other side of the grape arbor, an idea popped into my head--and out
again quick--to do a few minutes baby-sitting by hoeing a couple of
rows of potatoes in the garden just below the pignut trees near which
Pop had buried Old Addie’s two red-haired pigs; but for some reason
or other I began to feel very tired and I could tell it would be very
boring to baby-sit that way.
I mosied along out to where Old Addie was doing her own baby-sitting
near a big puddle of water beside her apartment house, lying in some
straw that was still clean. She was acting very lazy and sleepy and
grunting while her six red-haired, lively youngsters were having a
noisy afternoon lunch.
“Pretty soft,” I said down to her but she didn’t act like she even
recognized me.
I was remembering a silly little rhyme, which I had heard in school
when I was in the first grade and it was:
Six little pigs in the straw with their mother,
Bright-eyed, curly-tailed, tumbling on each other.
Bring them apples from the orchard trees,
And hear those piggies say, “Please, please, please.”
That gave me an idea so I scrambled out to the orchard, picked up six
apples and brought them back, and leaning over the fence called out,
“Here, piggy, piggy, piggy. Here are some swell apples. Say ‘please’
and you can have them.”
But they ignored me, not only not saying ‘please’ but probably weren’t
even saying ‘thank you’ in pig language to their mother.
So I tossed my six apples over into the hog lot where they rolled up
to the open door of Addie’s apartment, and that was the end of her six
babies’ afternoon lunch. She shuffled her heavy body to her feet, swung
it around and started in on those apples like she was terribly hungry.
“Well, what next?” I thought and wondered if Old Bentcomb, my favorite
white hen, who always laid her egg in the nest up in our haymow, had
laid her egg yet today. It was too early to gather the eggs, but I
could get hers if she had it ready.
Into the barn and up the ladder I went and there she was, with her
pretty white neck and head and her long red, bent comb hanging down
over her right eye like a lock of brown hair kinda drops down over the
right eye of one of Circus’ many sisters, who even though she is kinda
ordinary-looking, doesn’t act like she thinks I am a dumbbell like some
girls do that go to the Sugar Creek school--and maybe are, themselves.
“Hi, Old Bentcomb,” I said, but she sorta ducked her head down and
ignored me.
“Pretty soft life,” I said, “you don’t have to worry about taking care
of a baby sister while your parents are away.”
Down the ladder I went and shuffled back across the barnyard thinking
maybe it would be a good idea to peek in under the blind of the window
to see if Charlotte Ann was still asleep.
11
As I told you, it was one of those terribly hot afternoons and the
Collins family had been hoping for a week that it would rain on account
of our crops needed a real soaker. Just to find out for sure if it was
going to, I lifted up a little wooden step at the door on the north
side of our house to see if a smooth, round stone that was half-buried
there was wet, which it always is when it is going to rain. Pop looks
there himself when he wants to find out whether it will rain--and Mom
teases him about it.
The minute the daylight streamed into where the dark had been under
that step, a lot of different kinds of bugs scrambled for a dark place
to hide. I noticed especially that there was a big, black cricket,
maybe the very one that sings every night just outside Mom’s and Pop’s
bedroom window--which Mom says sings her to sleep, Mom liking to hear
crickets but not being interested in looking at them or touching them.
The smooth, round stone was wet, I noticed, which meant that there was
a lot of humidity in the air. Then I put the step back down again and
went to the corner of the house to look to see if there was a big,
yellowish cloud in the southwest and there was, so it might rain before
night, I thought.
Just that second I saw a large, tiger-colored Swallow Tail butterfly
out by the orchard fence, fluttering around a red thistle blossom.
Because the Swallow Tail is one of the largest kinds of butterflies in
our whole territory, I knew Pop would be especially tickled if I could
catch one for our collection, so I quick circled the house to the tool
shed, swished in, swooped up Pop’s butterfly net--and in a jiffy later
was out by the orchard fence where the most beautiful butterfly I had
ever seen was acting like the nectar of that big Bull Thistle blossom
was about the sweetest thing in the world to eat.
Generally, we didn’t allow any Bull Thistles to grow on our farm,
but because Pop knew that Swallow Tail butterflies like milkweed and
thistle flowers better than any others, we had let this one grow,
hoping a Swallow Tail would decide to live around our place because it
is one of the prettiest sights a boy ever sees on a farm--a beautiful
butterfly drifting around and lighting on the flowers, its different
colored wings folding and unfolding and making a boy feel all glad
inside.
The Swallow Tail was on the other side of the woven-wire fence, which
was very hard to climb over, so I quick hurried to the orchard gate
near the cherry tree, which George Washington hadn’t chopped down yet.
I got to the thistle just as the gorgeous yellow and black Swallow
Tail decided to leave, floating lazily along, like a feather in the
wind, with me right after it, swinging my net at it and missing it, and
running and getting hot--and still not catching it.
Then all of a sudden I heard a quail’s whistle. I stopped stock-still
and looked all around, expecting to see either Mr. Everhard or his
wife. A jiffy later I saw which one it was and it was _Mr._ Everhard. I
wanted to give a mournful turtledove call to answer him, but instead I
listened for his wife to answer, which she didn’t.
Seeing me, he called to me saying, “Have you seen anything of Mrs.
Everhard?”
“No, I haven’t,” I called back, deciding to forget about the Swallow
Tail I was after--besides when I had taken my eye off the butterfly I
couldn’t get it back on again.
“She was taking her afternoon nap,” Mr. Everhard said, “so I had gone
to the creek a while, but when I came back she was gone. You sure she’s
not up at your house?”
“I’m sure,” I said and I suddenly remembered that it had been a long
time since I was inside our house. Also for some reason I decided I had
better go quick to see if Charlotte Ann was still asleep or if she had
waked up and maybe had gone herself somewhere.
“Let’s go look,” I said to Mr. Everhard and started to run fast, with
him and his worried face right after me.
All the way through the orchard to the big Bull Thistle and the
gate, not bothering to wait for Mr. Everhard, I was thinking over and
over, “Mrs. Everhard had been taking a nap while her husband was away
and when he came back she was gone and he couldn’t find her ... gone
and he couldn’t find her and she was crazy--emotionally ill and--and
our Charlotte Ann looked enough like her dead baby, Elsa, to be her
twin--enough like her to _be_ her.”
I tried to run faster and couldn’t. Instead of flying along like a
bird in a hurry, I felt that I was just crawling like a Swallow Tail
butterfly’s ugly, reddish-brown larva crawling along a lance-shaped
parsnip leaf in our garden--which is the kind of leaf a Swallow Tail’s
larva likes to eat best.
Hurry ... hurry ... hurry....
If ever I hurried, I hurried then--or tried to.
I darted past the big, red, two-inch wide thistle blossom, not even
stopping to glance at it to see if there might be another Swallow Tail
fluttering around it, through the still-open gate and past the front
doorstep, around the house, past the grape arbor to the back screen,
which I remembered now I hadn’t locked from the outside like I should
have.
She’s got to be there, I thought. Why, she could have toddled out that
door and gone to the barn or even out to and through the front gate and
across the dusty road and through the woods to the spring and the creek
_and she didn’t know how to swim!_
_She doesn’t know how to swim!_
Then I thought what if Mrs. Everhard had gotten one of her spells and
decided that Charlotte Ann really _was_ her baby and had come to get
her and had run away with her--_kidnapped her!_ She’s _got_ to be there
in her crib asleep--_got_ to be!
I made a barefoot dash through the kitchen and the living room and into
the dark bedroom not being able to see in the almost dark on account
of I had been out in the bright sunlight and my eyes were not adjusted
yet. I swished to her bed. “Charlotte Ann,” I exclaimed, “are you
here?” and I thrust my hands down into her crib to see if she was.
Then I got the most terrible feeling I’d had in my life. I just felt
terrible--_awful!_ A million worried droughts were whirligigging
around in my mind, _for Charlotte Ann wasn’t there. She was gone!_
Gone! Gone away somewhere and nobody knew where.
Just then I heard a heavy rumbling noise outside the house like a wagon
makes going across the Sugar Creek bridge. It also sounded a little bit
like a powerful automobile motor starting--but, of course, it couldn’t
be that because any car outside wouldn’t be just starting, but would be
stopping instead.
The second I knew Charlotte Ann wasn’t in her crib I hurried out of
the room, calling her name and looking in every other room in the
house--upstairs and down--calling and looking frantically. She _had_ to
be in the house. _Had_ to be!
But she wasn’t. I came dashing back down stairs and out through the
back screen door just as Mr. Everhard got there. He didn’t act as
worried as I felt, but the fleeting glimpse I got of his face when I
told him, “There’s nobody here,” didn’t make me feel any better.
Just then I heard the rumbling noise again, only it was louder and
closer. I looked up toward the sky and the sound had come from a big,
black cloud in the southwest, over the tops of the pignut trees and I
knew it was going to rain without having to look under the wooden step
at our front door. It was going to rain a real soaker. I could tell by
the way a lot of angry-looking clouds were churning around up there
that there would be wind too--and that meant every window in the house
and every door ought to be shut tight, but with Charlotte Ann on my
mind I didn’t have time to do it.
“Help me look for Charlotte Ann,” I yelled back over my shoulder to Mr.
Everhard as I darted out across the barnyard toward Old Red Addie’s
apartment house, calling Charlotte Ann’s name and looking for a shock
of pretty, reddish-black curls and an aqua-colored “sunset.”
The word _aqua_, which I knew meant _water_ didn’t help me feel any
better and neither did the word _sunset_ on account of the sun in the
sky was already hidden by clouds, and the wind, which nearly always
rushes ahead of a storm to let you know one is coming, was already
making a wild noise in the leaves of the trees in the orchard and the
woods.
Just then there was a banging sound on the west side of the house and
Mom’s big washtub, which she always keeps there on a wooden frame
on the southwest corner to catch the rain water when it rains, went
bangety-plop-sizzle across the slanting cellar door and the boardwalk
and out across the yard where it struck the plum tree, glanced off and
went on, landing with a kerwham against the walnut tree.
Clouds of dust, whipped up by the wind, came from the direction of the
pignut trees, which were being tossed around wildly, and I knew we were
not only in for a real soaker, but a lot of dangerous wind. The whole
sky was already all covered with clouds except the northeast corner,
which is above Strawberry Hill and the cemetery.
Charlotte Ann wasn’t in the barn and neither was Mr. Everhard’s pretty
wife.
My conscience was screaming at me for being such a careless baby sitter
as to leave a two-year-old baby girl alone in the house and also for
not locking the doors when I did leave the house.
Being a boy who believes in God, and also knowing that “Heaven helps
them that help themselves” as Pop had told me, some of the stormy
thoughts that were whirligigging in my mind were all mixed up with
worried prayers and wondering what my parents would think with their
baby lost in the storm.
Charlotte Ann, being a two-year-old and a “great imitator,” having
seen me go rushing out our back door and across the lawn, through the
gate and past Theodore Collins on our mail box, probably had done that
thing herself. By this time she could be through the rail fence on the
other side of the road and toddling along as fast as a two-year-old
can toddle--getting up and falling down and getting up again--she was
probably away down in the woods and maybe had already gotten to the
spring and the creek--and you know what could have happened to her.
Just then the wind swept off my straw hat and sent it on a high, wild
flight out across the yard, straight toward the walnut tree where it
swished between the two ropes of the rope swing, went on and landed in
the dusty road, was picked up again by the wind and whipped out toward
the rail fence itself in the direction of Strawberry Hill and the old
cemetery.
I was wishing my parents were there to help me. I was also glad they
weren’t there on account of it would be time soon enough for Mom to
start worrying--and once Mom gets started worrying it’s hard for her to
stop unless she takes a minute to quick read or remember a Bible verse
and then that verse is just like a new broom--it sweeps the worry clear
out of her mind, she says.
The most important thing in the world right then was to find Charlotte
Ann and not let her get caught in what I could tell was the beginning
of a terrific storm. I was having a hard time to stay on my feet myself
and I knew a wind like that would blow Charlotte Ann over as easy as
anything. Of course, when a baby falls down it generally doesn’t hurt
much because a baby doesn’t have as far to fall as a grown-up person.
But a wind like this one could not only blow her off her feet, but
could slam her against a tree or a rail fence or into the briers of a
rosebush, or if she was anywhere near the creek, it might actually blow
her into it.
So, half-scared half to death and worried almost the other half, I
yelled to Mr. Everhard, “Come on! We’ve got to find them!”
Say, that man snapped into the fastest life I had ever seen a dignified
man snap into in my life. Both of us right away were hurrying past
Theodore Collins on our mailbox and soon were out in the woods. “If
they are anywhere near the tent or the station wagon, they will
probably go there to get out of the rain,” he said. “Let’s go back to
camp first--”, which we were already on the way to, before he finished
gasping out the last word of what he had started to say.
We hoped that they were not in the tent, though, on account of the wind
might blow the tent over. If they had gotten into the station wagon,
it would be a lot better. Mr. Everhard was yelling that to me above
the roar of the storm as we raced along, dodging around the trees and
bushes and leaping over fallen logs. It seemed like we’d never get
there. In fact, it seemed like it had never taken me so long in my
whole life to get to that part of the woods. Then I felt a splatter
of rain on my hand and another on my face and in a jiffy it was just
like a whole skyful of water was falling and the rain was coming down
the way it does when Mom says it’s coming down in sheets. In fact, it
started coming down so hard I couldn’t see which way I was going. The
rain in my face and eyes and on my bare, red head kept me straining to
see anything.
It must have taken us almost fifteen minutes--which seemed like an
hour--to get to the tent, which I noticed was still standing--but
not all of it. The wing which had had the green canvas roof and the
netting sidewalls was all squashed in. A great big, dead branch from
the oak tree under which the tent had been pitched--and shouldn’t have
been--had fallen on it, smashing the baby play pen and other things in
that little room. The rest of the tent was only half standing.
For a minute, I imagined Charlotte Ann and Mrs. Everhard in there
somewhere, the big branch having fallen on them, and they might be
terribly bad hurt or even worse. They might not even be alive.
Beside me I could hear Mr. Everhard saying something and it sounded
like some kind of a prayer. I couldn’t hear him very well but I caught
just enough of the words to make out: “Oh dear God, please spare her
life. Spare her and I’ll be a better man. I’ll do right. I’ll--I’ll
give my heart to You and be a Christian.”
Even as I stumbled blindly along with him the last few rods to the
twisted-up tent, I couldn’t help but think what I had heard our
minister say lots of times, which was that even a kind man could still
not be an honest-to-goodness Christian. Mr. Everhard might not even
have given his heart to God yet and had his sins forgiven, I thought.
I also couldn’t help but think how swell it would be if Mr. and Mrs.
Everhard would honest-to-goodness for sure give their hearts to God and
be saved and confess it some Sunday morning in the Sugar Creek church
like other people did almost every month.
Well, it took us about half a minute, when we get there in that
blinding rain storm, to look inside the part of the tent that was
still standing to find out that neither Charlotte Ann nor Frances
Everhard was there. Say, as glad as I was that the dead tree branch
hadn’t fallen on them, I still didn’t feel much relieved because I knew
that they were somewhere else and if they weren’t in the station wagon
they were still out in the dangerous storm and nobody knew where. I
also thought that if the dead branch of this old oak tree could break
off in a storm like this, the branches of other trees could do the same
thing--and if anybody happened to be under the tree at the time....
We both kept calling and yelling.
We made a dive outside the tent to the station wagon, but there wasn’t
anybody there and so we hurried back to the tent again, calling and
yelling, trying to make ourselves heard above the roar of the wind and
the rain and the thunder, which kept crashing all around us all the
time. But we didn’t hear any answer.
12
While we were still looking into that part of the tent that was still
standing, it seemed good not to have any rain beating down on my face
and bare head. In the quick look-around I had, I noticed, even in the
half dark, the interesting camp equipment such as a three-burner camp
stove, a metal rollaway bed and a rollaway table, on which was a pad of
writing paper with a flashlight lying beside it. Also on the table was
a kerosene lantern which was probably the same one Mrs. Everhard had
been using the night we had first seen her digging in the old cemetery,
beside Sarah Paddler’s tombstone. Hanging from one of the leaning tent
poles was a religious calendar with a picture of the Good Samaritan on
it, showing the man who had gone down from Jerusalem to Jericho and had
fallen among thieves, who had robbed him and left him half dead. The
man was getting his wounds bound up by the Good Samaritan.
For just a second it seemed like I myself was trying to be a Good
Samaritan and couldn’t be on account of the person I was trying to be a
Good Samaritan to was lost and I couldn’t find her.
I hoped that when we _did_ find Charlotte Ann and Mrs. Everhard they
wouldn’t be half dead like the man in the Bible story was.
I also noticed that some of the numbers of the calendar had circles
around them which somebody had made with a red pencil or with red ink.
Without thinking, I said, “That’s a pretty picture on that calendar.”
Mr. Everhard must not have heard me because he looked all around quick
and said above the roar of the storm, “The shovel’s gone! She’s gone
out to dig again. Let’s go find her, quick!”
As much as I wanted to help him find Mrs. Everhard I was worrying worst
about Charlotte Ann. So I said, “What about Charlotte Ann?”
“Look,” he said, “she’s left a note!” He picked up the pad of paper and
shined the flashlight on his wife’s pretty handwriting and started in
reading, with me looking over his elbow--I knowing it isn’t polite to
do it, but doing it anyway because the note might have something in it
about Charlotte Ann--and this is what it said:
“Dearest: I had another one of my spells and when I came to
myself I was digging over near the rail fence across from the
Collins house. I was still very depressed but when I looked up I
saw dear little Charlotte Ann toddling out across the road all by
herself. The minute I saw her all the clouds in my mind cleared
away and I felt immediately happy. The little darling was all
alone. I took her back across the road to the house, but there
was no one at home. I couldn’t understand why they would go away
and leave her all alone, but it was her nap time and I thought
maybe Bill might have gone to camp to take us a jug of water, so
I brought her back with me to camp. But you were still away so
she and I have gone for a little stroll down along the creek. I
think we will go across the north road today because I want to
see if I can hear the wood thrush again down by the swamp. If
we don’t get back soon and you want to follow us, you will know
where to look. I have mastered the wood thrush song at last so I
will have a new whistle from now on. Besides the turtledove is a
little mournful for one who is beginning to be happy.
All my love,
Fran.”
It was a very nice letter for a woman to write to her husband, I
thought, and when I finished I liked both of them better. In fact, for
a jiffy I had a kind of homesick feeling in my heart like I wished
there was somebody in the world, besides the gang and my parents, who
liked me.
But I didn’t have time to wish anything like that because an even worse
worry startled me into some very fast action, for I remembered that
the path on the other side of the north road, if you followed it far
enough, not only led to the old swamp but went on through it--that
being the path the gang always takes to go to Old Man Paddler’s cabin
in the hills--and about twenty feet to the left of the path, as it goes
through the swamp, is some quicksand. Maybe you remember the dark night
when Little Tom Till’s drunkard pop got lost in the swamp and sank down
into the mire all the way up to his chin an when our flashlights found
him out there, all we could see was his scared face and head and it
looked like a man’s head lying in the swamp.
“We’ve really got to hurry now,” I said to Mr. Everhard and told him
why. “They probably got to the swamp before the storm struck, but it’s
so dark down there in that part of the woods they couldn’t see the path
and maybe they will get out into the swamp and--_quick!_” I exclaimed,
interrupting myself, “Let’s go!”
I didn’t wait for him to decide to follow me, but swung around, flung
open the flopping tent flap and the two of us stormed out into the
storm.
To get to the swamp at the quickest possible moment was the first and
most important thing in the world.
We stumbled our excited, rain-blinded way toward the Sugar Creek bridge
where our path crossed the north road. I led the way myself, being
careful to keep out in the open so we wouldn’t run the risk of getting
struck by falling trees or branches--also staying away from the tallest
trees and especially the tall oak trees, which are the kind of trees
lightning strikes more than any other kind.
I won’t even take time to tell you about that wild, worried race. All
the way though, I was hoping that we would get there in time to save
Charlotte Ann and Mrs. Everhard from getting out into the swamp itself.
I was also remembering something Pop had taught me--and was also trying
to teach Mom--and it was, “It’s better for your mind to hope something
bad _won’t_ happen than it is to worry about how terrible it would be
if it _did_”--something like that--so I kept one part of my mind saying
to the other part, “Why don’t you quit worrying and hope everything
will be all right like I do.”
And do you know what? That crazy part of my mind just kept right on
worrying anyway.
Over the north-road fence, across the road, up the incline, around the
end post of another fence and along the creek we ran. I didn’t even
notice the different kinds of bushes and wild flowers that bordered
the path like I generally do, such as the purple vervain and skullcap
and the red-flowered bee comb, which honeybees and butterflies and
especially humming birds like so well--red being the favorite color of
all the humming-birds that live around Sugar Creek.
I wouldn’t have even noticed the tall mullein stalks with their pretty,
little, yellow, five-petaled flowers that grew along the path, if I
hadn’t run kerplop into one and fallen head over heels, getting my
right big toe hurt at the same time.