Decoction!"
Tom laughed. "Good thing you brought it anyway; here come the
mosquitoes."
It was true. Somewhere just above their heads there was a sound like
the wailing of the tiniest violin imaginable. Then another.
Hurriedly, Julian slapped his face and arms with Mrs. Cheever's famous
Anti-Pest Decoction and handed the bottle to Tom. The room was suddenly
permeated with an extraordinary smell, and because of it the sound of
little violins diminished and was gone.
There was another distant shuddering in the air.
"It _is_ thunder, Jule," Tom said accusingly. "I told you it was."
"It may never get here, though. It's a long way away."
"It will get here," Tom pronounced gloomily. "Just wait and see."
Outside, the wind was picking up; the trees churned under it, and all
the reeds of Gone-Away hissed and rustled as they bowed.
"Sh-h! What's _that_!" whispered Tom, clutching Julian's arm.
"Hey, quit _grabbing_ me like that; it startles me. What's _what_?"
"Listen--"
_Clap_ came the sound; then a sort of jiggle and squeak; then _clap_
again.
"Oh, that. It's only a broken shutter banging against the house. I
think."
"You hope."
Both boys were whispering now, and Julian was wishing that they had
chosen a room with a door that would close and preferably lock. This
door had been wedged and warped ajar by time and weather. Nothing
would ever close it now.
An abandoned house takes the wind the way a ship takes heavy seas.
It creaks throughout, seems to stretch and groan, then settle for a
bit, then stretch and groan again. It does other things, too, or at
least this one did: it had a constantly varying repertory of creaks,
tap-taps, and sounds like the most hesitant of footsteps.
When Julian had thought about this adventure, he had imagined that the
scary thing would be the deadly silence of Judge Chater's midnight
house. But now it was the sounds--all these different sounds--that were
scaring him, and in his heart of hearts he was beginning to wish that
he had never insisted on this idiotic undertaking: this "test!" The
only good thing about it, at the moment, was that he felt too worried
to be thirsty.
Evidently Tom shared his attitude about the venture. "I don't know," he
said. "I don't see what good it's going to do our characters just to
sit here in a thunderstorm in a beat-up old house, feeling scared. I
think it's going to be _bad_ for our characters. It is for mine."
"Well, why don't you go on home, then? Go ahead."
"And leave you here alone? You know I wouldn't. And anyhow, I'd
probably get struck by lightning on my bike."
As if its name had been a cue, a tongue of lightning flickered, bright
and close. It lighted the room so that for a split second each boy saw
the worried solemn look on the face of the other. Then it was dark
again, and approaching thunder slammed in the sky.
The broken shutter banged frantically; the old house strained and shook
as if it were trying to tear itself loose from its foundations; and
after a while the rain began all at once so that it fell on the roof
like a solid thing.
The storm went on and on; they could not guess how long, but they knew
when it had reached its pitch. The lightning, blue and blinding, winked
and winked and hardly stopped winking; it seemed to lick the house.
And the thunder hardly stopped thundering; sometimes it rolled and
grumbled, and sometimes it burst the air with a bang; but it, like the
lightning, seemed to have singled out this house for its prey.
"Hey, Jule! Listen!" shouted Tom. He had to shout above the uproar.
"Anyone could be coming into this house, any_thing_ could be, and we'd
never even hear it!"
But he was wrong. In one of those instants of lull, when the rain
left to itself sounds peaceful and industrious, they heard something
else--another sound--and it was in the house with them, yes, in this
very house: hard, brisk footsteps, then an old voice calling....
"Uncle Pin?" breathed Tom, moving closer to Julian.
"Oh no, it's not him," whispered Julian, icy with the thought of
Chinese ghosts.
"Listen--listen! Something is coming up the stairs!"
Something was. Something was coming, clicking and clattering--what? Oh,
what? And then the sound was lost as the thunder burst itself apart,
and burst the lightning with it. The world seemed to blow up.
Almost immediately there was a hideous tearing noise; a mighty crash
_inside_ the house!
And something white flashed by the door....
All this took only an instant, but when there is terror, an instant
seems pinned motionless on time. The boys were clinging to each other,
unashamed.
"The house has been struck," croaked Tom. "There'll be a fire."
"But the white thing! The white thing...."
There was another lull; in that last burst the storm seemed to have
spent itself. Only the rain poured down and down; and now, quite close
to them, the thin old voice called out again.
"Ma-a-a-a," it called.
Julian let go of Tom.
"It's only Uncle Sam! That crazy goat! He must have broken out of his
pen."
"And come in here for shelter, I guess."
"Why here, I wonder? Why not somewhere else?"
But they would never know the reason. When they called him, Uncle
Sam came clicking into the room, smelling strongly of wet goat, and
the boys were so relieved, so glad to see him, that they gave him a
chocolate bar to eat, paper and all.
"That crash though, brother, what was that?" Tom wondered, and sneezed.
The air seemed suddenly thick and itchy. "Do you think we were struck?"
"No," said Julian, ashamed that his teeth were chattering still. "I
think--I think that Uncle Sam finished off the s-stairs."
And that is what had happened, as they saw when they went to
investigate. They could see, by the diminishing, fitful lightning, that
where the stairs had been there was a chasm, edged with a hanging
fringe of balustrade. The stifling cloud of dust and wood particles was
beginning to settle now, but the boys kept sneezing.
"How'll we ever get down from here, I wonder?" said Tom.
"There are back stairs. Bound to be," Julian assured him.
"We'll have to wait till daylight to find them. We'd never do it in
the dark; the floor back there is full of holes. I'm sorry, Jule, but
I certainly think it was a _crazy_ idea not to bring a flashlight. I
certainly think it was _dumb_."
"So I agree with you now," Julian admitted handsomely. "It was idiotic
and it was stupid and it was asinine. There. That satisfy you?"
"Sure. I guess so. Anyway, we've still got something to eat. That's one
good thing."
They had another snack in the pitch dark, and Uncle Sam was glad to
share it with them, but it caused Julian to remember about being
thirsty.
The thunder had rolled itself away; the lightning was gone; but luckily
the rain was heavy. It poured in a stream from the broken gutter above
the window.
"Hold me by the belt, Tom, will you, and don't let me fall out? If I
don't get a drink, I'll die."
So Tom gripped the back of Julian's belt, and Julian, by leaning far
out of the window and practically dislocating his neck, was able to get
his mouth into position under the spout and gulp down rainwater. It
tasted of rust and wood and creosote and dead leaves and sparrows, but
the main thing was that it was _wet_.
After he had drunk all he could, he held onto Tom's belt and performed
the same service for him. Then they ate the last of the peanuts to take
the taste of the rainwater out of their mouths, and after that they
rolled themselves up in their blankets--it was cooler now--and lay down
in the darkness.
"I'll never forget this night, man," Tom said. "Wait till we tell the
kids: a real live ghost story."
"A real live goat story, you mean, and Uncle Sam's not the only goat,"
said Julian with a weary yawn. "I don't think anything makes you so
tired as being good and scared and then getting over it."
Soon, in spite of their hard bed, they were sound asleep. The rain
poured steadily all night. Uncle Sam settled down beside them for a
while, but toward morning he wandered into the hall and began nibbling
at the tatters of wallpaper that hung loose from the wall. He nibbled
thoughtfully and rather daintily like someone eating celery at a dinner
party.
14
_Advice to Librans_
"Well, I think it's disgusting, perfectly _disgusting_, of them to have
gone off without us that way, without telling us or anything," Portia
said to Lucy, and Lucy agreed.
"Boys think they're the only ones who are entitled to adventure," she
said. "I bet we would have been just as brave as they were."
"Braver!" declared Portia, and she stayed mad at Julian for two whole
days.
Because of course the story of the boys' escapade had come out almost
immediately.
In the first place they had overslept that morning. When they woke up,
it was broad daylight; the rain was gone and the sun was out; Uncle Sam
was clicking restlessly about the room.
"Jumping cats, it's almost nine o'clock!" Tom yelped. "I'll be late to
the store and Mr. Bilmeyer will bawl me out!"
"I'll be late with my newspapers, and _everyone_ will bawl me out!"
said Julian. Hastily they bundled their belongings together and made
for the back stairs, Uncle Sam following.
The only trouble was that there were no back stairs. They apparently
had collapsed or been hacked away by vandals years ago.
"There might be a tree by a window, or something," Tom offered
hopefully. "We could get down that way."
But there was no tree that grew near enough; and to jump was out of the
question.
"All we can do is yell," Julian said; so they leaned out of a window on
the north side of the house and bellowed till they were hoarse.
"Uncle Pi-in! Oh, Uncle _Pi-in_!"
But there was no sign of him, and it was getting later by the minute,
so they went to a window on the south side of the house and bellowed
there.
"Aunt Minneha-ha! Aunt Minneha-_haaa_!" they bawled.
And she, luckily, did hear them. She came out of her house, Tarrigo
barking beside her, and glanced to and fro, searching for the source of
the yells.
"Up here, Aunt Minnehaha, up here in Judge Chater's house!"
Mrs. Cheever settled her spectacles on her nose and peered up at them.
"So _that's_ where you are! Well, I declare! Your parents are worried
to death, boys, and my brother has gone off in the Machine to search
for you. You had better come down at once!"
"But we _can't_, Aunt Minnehaha!" And they explained the matter to her.
"Ma-a-a-a!" contributed Uncle Sam, as he joined them at the window
and looked out, with his beard draped over the sill.
"Meet our roommate," Tom said, and Mrs. Cheever laughed and laughed.
"So that's where _he_ is. My brother will be relieved to know--and here
he comes right now, thank fortune!"
But then, as luck would have it, Mr. Payton had no ladder tall
enough--Judge Chater's taste had run to lofty ceilings--so Mr. Caduggan
had to be fetched with his. And even after the boys were safely on the
ground, poor Uncle Sam remained aloft, bleating wistfully, for though
goats are very good at climbing cliffs, they are very poor at climbing
ladders, particularly _down_.