wound it into balls. When that was finished she changed into her
swimming suit and sat on the pier until it was time to go swimming.
Dad and Mom insisted on regular swim periods. The children could go in
before lunch in the morning, and again between four and five in the
afternoon, but they never could go in at odd times by themselves. The
swimming always had to be supervised by a grownup.
“You can’t be too careful,” Dad would always say. “You only drown once.”
Ben was busy all morning, and about noon Mrs. Saunders arrived. Mom
sent Janie over.
“See if she won’t come over and have lunch with us,” she said.
Mrs. Saunders said “Thank you,” but she was expecting company in the
afternoon, and she had a lot of unpacking to do.
The children loved Mrs. Saunders. She was easily the most fabulous
neighbor that the Murrays ever had. A quiet, gentle widow, she had
inherited a modest sheaf of stocks and bonds from her late husband, but
they weren’t ordinary, dry-as-dust stocks and bonds. She owned part of
a candy factory.
“Creepers,” Billy exclaimed every time he saw her. “Imagine having all
the candy you could eat!”
Mrs. Saunders didn’t come to her lake cottage very often, but when she
did, she always brought candy. Not suckers or caramels or fudge, but
candy bars. Time was when Janie thought that one candy bar was riches,
but Mrs. Saunders always brought a carton at a time. Mom shook her head
as Janie returned, smiling from ear to ear, and carrying the familiar
carton.
“Whoops!” cried the boys, but Mom reached for the box and put it on top
of the piano.
“No, you don’t,” she said. “Not until every plate is clean. Eat your
vegetables first, and then we’ll see about candy.”
They finished their vegetables in record time, and after the dishes
were washed they each had a candy bar to eat down under the willow
tree. Butch licked the wrappers.
Grandma was taking a nap in the little cottage, and Mom was sitting
cross-legged on the floor of the porch rubbing sandpaper back and forth
on an old chair. Dad was home that day. He was trying to think, he
explained to the children. He’d make awful faces and run his fingers
through his hair. Sometimes his face would light up, and he’d write
like fury, and then again he would crumple what he had written into a
ball and throw it on the floor. Mom scratched at the chair.
“Elizabeth,” Dad said. “Elizabeth, my dear, dear wife, what are you
doing to that chair?”
She looked at him through the rungs. “I’m taking the old finish off,”
she answered. “I just know that under these layers of paint, it’s
walnut or mahogany, or even cherry.”
Daddy picked up his papers. “Elizabeth,” he said. “You scratch away to
your heart’s content. I’m going to do my writing out on the terrace.”
“Oh,” said Mom, looking up. “Am I driving you away?”
He made believe he was pulling out his hair. “No,” he gurgled. “You’re
driving me cr’razy!”
“I’m so sorry, dear,” said Mom and kept on scratching.
Once established on the terrace, Daddy stretched his legs and started
all over again. Buick lay at his feet, sunning himself, and every
little while he edged over and licked Daddy’s hand.
“Go home, pooch, beat it!” But Buick only wagged his stump of a tail as
if he had heard the music of angels, and he stayed right there. As a
matter of fact, he spent so much time with the Murrays that many people
weren’t sure whose dog he was.
Things were like that with the Murrays and the Landrys. It was because
they were such good friends. There was a gap in the hedge between the
two back yards that had never been filled in because someone was always
running back and forth. The Murray’s rock garden ran over the lot line
and into Landry’s yard, and the flowers flourished there as if they
knew they were welcome. Farther down, the pump stood exactly on the lot
line and was shared by the two families, and at the water’s edge the
Murray bathhouse stood cozily, back to back, with the Landry bathhouse.
Bulbs and perennials had been shared and swapped until the gardens
looked related, and Mr. Landry’s little grandson, Peter, claimed the
Murray swing.
But this afternoon Buick was really making a nuisance of himself. He
seemed to want Daddy to get out of his chair and follow him, and poor
Daddy was trying so hard to write.
“Go away, go on, get out of here,” he would say. “Beat it or I’ll hit
you with a flower pot,” but Buick kept coming back again and again. He
would tug at Daddy’s sleeve and then run off a little distance and bark
in short quick yelps. He kept this up until Daddy finally said, “Now
listen to me, I’m not going to get up and play with you. I’m going to
sit here and write. Go away! Can’t you see I’m a working man?”
Janie came around the corner just then and she stopped to watch. “Why,
Daddy,” she said. “Something is up. Buick never acts like this. He
seems to want to tell you something. Let’s follow him and see what he
wants.” Daddy sighed and put a loose brick on top of his work for a
paper weight.
“All right, all right,” he said. “I may as well. I’ll have no peace or
rest until I do.”
Buick dashed up the rock garden steps, and they followed him across
the road and into the back lot. He ran under the hedge near the little
cottage and barked and barked.
“What is it, old fellow?” Daddy asked. “What’s the excitement?”
Buick ran under the hedge again and dug furiously with his short front
paws. Then he stopped and picked something up in his mouth and hurried
out and dropped it at Daddy’s feet.
“The purse!” Jane cried. “Why Daddy, that’s the purse that Butchie
found in Mrs. Saunders’ junk pile. We thought it was up on the roof.
How do you suppose it got under the hedge?”
“Butchie must have buried it there,” said Daddy, turning it over in
his hands. “The sly little rascal didn’t want us to find it, but Buick
outguessed him.”
“Open it! Open it!” Jane cried. “Hurry Daddy, I want to see what’s in
it.”
Dad snapped it open and emptied it into Janie’s outstretched hands.
It was filled with jewelry. Beautiful, old fashioned jewelry. There
were two gold rings and a brooch and a locket. There was a small gold
bracelet, such as a child might wear.
“Hm’m’m,” said Daddy. “Quite a little swag that our monkey had tucked
away.” Janie was almost too surprised to talk.
“Why, Daddy,” she said, “this must belong to Mrs. Saunders. How do you
suppose it got tossed out in the junk that way?”
“I can’t imagine,” Daddy answered. “Come on, let’s go and see what she
says.” They hurried over and knocked on the door, but she had gone to
the bus station to meet her guests and no one was home.
“Let’s show it to Mom,” said Janie, as they walked back to their
cottage.
Mom was amazed. The boys were called in and they stood gaping. Grandma
came down after taking her nap and she said, “Oh, so that’s what all
the barking was about. I wondered what was going on.”
Butchie was terribly excited about finding the purse. He chattered and
danced around and stood up and begged in his most persuasive manner.
When he finally saw that he wasn’t going to be allowed to keep his
treasure, he just plain sulked. Every one watched for Mrs. Saunders to
come home and as soon as her car appeared they all ran over.
She was so happy she almost cried. “Why, bless your hearts!” she kept
saying, again and again. Then she sat down and spread the jewelry out
in her lap. “They were lost last fall when we were cleaning house,”
she explained. “I thought they must have been stolen. I had given
them up long ago. They were my mother’s rings and I’ve kept them all
these years in remembrance of her. It isn’t that any one of them is
worth a tremendous amount of money. It’s just because she wore them.
Why, I can remember her wearing this garnet brooch just as if it were
yesterday. It used to nestle in a white frothy ruffle at her throat,
and when she sang in church it would twinkle like a star. This little
locket was mine when I was a baby. Oh! I’m so thankful and so happy
about this. How can I ever thank you?”
“Butchie really found it,” Davey said. “He found it in your trash heap
one day early this summer.”
“Yes, but Buick really deserves the credit,” Janie intervened, “because
if he hadn’t discovered the hiding place, Butchie would never have
given it up, never.”
Mrs. Saunders kissed them all and cried a little, and then she called
them into her kitchen. There was a basket of fruit on the table and she
gave Butch a big shiny banana. Then she went to the icebox and cut the
bones out of two pieces of steak. “Here,” she said, wrapping them up.
“Give these to Buick. He’s a fine smart dog. I want each one of you
children to have something too.” She opened her purse and before they
could say a word she had given each child a crisp, new one-dollar bill.
“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Saunders,” Janie said. “But Mom will never let us
keep this. I know she won’t.”
“Oh, yes she will!” Mrs. Saunders assured her. “You’ll never know what
it means to me to have my mother’s jewelry again, and you were very
good children and you’ll need some money for buying firecrackers pretty
soon.” They thanked her again and hurried home.
Sure enough, Mom was distressed about so much money, but Grandma
said, “Don’t feel badly about it, Elizabeth. Mrs. Saunders was happy
to get her purse back and it gave her a lot of satisfaction to be
able to reward the children. People should be allowed to be a little
extravagant once in a while. It’s good for them.”
“What are you going to do with your fortune?” Daddy inquired. Janie
shook her head. “I don’t know yet,” she answered, “except that I want
to spend it all at once and not let it disappear in little dribbles of
nickels and dimes.”
“I’m going to buy some ‘minnies’ for casting,” Bill said. “I’ve been
looking at some in the hardware store.”
James declared he was going to spend his for a huge model airplane he
had long coveted, and Davey said he was going to give his to Butch.
“Because Butch really found the purse,” he said, “and all he got was a
banana.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Janie, “What would a monkey do with a dollar
bill?” But Daddy gave him a hug and said, “That’s right, Davey. You
take good care of Butch.”
By four o’clock Aunt Claire’s car came around the bend in the road and
sharp-eyed James called out, “Someone is with her, a girl in a white
dress. I can see her from here.”
“It’s Katy,” cried Jane, jumping up and down for joy. “It’s Katy. It’s
Katherine Pelt.”
The car stopped in the back yard and Billy took Katherine’s suitcase
and Janie gave her a quick hug.
Katy was well liked by the Murray children. She was a little older
than Janie, small, slim, and dark. The youngest child in a family
of six, she was what Daddy called “well socialized.” She was quiet
without being shy, jolly without being boisterous, and she never made a
nuisance of herself.
“What in the world do you have in that big package?” asked Janie. Katy
smiled. “A chicken,” she said. “From my mother to your mother.”
“Hurray!” cried Billy, and David and James began to chant:
“Katy brought a chick-en,
Katy brought a chick-en.”
The little procession came down through the rock garden to the cottage
porch. Aunt Claire was amazed to hear about Mrs. Saunders’ purse and
she was eager to tell Grandma and Mom all that she had seen and heard
in town. Jane took Katy to her room, and then they raced for the
bathhouse to get into their swimming suits. Daddy and the boys came
swimming too, and the boys all but stood on their heads in order to
impress the visitor. Mom and Aunt Claire came out to the raft and there
was a lot of shouting and leaping and calling back and forth.
Janie rested by floating on her back. Swimming in the same lake with
the boys was enough to make any one want to rest. They were like seals,
in and out constantly, diving, splashing and churning the water to a
froth with their antics. Billy dove and swam as effortlessly as a fish.
Angular James cut through the water swiftly, but his diving wasn’t as
accomplished as that of his older brother. Davey was the prize. He
still swam “dog-fashion,” and panting and dripping he would wriggle his
way up on the raft and shout: “Watch me, fellows! I’m going to jump
off.” He would close his eyes, grasp his nose with one hand, and then
lifting the other arm high over his head and flexing his knees he would
give a mighty leap into the air and land with a splash that would all
but take his breath away. One or two performances of that kind would
exhaust a grown person, but not Davey. He would leap in and out of the
water for an hour at a time, and then say, “Do I hafta?” when it came
time for them to go in.
Katy and Jane slept in the big double bed in the corner bedroom that
night. There was so much to talk about. Katy had just returned from
a trip through New England and when she described the Witch House at
Salem, Janie held her breath and shivered.
“Katy! Weren’t you afraid to go in there?”
“No, not in the beginning. It looked just like any other old house. Our
guide opened a door and led us down a dark, narrow stairway. I didn’t
like it very well, but it was too late to change my mind, because there
wasn’t room to turn around. The stairway led to the dungeon where the
witches were kept before they were hanged. It was a big dark cellar
room lighted by one small barred window. Br’r’rr, I got back up those
stairs again as fast as I could.”
“But Katy, how could anyone be so silly as to believe in witches? I’ve
always thought a witch was a Hallowe’en decoration.”
“People used to believe in witches long ago. The trouble in Salem
started with Tituba, a slave girl, telling stories to some little
girls. She told tales of voodoo and black magic, and she must have
frightened the children half out of their wits, because when bedtime
came they shuddered and screamed and saw things in dark corners. The
village doctor was called and he said they were bewitched.”
“But why?” asked Janie. “How could he tell?”
“I don’t know, except that he could see that they didn’t have measles
or mumps or anything of that sort, and I suppose he just had to think
of something in order to earn his fee. The naughty little girls enjoyed
being the center of attention, and when they were questioned they
accused Tituba of being a witch, and she was tried and hanged.”
“Oh! How perfectly awful.”
“Yes, but that wasn’t all. The story spread and belief in witchcraft
grew until there wasn’t an old lady in Salem who was safe. Even the
wife of a minister was accused. When the governor’s wife was suspected
the trials came to an end, but not until nineteen persons had been
hanged on Gallows Hill and two died in prison.”
“Katy,” quavered Jane. “Turn on the light, and don’t let’s talk about
it any more.”
Katy reached for the light switch, and the familiar room clicked into
view.
“Now,” said Janie, propping up her pillows, “tell me how you make those
little pin curls you have all across the top of your head.”
About ten o’clock Mom opened the door a crack and looked them over. “I
know you’re both sound asleep,” she said. “And I know you wouldn’t be
interested, but just in case you should be awake, there’s a bottle of
cold root beer in the refrigerator.” They tumbled out of bed, giggling
and paraded to the kitchen.
Grandma and Aunt Claire said “good night” and started back to the
little cottage. Mom turned off the porch lights. They sat in darkness
watching the shadows and the bright moonlight on the lawn and on the
lake. There was no sound but the whispering of the poplar leaves and
the gentle slapping of the waves against the shore. Janie leaned back
in the wicker rocking chair and sipped her root beer. Strains of
“_Midsummer Night’s Dream_” seemed to float down through the silver
night. She wiggled her toes in ecstasy. “It seems a shame to waste a
night like this sleeping,” she said. “I’d like to walk forever in the
dew and the moonlight.”
Katy broke the spell. She had a deep, sturdy voice, strangely out of
place in her slim little body and pixie face. “You’d probably step on a
frog,” she said, and they all laughed.
“Rinse out your glasses and run to bed like good children,” said Mom.
“There’s going to be a lot of planning to do in the morning. Do you
realize that the Fourth of July is only a week off?”
“Ooooooooh!” Janie squealed, giving her mother a big hug. “I like the
Fourth of July almost as much as Christmas.” Good nights were whispered
once more and in a little while everyone was fast asleep.
James woke the family by falling out of bed. He gave out a roar of
indignation and began to beat Billy, who by this time was only half
awake. “You pushed me!” he cried. “You kicked me out of bed.” Billy
blinked and rolled to the other side of the bed to avoid a pillow in
the face. Suddenly James stopped dead. He looked astonished and then he
burst out laughing. He laughed so that he bent over double and held his
sides.
“You didn’t kick me out of bed,” he gasped. “I dreamed I was riding a
horse and the horse kicked me, and I guess I just woke up now.”
Mom called from the foot of the stairs. “If you boys are going to have
a roughhouse, I wish you’d have it out on the lawn.”
“I was only dreaming,” James called down. Mrs. Murray sighed. “If that
was only a dream,” she said, “may heaven preserve us when you get a
nightmare.”
Davey wandered out in his pajamas and inquired if any one had seen his
shoes. “Butchie had them last,” he said. “He hid them before I went to
bed last night.”
Katy poked Jane in the ribs and Jane dug her head deep into her pillow.
“Let’s ask your Mother if we can go in swimming before breakfast. Wake
up, sleepy head.” She reached down and tickled the toes of her sleepy
victim. With a shriek, Janie was on her feet and wide awake.... The
Murrays were off on another day.
Swimming was perfect. The lake was calm as a pond and just cool enough
to be bracing. They came in when Mom called “Breakfast,” and raced for
the bathhouse, leaving wet foot prints on the boards of the pier. They
rubbed each others’ backs vigorously with the big rough towels and ran
a comb through their damp curls. “I wish it would be summer all the
year round,” said Jane, as she slipped her bare feet into play shoes.
She wore a blue cotton skirt and a white blouse. “These are the kind of
clothes I like.”
“I don’t know,” said Katherine reasonably. “I like a change. My brother
Jim lived in the tropics for two years, and he says that summer all
the year round can be very monotonous. I like to bundle up and go
tobogganing in the winter, and I like to dress up in a pretty suit and
hat for Easter.”
“Yes,” said Janie, “I suppose you’re right.” They hung their towels to
dry and walked up to the cottage for breakfast.
Aunt Claire was squeezing orange juice and she looked up as the girls
came in. “There’s something down at the farmers’ that might interest
you,” she said. “I took a walk this morning before breakfast, and
you know that old brown cow he’s had in the front pasture? Well, she
has a calf, newly born. It has clean, soft fur like a baby deer, and
beautiful big brown eyes, and very wobbly legs.”
The children were delighted and right after breakfast they all trooped
down the road to inspect the new arrival. Old mother cow stood
patiently chewing grass while they hung over the rail and admired her
baby.
“Aw, look at him,” murmured Billy. “Isn’t he cute? I wish I could go in
there and stroke him.”
“Oh no, you don’t,” said Janie. “That’s why they have glass partitions
in nurseries. Look, but mustn’t touch.”
It was James who saw him first. He glanced down the road and then
grabbed Janie by the arm. “Look,” he squeaked. “There he is.... Here he
comes.... That man!” They all turned, and there, trudging up the road
toward them, was the big, dirty old man who had chased them off his lot
the day they caught “old rubber-back.”
“Oh boy!” said Billy, “Let’s run!”
“We can’t run home,” said James. “We’d have to pass him. Let’s cut
down through the lower lot and then go home along the shore.” They
ducked across the road and then slid down the steep bank that led to
the lower lot. By running along one side of a hedge they kept out of
sight until they reached the lake shore, and there they stopped for
a moment and took off their shoes and socks. After they caught their
breath they waded home in the shallow water.
“Are you kids crazy?” asked Katherine. “Why do you have to run like
Indians when you see that man?”
“He chased us one day, and threatened to give us a licking just because
we took a drink out of his old well,” said Bill. “Mom said we should be
kind to him because he had a lot of trouble, but we’re just going to
keep far, far away from him. He’s an old crank.”
They sat on their own pier when they reached home and dried their feet
in the sun. Mom called from the cottage, “Does anyone want to ride
along? We’re going over to Deerpath and do some shopping.”
“Oh happy day!” cried Janie, and she raced ahead of Katy and the boys.
She ran to her room and picked up her piggy bank. By inserting the
blade of a smooth table knife and by skillful shaking, she extracted
one smooth, new paper dollar, a nickel, and three pennies. “My
fortune,” she announced proudly. “I’m going to buy fire crackers.”
_Chapter Seven_
_A Trip to Deerpath_
[Illustration]
“I don’t know where we’re going to put all of you,” laughed Aunt
Claire. “I think this car was originally intended to hold five
passengers.”
Grandma got in first, and seated herself comfortably in the back. Billy
and Katherine ranged themselves beside her on the seat, and James came
panting up at the last minute, carrying a stool and a cushion, so that
he could sit on the floor. Grandma counted heads.
“Where’s Davey?” she asked. “Everybody’s here but Davey.”
Just as they called him he came trudging up the steps of the rock
garden, carrying Butch. Butch was wearing his best suit, red trousers
with a bright, yellow cotton blouse, and a little bright red hat cocked
over one eye.
Mom groaned. “Oh, Davey,” she said, “why do you have to bring him
along? We’re crowded, and he’s so hard to take care of when we get to
Deerpath. Don’t you remember all the trouble we had the last time you
took him along? Do you remember how he got away from you and started
throwing lemons and oranges around in the store?”
Butch put both hands to his heart in an attitude of prayerful entreaty.
Everyone laughed, even Mom.
“Well, all right this time,” she said, “but never again.”
Davey settled down blissfully on Grandma’s lap, and Butch sat on
Davey’s lap. They looked like a happy three-layer banana cake.
All the way to Deerpath they played White Horse. They were divided into
two teams, one for each side of the road. The object was to find white
horses and count them. The team with the highest score won. However, if
the car passed a cemetery, the team on the same side of the road as the
cemetery forfeited its entire score.
Janie was captain of one team, and Billy was captain of the other. The
hunting wasn’t very good as they drove along. It seemed that all the
horses were far back in the fields working. Janie had a score of 3 and
Billy had 2 when they reached the top of a hill just at the outskirts
of the village.
“Cemetery!” called Aunt Claire, and Billy’s team lost its score.
Janie was jubilant. “We won! We won!” she exulted. But, Grandma, buried
under Davey and Butch, spied victory walking down the road toward them.
“Look what’s coming,” she cried. “Two white horses pulling a load of
hay.”
“Oh yes,” said James. “But that only gives your side two, and we have
three.”
“Look what’s following,” said Grandma smugly. Hitched to the rear of
the load were two of the whitest horses you ever saw. There were loud
cheers from Billy’s team as they pulled up in front of the village
store.
Janie was patronizing. “You were just lucky,” she said. “That wouldn’t
happen again in a hundred years.”
Grandma was the last to crawl out of the car. She shook out her skirts
ruefully. “And to think,” she said, “that I pressed this dress just
before I started out.”
They split up in groups to do the shopping. The boys made straight
for the hardware store that sold fishing supplies. They didn’t
buy anything very often, but they would stand for hours in wistful
admiration.
The girls went to the drug store to buy picture postcards to send home
to Katy’s folks, and Mom and Aunt Claire went to the grocery store.
Grandma, Davey, and Butch started off down the block to a large
old-fashioned country store that sold odd lots of almost everything
imaginable. You could buy anything from nuts and bolts to flowered
chintz. You could buy rubber boots, embroidery cotton, lemon squeezers,
and imitation Christmas trees, and sometimes they would all be piled up
on one counter.
Mr. Seaman, the proprietor, remembered Grandma from other summers and
welcomed her as an old friend.