The Well-Wishers

by Edward Eager

  The father of the family asked us inside, and we went in for a bit, though it was rather a tight squeeze as there were sixty-three of us.

  The furniture was standing around as if it didn't feel sure it belonged there yet, the way furniture always does on moving day. But you could tell that the rooms were going to look fine when they got used to themselves. There was a piano at one end of the living room, and it developed that the father was the one who played this, and after a little persuasion he played part of the "Moonlight Sonata" and it was keen.

  After that we thanked him and said good-bye and that we hoped we'd see them all again soon.

  And we went home to tell our parents and the Well-Wishers all about it.

  It had been such an exciting afternoon that nobody felt much like getting back to normal all the rest of that day. I asked Mom if James and Laura and Lydia and Gordy and those of our grown-up friends who wanted to could stay at our house for potluck supper and she said why not? And afterwards we played charades. Dicky LeBaron wouldn't stay, though, and I was sorry. I was getting to like him better and better.

  But I forind out later that there were parties that night all over town to celebrate.

  What the Smugs and Stinker and Smoko did with their evening I would be the last to guess.

  But even long after midnight, when everyone had gone home and I was in bed, I was still too keyed up to go to sleep. I kept going over the whole adventure in my mind. And I kept thinking about the clearing in the woods with the deserted garden and the tumbledown house, and the way I'd felt about them and the way our dog Alice had acted, and the way the magic had really begun percolating right at that minute, taking hold of my thoughts and giving me the idea of what to do.

  It was so late when I finally dozed off that I almost didn't wake up in time for church. I did, though. Nearly everyone was there, including the new people. They were all smiles, except for the biggest little boy, who looked solemn.

  And Mr. Chenoweth was wreathed in smiles, too, and preached a pretty good sermon on the text, "For lo, the flowers appear on the earth."

  But I was impatient for next day, when Town Hall would be open. And on Monday as soon as school was out, I went straight there, to the department where they keep the old records. I had been there often before, to look up different things I was curious about. James laughs at me about this, and calls me Old Father Antiquary. But I am interested in my town and its history.

  I found the deed for the new family's land and traced the ownership back, and the earliest known owner was somebody called Hagar Gryce. That was all Town Hall could tell me and it wasn't much.

  But then I went to call on Miss Isabella King, as the oldest living inhabitant I knew, to see if she had ever heard of Hagar Gryce and could tell me about her. And she had and she did.

  And when I heard what she had to say, I hurried to the red house where the others were waiting, and told them.

  "You see," I was saying a few minutes later, "this Hagar Gryce was a runaway slave who was saved by the Underground Railroad. And afterwards she lived there in an old log and fieldstone cabin and grew flowers and herbs. And the country people used to come to her and said she did magic cures. So you see it all connects. What's left of her magic must be still hanging around there where her old house used to be."

  "It's kind of wonderful to think of it waiting all those years for you to come by," said Gordy.

  "Waiting to help just the right people move in, too," said James.

  "Maybe it was the magic that called them there in the first place," said Lydia.

  Only Laura looked a little disappointed. "Then this magic didn't have anything to do with the well at all?"

  "Sure it did," I said. "All magic must be part of the same family, mustn't it? It stands to reason. I wished on the well and the well sent me on to the nearest spot it knew where the right kind of magic was to fit this particular case."

  "Like switching a car on to the next station," said Lydia.

  "Like the Underground Railroad!" said James.

  "Sure. It all connects," I said again.

  "What's an Underground Railroad?" said Deborah.

  "A subway train," said James, not wanting to go into all that now.

  But Laura was looking happier again.

  "Anyway," said Gordy, "this was just about the most important big good-turn adventure yet, I'd say, however the magic managed it. When you think what it really sort of stood for, I'd say it was better than the new school one, even. Or just as good as. Whadda you say:

  "And now I suppose the magic's nearly over," sighed Lydia. "In books the big adventures always come just before the end."

  "Hey!" said James. "It can't be, not yet. I haven't had my turn!"

  "Neither have I," said Deborah.

  We all laughed, because we hadn't been thinking of her as old enough to have a turn of her own. But we were wrong, as it turned out.

  And Lydia was wrong about the magic being over, too. It wasn't, not by a long shot.

  Even the adventure of the new family wasn't really finished. Not yet. Not quite. The new people had moved in, but they hadn't started living here yet.

  It is Deborah that that story belongs to. Deborah and one other.

  And now I'll let them tell about it in their own way.

  6. Deborah Dictates

  This chapter is not really what the title says it is. Not exactly.

  But the thing is that Deborah asked me to put her story down in words for her. I don't know why she chose me to be the one.

  At first she did try dictating it to me, but that turned out to be too slow and we weren't getting anywhere. So she said, "I'll tell you what happened and you write it out."

  So that is what I am doing, exactly as she told it.

  Except that I come into the story, too, a little, and when I get to that part, I'll tell you about it just as it seemed to me.

  I'm not going to say who this is, writing. But maybe you can guess who I am, as the story goes on. There is a pun in the title of the chapter that will help you to do that, maybe.

  You might not think I would know what a pun is, but I do. Just because I talk hep talk some of the time does not mean that I don't understand good English. And I may have had my troubles in school, with this teacher and that one, but I am not dumb. And lately I am getting to like school more and more.

  But to get back to the story.

  After the day we all welcomed the new people to Silvermine Road, and the big deal that turned out to be, you would think everything would stay real cool for the new family from then on.

  But such is not always the case.

  It is when the big deals are over and the ordinary daily living starts that the real test comes. Ordinary daily living is not what most people are at their best at. And that goes for just about everybody in this story. Except maybe Deborah.

  Where Deborah comes into it is that the oldest of the three children in the new family turned out to be six years old. And that meant he was in the first grade, and on Wednesday of that same week when he came to school for the first time he was put in Deborah's room.

  His given name turned out to be Hannibal, and that's what started the trouble, in a way. But not really. Some of it was his own fault and some of it was other people's, and some of it was just human nature I guess.

  That first morning Miss Silloway, the first-grade teacher, brought him into the class and introduced him.

  "Children," she said, "this is Hannibal. And we're glad to have him with us, aren't we, class?"

  "Yes, Miss Silloway," said the class.

  "And you're glad to be with us, aren't you, Hannibal?" said Miss Silloway.

  "No," said Hannibal.

  "Oh, I think you are, really," said Miss Silloway.

  "No," said Hannibal.

  Miss Silloway frowned, but her mouth went on smiling. "Well, then, we'll just have to make Hannibal glad to be with us, won't we, class?"

  "Yes, Miss Silloway," said the class, but
not quite so enthusiastically.

  "No," said Hannibal, at the same time.

  Miss Silloway stopped smiling. "Sit down, Hannibal," she said.

  Hannibal sat down.

  But things went on being like that all morning. Hannibal sat there solemn and silent except when Miss Silloway called on him or asked him a question, and then he said, "No." And when recess came in the middle of the morning, he stood by himself at one end of the playground, doing nothing.

  Deborah and some of the boys and girls went over to him.

  "Wouldn't you like to play with us?" said Deborah.

  "No," said Hannibal.

  "Maybe later you will," said Deborah.

  "No, I won't," said Hannibal.

  "I guess maybe he'd rather be by himself at first," said Deborah to her friends. "I know how it is."

  "No, you don't," said Hannibal.

  "Yes, I do," said Deborah, smiling at him. And she and hey friends went back to their game of tag, and left Hannibal idly kicking at the pebbles of the playground.

  But all the others were not so understanding. The first, second, and third grades all have recess together, and pretty soon some of the third-graders started clustering around Hannibal and teasing him.

  That is the way some people always act when a person is different. I know all about it because I have been the one who was different, in my day. That's why I was so interested in the new family in the first place, and why I spent all my money on those chrysanthemums, because I know how being different feels.

  Not that I am any angel. There have been other times when somebody else has been the different one and I have gone along with the heckling majority. Like the way we used to treat Gordy, just because he was rich and toothy and no good at games. But that is over and done with.

  All the same, you can see how these kids felt. Those who had been for the new family were disappointed that Hannibal had turned out all cross and sulky and no fun. And those who had been against could now say, "You see?" and "I told you so."

  It was Hannibal's name that they picked on first.

  "What did you say your name was?" said somebody. "Hannibal or Annabelle?"

  Hannibal mumbled something.

  "What did he say?" said somebody else.

  "He said Annabelle, didn't you, Annabelle?" said a horrid little girl with corkscrew curls called Mabel Timkin, whose father was one of the Smugs who hadn't wanted the new family there in the first place. "'Good gracious, Annabelle!'" she cried, dancing around Hannibal. "'Good gracious, Annabelle!'"

  And others took up the cry.

  "'Good gracious, Annabelle!'" they yelled. "Oh, Annabelle, say not so!"

  And Mabel Timkin shrilled out, "Chase me, chase me, Annabelle; I've never been chased before!"

  Hannibal stood this a long time and then he let out a roar. "All right!" he said. "I'll chase you and I'll catch you and kill you!" And he ran after Mabel Timkin and grabbed her by her corkscrew curls and pulled. And Deborah, who was watching, admits that she was glad he did. Mabel Timkin had asked for it.

  But of course all that really did for Hannibal was give the meaner kids more of an excuse to pick on him. And now some of the boys started circling round him in a menacing way and saying, "Fighting with a girl, Annabelle? That's bad, Annabelle. We'll have to teach you better, Annabelle." And one of them got a willow switch and started hitting at Hannibal's legs, not really hard but hard enough to sting.

  Hannibal stood there in the middle of the circle, hopping from one leg to the other to keep away from the switch, and tears slowly and silently started coming down his cheeks. And it was then that Deborah went running to find me.

  The reason I was there in the first place is that I have just lately been made monitor of the playground during little kids' recess. I know why Miss Wilson did it. She has some crazy theory that if I'm given more responsibility, it may bring out the best in me. But I can see through her. Though I do not mind the job really, now I am used to it.

  Anyway, there I was, teaching a lot of dumb second-graders to play Red Rover, Red Rover, when Deborah came running up to me, all excited.

  "Come quick," she said. "It's Hannibal."

  And I followed her.

  When they saw me coming, the mean kids melted away, because my word is law on that playground, if I do say it myself.

  But of course I didn't know what all had been happening till Deborah told me later. So I got the whole thing wrong. I thought it was the kids who wouldn't play with Hannibal. I didn't know it was Hannibal who wouldn't play with the kids.

  So I looked around for one of my little brothers.

  Little brothers are one thing I always have plenty of, there being nine kids in my family. And three of them are in the lower grades. The first one I saw now was the second-grade one, who is called Pete. And I whistled him over.

  "Okay," I said to him and Hannibal when I had them standing together. "Now play."

  "Do I hafta?" said Pete.

  "No," said Hannibal.

  "You'll play," I said, "or else. You'll play or I'll knock your heads together."

  "No, I won't," said Hannibal.

  "Don't, then. No skin off my neck," said Pete. And he ran back to his gang.

  I felt Deborah tugging at my jacket. "That's not the way," she said. She is smart for her age.

  Because I could see that it wasn't. There was more here than met the eye.

  I squatted down by Hannibal. "Look, dad," I said. "Let's get this straight. The kids want to be your friends. But they can't do it all by themselves. You have to do some of it."

  "I'm not your dad," said Hannibal. "And they're not my friends. They don't want me. They tried to keep me out. Well, I don't want them. I didn't want to be here in the first place. I want to go back to New York."

  This was the longest speech he had made yet, and I began to think I was getting somewhere. At least I had started him talking. And I knew now what the trouble was.

  "We didn't try to keep you out," I said. "We helped you move in. Remember?"

  "Flowers," said Hannibal. "Who needs flowers? You didn't do it for us. You did it for yourselves. So you'd feel good."

  Hannibal was pretty wise for his age, too. Maybe too wise. Maybe there had been things in his life already that made him that way.

  I knew just how he felt, too. Sort of the way I used to feel when the social worker used to come round our house, prying and asking questions and talking about underprivileged children and all with the best intentions, of course. But he had it wrong.

  "Okay, Hannibal," I said. "So you didn't want to come here. But you are here, so why not make the best of it? Suppose you play with Deborah now, just to show you can."

  And then all of a sudden Hannibal seemed to go wild.

  "Play!" he said scornfully. "Play! All right, I'll play! I'll play tag. You're it." And he butted me in the stomach with his head, there where I was squatting, and knocked me back off my heels. "And you're it!" And he gave Deborah a push that sent her staggering, And then he went running all over the playground, yelling at the top of his voice and pushing just about everybody.

  And at that moment the bell rang and recess was over.

  I made sure Hannibal went back in the school building with the others, and that was all I could do just then. I had to get back to class.

  But I thought about Hannibal a lot the rest of that day.

  I know that there are times when being mean and ornery seems to be the only way out. Like that year I felt poor and out of things and against everybody, and went around knocking down mailboxes and destroying property.

  Eventually you learn that knocking things down doesn't do a bit of good. Or knocking people down, either. But sometimes it takes a while to find this out.

  Deborah told me later that Hannibal was just plain awful in class after recess and in the afternoon, answering Miss Silloway back and hitting out at the other kids and throwing his books on the floor. The children of the Smugs were saying "I told you so" worse
than ever. And even some of the good boys in the class vowed that as soon as school was over they were going to get Hannibal.

  When the first grade marched out at the end of that day, Deborah threw me a look that said, "Help!" But at that moment I was completely occupied.

  Ever since Miss Wilson found out that I can play the piano by ear, she has had me play for the marching out. It is all part of her campaign for bringing out my hidden virtues, I think. Usually I have to play corny old marches like "The Stars and Stripes Forever" or "The Burning of Rome." But I generally manage to sneak a little bit of rock 'n' roll beat under them when I can avoid Miss Wilson's eagle ear.

  This day when I caught Deborah's look I went on playing, but I watched the first grade out of the corner of my eye. As the line broke up at the door, I saw some of the boys start toward Hannibal. But Hannibal didn't wait. He ran faster than I've ever seen a little boy run, but not as if he were scared. More as if he couldn't shake the dust of that school from his feet soon enough.

  I waited till the fourth grade came marching by, and then I got Luella May Corbett to take my place on the piano stool. All she can play is "Barcarolle" and "Scarf Dance," but they would have to do today. And before Miss Wilson could notice that the music had changed, I hurried out the door to where Deborah was waiting, and she told me all about everything that had happened.

  "Maybe I ought to go after him," I said, "before he does anything rasher."

  "Take me along with you," said Deborah.

  So I did, on my handlebars.

  But we didn't see hide nor hair of Hannibal all the way to Silvermine Road. Even though he was new to that neighborhood, he must have found himself a shortcut through the woods, like a homing pigeon.

  We stopped a few times and reconnoitered, but I still made pretty good time and we got to the red house way ahead of the school bus. Deborah climbed down from the bike and marched straight into the yard where the well is.

  "If you ask me," she said. "What Hannibal needs is the magic. Come on, help me wish."

  "Oh no, now," I said. "None of that."

  Because that magic they talk about has always seemed pretty silly to me.