WE KEEP STILL
Now in this chapter not a single word is spoken. I bet you’ll say,
“Thank goodness for that.” My sister said this will be the best chapter
of the whole book because all of us keep still. I should worry about
her. One thing, I’m glad on account of not having to use any quotation
marks—I hate those things.
But anyway just because our tongues weren’t going that doesn’t mean our
feet weren’t going. And I’ll tell you this much, something terrible is
going to happen. Believe me, there are worse things than talking. Maybe
it’s all right to keep still, but it got us in a lot of trouble and I’m
never going to keep still again as long as I live. Pee-wee says he isn’t
either. Hervey says it’s actions that count, but words are all right—I
like words.
Now I don’t know whether Hervey knew where he was going or not. That
fellow knows all the country for miles around Temple Camp. He made
believe he was lost. He says no matter where you are you can’t really
get lost because you’re some place and if you just keep going you’ll
come to some place else and he says anyway one place is as good as
another. So even if you’re home maybe you’re lost.
Anyway he kept going along that country road that branched off from the
turnpike. It was uphill and pretty soon we came to Old Corners only
there wasn’t anything left of it except an old church. I guess the rest
of the village must have rolled down the hill and started up in another
place.
Gee whiz, I like it up there on the hill but you never can tell what a
village will do when it gets started. I was just going to say that maybe
it was on a funny-bone hike only I happened to remember about keeping
still. It was nice and quiet up on that hill—no wonder.
Up there were three or four old houses with nobody living in them and
they were falling to pieces. The church was ramshackle, I guess it was
good and old. There was grass growing between the wooden steps and there
was moss all around on the stone step. All the windows were broken and
there was a great big spider-web across one window. There were old
shingles on the ground too, that had blown off the roof. There were
initials cut in the railing of the steps. There was an old ladder
standing up against the steeple.
“L-l-l——” Pee-wee started to say, and just caught himself in time.
Hervey walked straight for the ladder and up he went, with the rest of
us after him. The steeple wasn’t so high but it was pretty high. The
ladder stood against a little window maybe halfway up. Hervey crawled in
through the window and so did the rest of us. He kept looking back
holding his finger to his mouth; he looked awful funny.
In there was a kind of a little gallery around the edge and you could
look down in through the middle. It smelled like dried wood in there; it
smelled kind of like an attic. It was terribly hot. I saw something
hanging that I thought was an old dried rag and when I grabbed it,
_swhh_, just like that it gave me a start, and I let go pretty quick
because it was a bat. We threw it out through the opening. There were a
couple more there but we didn’t bother them. They looked just like rags
that had been hung up wet and got dry hanging there—stiff like.
[Illustration: “I LET GO PRETTY QUICK BECAUSE IT WAS A BAT.”]
None of us said anything but just did what Hervey did as near as we
could in a little, cramped place like that. We didn’t lean on that old
wooden railing around the gallery—safety first. Down through that open
space hung a rope; it went almost to the bottom. There was a floor down
there; I guessed it was the vestibule of the old church.
Up above us it was quite light because there were openings on the four
sides. There were a lot of beams braced all crisscross like, every which
way and there was a big bell hanging from them. The rope hung down from
above that bell.
We could look right up into the inside of the bell, and there was a big
spider-web across it and a great big yellow spider there. The rope up
there was frayed where it touched the edge of the bell when the bell
swung. Hervey tried to reach out to the rope but the railing creaked and
I pulled him back. If we could have talked it wouldn’t have been so bad,
but it seemed kind of spooky with no one saying anything.
There was a little ladder fastened tight against the side going up to
that place above. I guess nobody ever went up there except maybe to fix
the bell. Hervey started up. It was hard because the ladder was tight
against the wall and we didn’t have much foothold. But I wouldn’t admit
he could do anything that I couldn’t do and I guess the other fellows
felt the same about it.
There wasn’t any place to sit or stand up there except the beams. It was
kind of like being in a tree. We perched in them the best we could. The
wood was awful dry and every time we touched it with our hands we got
splinters. But one thing, we could see out all over the country; we
could see hills and woods and trees and fields with stone walls that
looked just like lines. It was pretty hard to keep from speaking. Away,
way off I saw a kind of blue strip and I knew it was the Hudson River. I
was just starting to say “Some bird’s-eye view,” but I caught myself in
time.
Hervey was looking down out of one of the openings and he caught my arm
and pointed. I looked down on the road. It was a crooked, rocky road,
but it looked all even and nice from up there. You could see it away,
way off just like a fresh place made with a plane, sort of.
Going along the road was an old hay wagon with oxen and a man with a
great big straw hat driving them. On the wagon, sticking away out at
both ends, was a ladder. I looked straight down below and the ladder was
gone from against the steeple.
I was just starting to shout after the man when Hervey clapped his hand
to my mouth and with his other hand he wrote the word QUITTER on the
wooden sill and put a question-mark after it. By that time we were all
crowding at the opening but none of us said a word. Hervey just pointed
to what he had written and looked at us. None of us called after the
man. There wasn’t any sound at all except the beams creaking when we
moved.
It was good and spooky up there, I know that.