The Old Meadow (5 page)

He glanced off, embarrassed at having said so much. “I guess they'd never have listened to me if they could've afforded a radio.”

“
I
think they would!” said Walter Water Snake seriously. “I sure would have.”

“Well—maybe.” Ashley glanced at the weather vane. “Big ol' iron birds can't sing to our people. But sometimes I think
I
can!” Then he laughed, and added philosophically, “The good Lord willin'—an' the creek don't rise.”

“What's that?” croaked Simon, who'd been listening attentively. Even his shell seemed to pay attention.

“It's just a sayin',” Ashley explained. “Our people say it a lot, back home. Spring especially, a family can get washed out. Not even get across a holler to holler for neighbors to come and help.”

Simon coughed out the best laugh he'd had in ten years. “I'm glad you're here, youngster—” For Simon Turtle anyone under thirty-five was a youngster. “You can help.”

“I can help with what?”

“With what's asleep in that cabin right now,” said Chester. “I'll explain—”

Very often the fun of an explanation depends on how many participate: in this case a cricket, a turtle, a water snake, and a brown-and-white dog with a stomach that hung like a hammock.

“An' I thought we had troubles in mah beautiful blue-ridged mountains!”

The explanations might well have turned into a shouting match, if not a downright brawl. But before the voices could overlap, the problem himself appeared. The cabin door swung wide, and Mr. Budd emerged. His stomach, like Dubber's, was lordly. And when he stood straight up, on the steps made of good flat stones that he'd built to his house, full beard, with his thumbs hitched into his belt, he did appear lordly. The Old Meadow opened before him like the property of a diminished king. He'd been woken up by the sound of a turtle's laughter—a rasp that he'd never heard before. He liked it, the same way he liked a new flower he'd never yet seen in the meadow grass.

He scratched his beard, white streaked with gray, put two fingers in his mouth, and whistled. “Where are you, my friend?”

“That's me!” whispered Dubber proudly.

He bounded off, barking joyously, through the vegetable patch and was just about to lick Mr. Budd's hand when the old man pushed his head away. “Not you, Dub. You'll scare him. Where is my songbird, anyway?”

Dubber scootched down and hid inside himself.

“Come on now, my singer,” called Mr. Budd, with a plea in his voice both sad and sweet. “Don't leave me alone.”

“Mm-
mm!
” muttered Ashley, and shook his head. There was no music in his great throat now. “Old man's not alone. Dubber's dyin' to keep him company. An' I
don't
like to see a good dog's feelin's get hurt.”

“Me, neither,” said Walt, who was wavering up, to get a better view. There lay Dubber, downhearted among the tomato vines. “Not even a dumb mutt like—”

“Hush up now, snake!” the mockingbird ordered. “There's love in that mutt. Somewhere.”

The mutt swallowed his humiliation, which tasted worse than an uncooked turnip, and made his way through the beans. When he could see Ashley, he jerked his head toward the cabin roof, and his sad eyes begged. His droopy ears seemed to plead as well. He lay flat, to listen.

“Dog wants me to go,” said Ashley, “an' sing. The ol' man likes a song at sundown. But this one's for Dubber. Y'all wait here.”

“We all will,” said Walt. When Ashley had leaped through the air to the weather vane, he quietly asked Chester Cricket, “Do you understand that mockingbird?”

“No. I don't need to understand.”

Ashley perched on the iron bird's neck and began a sunset song. It was all about colors. They were woven together, in the mockingbird's voice. Blue sky, still shining in the bright sunlight—but orange and red were preparing themselves in the west, behind Avon Mountain—and over all, a burning gold.

The animals clustered on the bank lost themselves in Ashley's song. So did Mr. Budd. He sat on his three-legged stool, which was always placed on the lowest stone step, as if it were a throne and he were an unacknowledged lord being welcomed home by night at last.

Dubber, who was still scootched in the beans, hardly dared to breathe. He'd rather have died than interrupt his master's bliss.

The song wasn't finished, but “Trouble!” Chester Cricket said. “Ashley said we had troubles. He only meant the human worries. Us animals are just as bad. Look—”

Across Pasture Land a tight hard knot made of blue-and-white wings, like a spiteful small cloud in the air, was flying furiously toward the cabin of Abner Budd—and toward Ashley Mockingbird.

FOUR

J. J. Jay

“Oh, I wish he'd waited till the song was over!” Simon's shell creaked as he shook his head.

“When did J.J. wait for anything?” hissed Walter Water Snake, and he sounded for once as if he was angry and dangerous.

“Okay!” J.J. landed, an iron grip on an iron wing. “We're going to have this out! Right now!”

“What's that, Mr. Jay?” Ashley broke off his song and moved away respectfully. “Have what out? There's lots of room—”

“Who owns this weather vane!” squawked J.J. “It's been my perch for months!”

“Then welcome to it! But that ol' man down there—I just thought that he wanted a change—
watch out!
”

Ashley pushed J.J. to one side, just in time for the blue jay to dodge an unripe tomato. “He's woke up.”

“Don't you shove me—!”

“But that tamater—”

“And don't apologize!”

“Well, I would,” said the baffled mockingbird. “If I had somethin' to apologize for. Here comes another—!”

“He'll never hit me!” squawked J.J., and ducked. “This time of day I thought he'd stay asleep. No matter. In sunset, an old man's eyes are no good. He's missed me with junk from his garden before.
Aw-haw!
That stupid vegetable garden!” The blue jay preened himself—smoothed out his feathers—as if proving a bird's superiority. After all, what were vegetables compared to the speed hidden in a blue jay's wings.

“Oh, gee,” whispered Dubber to Chester, “I hope Mr. Budd doesn't throw them all. The tomatoes were coming so good this year.”

“He won't,” said Chester. “He'll start to feel how full they are. Then start on the corn, most likely. The ears are still only half grown, and green.”

“Is nothing safe?”

“Shh! Ashley and J.J. are talking.”

The animals, of course, could understand bird talk. To Mr. Budd it just sounded like two feathered souls, on his weather vane, who were having a vigorous conversation.

“You drove me off my perch!”

“
I
didn't! That man—”

“He's a dopey old man! I'd point into the wind all day myself, if he'd just let me sit here.”

“I think that's right fine—”

“Just wait'll you get bean-balled by a squash.”

“Seems we've moved on to another course. Never did like squash. Tomatoes, now—but J.J., seriously—I didn't want—”

“And how do you know my name?”

“Mah new friends down there—”

“Oh, them!” J.J. shot a contemptuous look at the animals looking up at him. On purpose he rasped his ugliest laugh. “They just common field folk!”

Down below, in the hedge, Chester Cricket was wondering just whom the blue jay was ridiculing, with his raucous squawk: the field folk, Ashley Mockingbird—or was he, somehow, grating angrily on himself? Everybody and himself too? Most likely.

“They seem right nice to me,” said Ashley. Unconsciously, he kept his voice monotonous. Somewhere in his head a thought said: Ashley, it's
your
voice is the problem. “I'm sorry about that squash, Mr. Jay. I woudn't like it a bit myself. An' if this is your perch—”

“Don't fly away!” J.J. tried to demand. Beneath the order, the mockingbird heard a hidden plea. A mockingbird's ears are delicate. Or else how could they sing back the world? “You stay right there!”

“Watch out now! Somethin' orange approachin'!”

A badly aimed carrot flew by.

“I told you! The old fool's sight is going,” scoffed J.J. “His mind, too. He might have hit you.”

“Birds' eyes go, too,” said Ashley. “When we get of an age. I even knew an owl—”

“I'm not interested in your broken-down friends!” said J.J. “I've been sitting up here, on this perch, for months. And I serve a purpose, too! Why I—I'm downright useful! Apart from helping this iron thing point into the wind—and sometimes it
needs
help, too, it's rusty—I often make sounds.” J.J. couldn't quite bring himself to say “squawk.” “When danger approaches. Like a thunderstorm. We had one last week. I—shouted and shouted. Did anyone care? Did any field creep
appreciate
me! Not a one. Not even that dope Donald Dragonfly! And he could be knocked cold by one hardy raindrop.”

“Seems to me you do perform a—”

“And
you!
You just sing!”

“That's all I do,” Ashley had to admit. “Watch out!”

J.J. ducked—needlessly. The splattering he and Ashley got was as weak as rain, and not even a thunderstorm. A silly green shower of lima beans fell all around them on the roof. “It's getting twilight. He can't stay awake in the dark.”

J.J. was right. Because after that handful of lima beans Mr. Budd decided on one more squash: he'd had so much success before. But this one was big and heavy—and fell far short of the weather vane. Throwing great big vegetables in the ripe afternoon was one thing, but twilight, lovely as it was, seemed to bring on an old man's arthritis. Mr. Budd was lame, and tired, too. He sat on his stool, and dozed again.

Trees, too, get tired—flowers, grass. The leaves begin to show it first. They start to droop. The Old Meadow seemed to exhale a breath as the golden light over Avon Mountain was slowly overcome by a dark blue radiance, and then a purple that deepened into the star-struck night.

The animals in the Old Meadow never saw the sun set on the horizon. Avon Mountain, a shape of shadow in the west, always hid it. Chester Cricket often spent time by himself in wondering what kind of life lived on Avon Mountain, and how the sunset looked from there.

Mr. Budd began to snore.

“J.J.,” whispered Ashley, “would y'all mind if I sang Mr. Budd a lullaby? It works real good for the youngest kids of a couple I know in West Virginia. Hank Junior had the measles once—forgot to get his shots—an' this tune just sent him right off to sleep, even when he was at his sickliest.”

“Oh, go ahead!” said J.J., sulking. “A stupid song for a stupid old man.”

Ashley Mockingbird began. He tried not to make his melody sad, since he'd learned of Mr. Budd's troubles, but not silly and cheery either, like a shower of unripe notes. The song did its job. Sunk deep in his sleep, Mr. Budd grumbled something down into his beard. Somewhere, in his fear, he knew he might fall off his stool—tumble into the yard. That warning roused him, though his eyes were still closed, and like a blind man he went into the cabin. And there, on his mattress, he did fall asleep.

“All right! The old geezer's—”

“Shh!”
Ashley tried to warn. “The first few minutes are very important. They set the dreams.”

“That's just superstition!”

“Maybe so—but it works.”

J.J. sulked and fidgeted, while Ashley slowly unrolled his song. It was a melody that said farewell to the day that was done. In his cabin, and deep inside his soul, Mr. Budd heard and sighed. It was one more day that he'd been alone, but hadn't minded. The Old Meadow—its life—had been enough. In his heart, without knowing it, Mr. Budd was keeping count of those days.

“Okay!” J. J. Bluejay burst out. “Mr. Mockingbird—now what's so special about you? That everyone makes such a fuss?”

“Nothin',” Ashley said.

“Then why does Mr. Budd—and those varmints down there—think you're such a prize?”

“Can't imagine.” Ashley shifted to a firmer perch. He dreaded something he felt was coming, and thought that he'd better hold on. “I don't have near the beauty of your feathers, J.J. Those blues and whites—and the wonder spread of those wide fine wings.”

“You have that voice!”

There it was, out loud. Now Ashley understood completely. He looked down, through the deepening evening, to where his friends were listening, watching, waiting—and fearing—on the bank.

“All critters got their gifts—”

“Yes, but
you
have that voice!” J.J. sounded angry. It made Ashley afraid, as if J.J. bore him a personal grudge.