Then There Were Five (5 page)

“It's kind of scary,” Randy said and added hastily, “I like it though!”

“Scary, my eye. Probably nothing but a dead end, and where the dickens am I going to find a place to turn?”

“What do you think the Meekers will be like, Rush? If there really are some Meekers?”

“Oh, like their name, I guess. Mild and timid, and greyish.”

“Yes, and with lots of children; thin and mousy.”

“
This
time if we're wrong we have to
wax
the kitchen floor after we've mopped it!”

How still it was; except for the faint rattling of the scrap there was no sound. They both jumped when a crow leaped clattering and cawing from a dead branch overhead. A little farther on there was a clearing where a cow stared at them forlornly, over a barbed-wire fence.

“She looks as if she wished she could go with us,” Rush said.

Still farther on they emerged from the woods entirely, and found themselves looking across a hollow toward a tumbledown farm. There was a faded farmhouse, a half-dead pine tree full of flicker holes, and a knock-kneed barn with a crooked weather vane.

“Gee,” said Rush. “Shall we go ask?”

“Why, I guess so. It looks rather unfriendly though, doesn't it?”

Suddenly as they approached two dogs sprung up from nowhere. Great shaggy mongrels with burs in their coats, barking furiously and leaping like demons at Lorna Doone.

Poor horse, she was used to gentle treatment and the suddenness of the dogs startled her terribly. She sprang forward, the surrey lurched, and off she shot like a race horse.

Randy screamed.

“Slow up, Man o' War!” cried Rush, pulling on the reins. “Doggone those doggone dogs!”

The dogs were loving it. They bounded and snapped and barked their great hollow, brutal barks. Through Randy's panic-stricken mind flashed the image of a picture on the Office wall: an old steel engraving entitled “Pursued by Siberian Wolves.” That's what they're like, she thought, seeing the dogs with horror. She flung her arms around Rush, sure that if she fell out the dreadful beasts would make short work of her.

The surrey tipped drunkenly from side to side. In the back there was a hideous banging and crashing of scrap. The stove door kept opening and slamming shut, the flatirons cavorted madly in a tin boiler, coat hangers jangled like broken harpstrings, and Mrs. Gladstone performed a sort of revolving waltz with the rake. From time to time a small object jarred loose, flew through the air: a potlid, one roller skate, or a lead soldier. Lorna Doone's hoofs pounded, her mane whipped the air; briers snapped against the wheels and the dogs barked.

“Whoa!” Rush kept shouting. “For the love of Pete, will you please WHOA!”

“But the dogs,” wailed Randy. “If she stops, the
dogs!
”

“King! Blackie!” bellowed a terrible voice, suddenly. “Quit it! Shut up!”

Randy had a vision of a man in dirty blue, his face rough with whiskers and his mouth wide open in anger. As if by magic the dogs fell away, and in a moment or two Lorna Doone gave up her mad flight and stood trembling before the knock-kneed barn. A big brown hog looked out of the pen and rumbled at them. There was a terrible, stifling smell of pigs.

“What the devil are you doin' on my place?” demanded the man. He came striding up to them, a pitchfork in his hand and chaff sticking to his wet arms.

Rush was on the ground standing beside poor Lorna and stroking her quivering neck, and Randy was there, too, though she did not remember having got down from the surrey.

“Why-uh. We came to find out if you had any scrap to give to the government,” said Rush, and after a moment added, “sir.”

“Scrap?” said the man, and spat sideways without noticing.

“Yes. You know. Old metal. Cans, used wire, stove lids, any old thing. They need it for the soldiers,” Rush explained.

“Old bicycles,” added Randy, to her own surprise and disgust. She was blushing. Old bicycles, for heaven's sake!

“Listen, you,” said the man. He came closer, and they stepped back involuntarily. He looked as if he wanted to hit them. “See that gully over there? Erosion they call that. All et away by wind and water. Have to keep it filled up or it'll get bigger.
That's
where my scrap goes! Old bed springs, plows that's rusted, baling wire. And that, by heck, is where it's goina stay. Now get out of here. Go on, beat it! And don't come back or I'll sick the dogs on you for sure!”

“You're not very patriotic, sir,” said Rush. But he didn't say it until he was back in the surrey and had Lorna Doone turned around in the right direction.

“Patriotic, my foot,” said the man and spat sideways again. “I gotta live, don't I?” He seemed overtaken by a wave of fury and brandished his pitchfork at them suddenly. “Get out! Scram! Beat it!”

They couldn't make Lorna Doone hurry. She walked slowly and deliberately as suits a woman who has just had a fright.

“What an awful man!” said Randy. “I hate him!”

“A heel,” agreed Rush. “I hope he hasn't any kids.”

“Oh, he
couldn't
have.” Randy was horrified. “He couldn't have, and be so mean.”

But at the next bend in the road they met a hay wagon bulging with hay like a shaggy behemoth. It was drawn by a lean team of horses and driven by a boy of about thirteen. Rush pulled over to the side of the road. The hay wagon stopped, and the boy looked at them steadily, without smiling. He wore faded blue overalls and no shirt; you could see his ribs under his skin. His hair was sun-bleached, almost white.

“Hello,” said Randy. It came out in a sort of a croak; she couldn't tell whether he was going to be fierce or friendly, but risked the greeting anyhow.

“H'lo,” said the boy, and to her astonishment and gratification smiled a shy, radiant smile.

“Your father's just chased us off your place,” Rush said, as Lorna Doone lowered her head to the roadside weeds. “We wondered if he had any scrap for us, but he didn't seem to feel like giving any.”

“Aw, he's mean as a rattlesnake,” said the boy carelessly, and seeing the shocked faces before him, added, “He's not my father. He's m' second cousin. Took me to live with him when I was orphaned.”

“That seems rather kind,” observed Randy, and could have kicked herself for the goody-goody way it sounded.

“Not of
him.
No, sir. It was his wife made him do it. And even then the only reason he gave in was that he figured I'd be able to work and he wouldn't have to pay me anything.”

“She sounds all right, though.”

“She was swell.”

“Isn't she still?” asked Randy, and this time Rush kicked her himself.

“She died. Two years ago in July.”

“Oh,” Randy's face was hot. It was very quiet. Lorna Doone's industrious jaws could be heard chewing, a mellow, businesslike, contented sound.

“You folks say you was collecting scrap?”

“That's right.”

“Well, listen. I have an old express wagon, kind of rusty now, and a tricycle that
she
gave me when I was a kid. You want 'em?”

Oh, people are wonderful, thought Randy. They are so kind to each other. All memory of the horrible man had left her mind for the moment.

“You bet we do,” Rush was saying. “Just what we need. Shall we come back with you?”

“No, no!” the boy was emphatic. “He'd go for you sure—” He was quiet, and for an instant his clear eyes seemed to be looking at something in his own thoughts; something he did not like.

“I tell you what!” he said, brightening. “You folks tell me where you live, and I'll get 'em to you some way. First chance I can.”

“I'm Rush Melendy, and she's Randy. We live at the Four-Story Mistake. Do you know where it is?”

“I've never been there but I've heard of it. It's got a little thing like a cabin on the roof, hasn't it? I'd sure like to see it.”

“Well, come. Soon as you can. We'll show you around. What's your name, anyway?”

“Mark Herron. I'd like to come.” The cloud came over his face again for a moment, and then he looked up, smiling his bright, shy smile. “Oren goes to town Wednesdays—”

“Oren?”

“Oren Meeker, that's him.” The boy wagged his head sideways in the direction of the farm. “He goes to town Wednesdays. Market day. You could come over— Listen, I know a place where there's good hunting for arrowheads. I found lots there. And there's a cave back in the woods that's secret. Nobody knows about it but me. And I know where there's a bee tree, and a cliff full of cliff swallows; and a marble quarry, an old one 'bout three miles back, full of water, now, and deep. We could swim there. We could have fun. Would you come some Wednesday? Could you? Both of you?”

Dazzled by the riches he offered, Rush said, “You bet!” But Randy hesitated.

“What about
him
—Mr. Meeker? Won't you catch it if he finds out?”

“Maybe he won't find out. And if he does—I don't care!”

“We'll come,” Randy promised. “We will come.”

They said good-bye and drove back to the side road.

“He's a nice guy,” Rush said.

“And lonesome,” added Randy. Thinking of him now she realized that she had never seen anyone so lonely in her life.

They were tired and hungry, suddenly. So was Lorna Doone, her head drooped and the swish of her tail was languid. The woods were deep and full of secrets; they seemed to grow taller in the evening. From the ditches came the accentuated fragrance of bouncing bet.

“Gee whiz!” said Randy, suddenly sitting up straight. “Gosh. The dishes
and
the mopping
and
the waxing. Gee whiz.”

Rush laughed. “I know. As character guessers we're not so hot. But as junk collectors,” he looked over his shoulder at the booty in the back seat. “As junk collectors we rate a Navy E.”

CHAPTER III

Shakespeare and the Hot Spell

The Four-Story Mistake slumbered in a cave of green. The Norway spruces stood beside it full of black shadows; and close to them grew the oaks, the elms, the sycamores. Down by the brook there were weeping willows and maples. The lawns, thanks to the industrious labors of Willy and the loudly expostulating ones of Rush, were as green as an emerald, and as soft as the nose of a pony. Beyond the lawns the woods began; flooding the valley and the hills in wave upon wave, in boundless tides of green.

Mona fanned herself with a handkerchief as she walked across the grass. It had been terribly hot for the past ten days. No wind to start a murmuring in all those green fathoms. At night the curtains hung motionless beside the open windows. Out of doors even the stars looked hot, like embers in the sky, and down under the willows the slow-roaming lights of fireflies came and vanished, came and vanished, all night long. As usual in such weather people did nothing but ask each other the same old useless question with variations, “Isn't it hot?
My,
isn't it hot? Boy, is it ever hot? Goodness, aren't you just
roasting?
”

People say the silliest things, thought Mona scornfully, as she started up the wooded hill. I bet Shakespeare never asked anybody if it wasn't hot. She tried to remember if he had ever written anything about hot weather, and was pleased to remember one quotation immediately:

“Fear no more the heat o' the sun…”

I wonder how many girls my age could quote Shakespeare on suitable occasions the way I can, thought Mona, and instantly stubbed her toe on a rock. Probably serves me right for feeling so snooty, she told herself humbly. She had often noticed that it was just at those moments when she felt most pleased with herself that she stumbled, developed hiccups, or was told that her slip was showing.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.…”

There's another one, said Mona to herself. I don't care, I
do
think I'm pretty good. This time she was careful to look where she was going.

Rush's tree house was built in the branches of a strong oak on the hillside. Mona knew he was there because she could see one of his feet hanging over the side.

“Rush?”

“H-m-m?”

Mona climbed up the foot blocks to the tree house. Rush was lying flat on his back looking up at something.

“What are you doing?”

“Spotting,” replied Rush without moving.

“
Spotting!
You couldn't even see a plane through all these leaves.”

“Who said anything about spotting planes? I'm spotting woodpeckers.”

“Oh. But what for?”

“I kind of like them. Especially the redheaded ones. They're so wise and sassy and make such a racket. They're always quarreling and forgetting about it, and when they lope up the sides of trees they look like spry old women with shawls on climbing up a ladder. And the noise they make when they drill! Regular tommy guns.”

Mona looked up, too.

“I don't remember trees having quite so many leaves ever before.”

“It always seems like that early in the summer,” Rush said. “By the middle of July you get used to it.”

“No, I think they change. Later they seem to shrink a little; they're not so fluffy. Oh, by the way, I came up to tell you those friends of yours, the Addisons, telephoned. They want to come over, so I said yes, and bring your bathing suits.”

“Swell.” Rush stood up, stretching. “It'll be good to get into the pool.”

“It certainly will,” agreed Mona with a sigh. “Gee, isn't it hot, though?”

The shade of William Shakespeare mocked her.

Randy, already in her bathing suit, was doing a dance on the lawn. She was circling one of the iron deer in a series of leaps and pirouettes; from time to time she knelt before it in an attitude of supplication.