The Saturdays (16 page)

All over the house suitcases gaped open hungrily and two ancient trunks were slowly being fed, bit by bit: delicious morsels such as Oliver's overalls, Mona's party dress, assorted bathing suits, six pairs of sneakers, Beethoven's Sonatas, the Milk of Magnesia, the iodine, three rolls of adhesive tape, litters of socks and scores of other things. The trunks had been in the family for years and years and were encrusted with labels from far places.

“Hotel de Russie, Rome,” read Randy, pausing with an armful of pajamas.

“Mussolini!” said Cuffy, coming out of the steamer trunk with a red face.

“Hotel Savoy, London,” read Randy.

“Bombs,” said Cuffy sadly. “Blackouts.”

“Hotel Adlon, Berlin,” read Randy.

“That Hitler!” said Cuffy indignantly, and dived back into the trunk. “Them Nazis!”

Randy stopped reading labels.

“What was it like when the world was peaceful, Cuffy?”

“Ah,” said Cuffy, coming up again. “It seemed like a lovely world; anyway on top where it showed. But it didn't last long. First there was a long, bad war, and then peace like the ham in a sandwich, and now a long, bad war again. It was nice when you could go anyplace; on boats and trains to furrin cities. I went with your mother and father when Mona was a baby. I guess I wheeled Mona's baby buggy through most of the parks in Europe. They call 'em gardens over there. Borghese Gardens, Luxembourg Gardens, Kensington Gardens. Real pretty they was, all of 'em; and nice little children too, even if they couldn't talk American. Let's see now what did I do— Run upstairs, Randy, and see if Oliver's rubber boots are in his closet.”

A thumping and banging was heard, and Oliver entered dragging his tricycle and the old rocking horse behind him.

“Cuffy, will you please put these in the trunk?” said Oliver. And Randy fled, as the storm clouds gathered.

At last it was Saturday. The express men, smelling of crates, and wearing caps on the backs of their heads and pencils behind their ears, had taken away the trunks. The taxi drivers and Father and Willy Sloper and Rush took the rest of the luggage down to the two waiting taxis. It was interesting luggage. Besides a rare accumulation of elderly suitcases and hatboxes, there were several cardboard boxes, a duffel bag, a tricycle (Oliver had won out on that but lost on the rocking horse), two umbrellas and a walking stick bound together, some steamer rugs, and the special suitcase with a window that contained the melancholy Isaac.

“All you folks need is a baby buggy and a bird cage,” Willy Sloper said. He stood sadly waving after them.

The two taxis bulging with children and luggage soon drew up at the station. Father, Mona, and Oliver burst out of one. Cuffy, Randy, and Rush burst out of the other, Rush carrying Isaac's suitcase carefully. They made quite a procession across the station.

On the train they got seats in the day coach. It smelled of soot and oranges and plush and babies. For, of course, there was a baby (just like Miss Pearl said, Mona thought) and he was tuning up for a good cry. Father kissed them all good-bye, distributed chocolate bars among them, and promised to join them the next day.

Out on the platform a voice suddenly bellowed something that sounded like “AW-BAW!” and a few seconds later the train quivered, drew itself together, and stepped out upon its track. Oliver got chocolate all over the windowpane trying to get a last glimpse of Father, and Cuffy mopped her hot face with her best handkerchief. Mona started reading her book almost at once so that the other passengers would realize that travel was nothing new to
her,
but Randy stared out the window frankly interested. As for Rush, he surreptitiously opened the suitcase beside him and gave Isaac a piece of chocolate. Just to prove that they were still friends.

The conductor was a nice man.

“Hot enough for you?” he asked them as he punched the tickets.

“We won't be hot very long,” Oliver told him. “
We're
going to live in a lighthouse.”

“Sonny, next to an iceberg I can't think of any place I'd rather live just now.”

“Why do conductors always look like that, I wonder?” Mona said to Rush when he'd gone. “Conductors all have the same face. Two lines going down their cheeks, pointed noses, and glasses. They are never very fat. They're usually quite kind.”

“Maybe for the same reason that all policemen have the same kind of face,” Rush said. “Wide and pink, like a baked ham.”

After a while the train plunged into the country. Real country with great dignified trees in full leaf like the trees in paintings by old masters, and rambler roses pouring thick as lava over walls and fences. When the train stopped at stations the Melendys saw brown-skinned children piling out of station wagons, or running along the platform to meet somebody.

“I can't wait, I can't wait!” cried Randy.

“It'll be soon now,” Cuffy told her calmly. “Just hold your horses.”

The day coach was oven-hot, particles of soot crept under the closed windows and stuck to clothes and damp skin. The baby was going full blast, and now and then Isaac uttered a high-pitched yelp of sympathy.

An hour went by, and the country began to change: there were fewer trees now, and the train crossed a bridge across a long still strip of water where empty dories, and little snub-nosed launches lay motionless like the castoff slippers of a giantess.

“Kettle Ne-eck!” bawled the conductor suddenly; and the Melendy children sat up and took notice, because they knew that Kettle Neck was where they got off. Cuffy bustled about, sorting out belongings, and scrubbing at soot and chocolate on faces with a damp handkerchief.

“There's Mrs. Oliphant,” she said as the train slowed down. “She's there waiting for us. Randy, pull your hat forward. Oliver, remember to shake hands with your
right
hand.”

When they got off the train the air was almost cool and it smelled of clams. “Queek queek,” mewed a seagull high overhead.

Mrs. Oliphant was very glad to see them. She wore a suit made out of pongee, a hat with a green veil, an amethyst necklace, a lapis lazuli necklace, and a silver one with her eyeglasses on it. She seemed unperturbed by the amount of luggage that appeared with the Melendys. “Come, children,” she said. “Somehow we must get this all into the Motor.” That was what she always called it, the Motor, with a capital M.

The station agent, a man named Mr. Bassett, helped them with the luggage. When Rush saw the Motor he almost dropped everything he was carrying. It was an ancient station wagon which sat very high and narrow on its wheels. The original windows, broken long ago, had been replaced by regular four-pane windows like those you see in sheds. Rush thought the Motor looked more like a traveling greenhouse than a station wagon.

“Fifteen years I've had it,” Mrs. Oliphant told them proudly. “Climb in, children. Cuffy, you and Oliver sit in front with me.”

Rush took Isaac out of his bag and held him on his lap. Mrs. Oliphant turned on the ignition and off they went. She drove like a queen, sitting very straight, glancing graciously from left to right and traveling all the while at the perilous speed of eleven miles an hour. The Motor coughed and thumped, and the exhaust filled the car with horrible fumes, “worse than coal gas,” Mona whispered. After fifteen minutes of it they all felt slightly nauseated. But only slightly.

The Motor turned from the main road through a little wood, took another turn between two gateposts, struggled up a small rise and emerged at the summit with its last gasp.

“Gee whiz!” exclaimed Randy, and Rush just gave a long, low whistle. It was hard to imagine anything better. The lighthouse had once been an honest-to-goodness lighthouse, no doubt about that. It was round and stout and tall, with a wide red band around its middle. The small house at its base had been added to many times so that it was now ample and rambling. Beyond it a narrow brilliant garden descended to smooth elephant-colored bands of rock. Beyond the rock was the sea, clear as blue glass and dotted with small rocky islands like islands painted on a Chinese screen. A pier extended from the nearest rocks and at its end lay tethered a catboat and a dinghy. There were some wind-twisted pines in the garden, and from the branches of one hung a swing. On the low roof of the house a yellow cat lay fast asleep, and on the lawn a great Dane posed like an iron dog. The place had everything!

“What's the dog's name, Mrs. Oliphant?” said Rush, holding onto Isaac.

“Hamlet. He's very gentle.”

“What's the cat's name?” asked Randy.

“Butter. On account of her color.”

“Are the boats ours too? Yours, I mean?” asked Oliver.

“Yes, the boats are ours too. You must learn to sail this summer.” She said it as if she were telling them they must learn Latin declensions or something.

“Boy!” cried Oliver, flinging open the door of the Motor and tumbling out on the grass. Isaac tumbled out after him barking joyously and careening in mad enthusiastic circles around the stately Hamlet.

A man in blue denim came to help carry luggage. His sleeves were rolled up and there was a Chinese dragon tattooed on one forearm.

“This is Wilkins,” said Mrs. Oliphant introducing them, “and, Wilkins, these are Mona and Randy and Rush and Oliver. You must teach them how to sail, pull them out of the water when they start to drown, and keep them out of mischief generally.”

“Yes'm, Mrs. O, I'd be gladta. Sure would.” Wilkins smiled and picked up the two heaviest suitcases as if they'd been sofa cushions. The dragon on his forearm rippled over the swelling muscle, that was all. They knew they were going to like him a lot.

“Is that what he calls you … Mrs. O?” whispered Randy as Mrs. Oliphant opened the front door.

“Yes, Wilkins had trouble with the word Oliphant. He likes all words and names to be as brief as possible. Yep. Nope. Okay. Sure do. That's the way he likes it. So I'm called Mrs. O.”

The house was a good house. The living room was big with a low ceiling and a lot of things on the walls, shelves of books and statues and pictures and mirrors and French fans under glass, and peacock feathers in a copper vase.

“Look at that!” said Rush, standing still; both his arms pulled down by suitcases. He was staring at a piano. It was the real McCoy all right: a Steinway parlor grand, black and shining as wet tar, with all its ivory keys gleaming in a sort of elegant smile.

“Just take a look at that,” repeated Rush in a dreamy voice.

“You must play on it whenever you wish,” Mrs. Oliphant told him comfortably. “Now, then, here is the dining room and
here
is the kitchen. This is Mrs. Wilkins, who does our cooking for us. She makes the best cookies you ever ate.”

“Cuffy, I like this place, don't you?” said Oliver in his clear little voice. They all laughed, and Mrs. Wilkins wiped her floury hands on her apron and shook hands with each of them. She was sort of young, like Wilkins, with black hair and red cheeks.

Then Mrs. Oliphant showed them the lighthouse. It was wonderful. You went up a corkscrew staircase, and there, one above the other, were two round rooms each with two cots and an old-fashioned washstand. White muslin curtains flapped at the windows. Above the bedrooms was the sunroom. It was very small with windows all the way around, and a window seat underneath that, and a bookcase under
that
with old books in it:
The Heir of Redclyffe, Hans Brinker,
Jules Verne, Macé's
Fairy Tales,
and a whole set of Louisa M. Alcott written in French!

“Dibs on the room just under this one for Mona and me,” said Randy with great presence of mind. “I never saw such a wonderful place as this in my whole life!”

“Where's Cuffy going to sleep?” asked Oliver, suddenly anxious.

“In the house. I'll hear you if you say my name out the window,” Cuffy told him.

From their tower the Melendys could see the world around them in a circle. Sky with seagulls in it and nothing else except a patch of those tiny silvery clouds that look like the scales of a carp. In one direction there was a feathering of green trees, and in the other the clear still sea, stirred only in one spot with a dappling of ripples. The waves made a silky lapping against the rocks.

“Let's go swimming,” said Rush suddenly. “Mrs. Oliphant, could we go swimming?”

And in no time at all the Melendys were hurling themselves into the water. It was colder than it looked and Randy yelped like a seal. Oliver plowed prudently to and fro at the edge, with buckets of sand and water to build a fort with. Mona and Rush swam far out.

“I like Mrs. Oliphant, don't you?” Mona said.

“I like everything,” Rush told her. “The piano, and the lighthouse, and what's-his-name with the dragon on his arm, and the whole works.”

Mona turned over and floated. The sky was blue in the middle and honey-colored around the edges; the patch of little clouds was swimming away toward the horizon. She felt water oozing slowly up under her bathing cap behind her ears, but she didn't care because there were no more curls to worry about. Someday I'm going to be grown up, Mona thought suddenly. Going on fourteen is pretty old after all. Pretty soon now I'll be really grown up, with a permanent wave, and a lot of responsibilities like trying to earn a living, and becoming a great actress. It all seemed very close and frightening, suddenly, and she turned over and swam the crawl as fast as she could out to sea. Fast, with her feet churning and her arms reaching until she had left the knowledge of her advancing age far behind. After a while she turned over and floated again, resting. The lighthouse looked like a toy, and she could hear Rush yelling, “Come back, Mona, you dope.” When she did start back she hurried, because now beneath her she could see dark large shadows. Were they moving, coming after her? Could they be sharks? Mona flailed with her legs and reached with her arms, speeding through the water. She was enjoying her panic, because deep down in her mind she was serenely aware that the dark shadows were nothing but eelgrass.