The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg

by Rodman Philbrick

  I’m about ready to shout out a warning to the others when Professor Fleabottom slips out of the first wagon. He’s wearing a dark cloak that blends him into the darkness, and something about the way he moves says he’s all business.

  The professor meets up with the man on the horse. They speak for a few minutes, but so low I can’t hear nothing but a murmur. Then Professor Fleabottom looks around to make sure nobody is watching — he don’t see me peeking around the rock — and he reaches into the dark cloak and takes out a leather satchel, the kind that carries mail or dispatches.

  The professor hands the satchel to the man on the black horse. The man gives him a quick salute and wheels the horse away, vanishing silently into the night.

  Now I got two reasons not to sleep: Harold and whatever the professor is up to, sneaking around under cover of darkness.

  ABOUT THE ONLY THING I recall about our Dear Mother dying is the coffin. How it smelled of pine and camphor, and how small it was. How was our Dear Mother to sleep in a place so narrow? That worried me so much I could not sleep or eat until Harold explained that our Dear Mother was herself now in Heaven, and had left behind a pale remnant that must be buried in the earth.

  The pine box would suffice.

  Still I didn’t understand. What did he mean by “remnant?”

  “A thing left behind,” he told me.

  “How do you know?” I asked him.

  He said, “Mother told me herself, just before she passed. She said we must not grieve over her poor body because it is only a remnant, and her immortal soul has flown off to be with God. She’ll have all the room she needs in Heaven, Homer, so you are not to worry.”

  I was four years old at the time, which means Harold was only nine, but he comforted me better than any grown-up, and I was able to sleep so long as it was next to him, knowing he would be there always.

  What makes me think of that little pine box, and Harold, too? The terrible black wagons we meet upon the road, not far from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. They are like big hayrick wagons without the hay, drawn by four horses, and the whole of each wagon is swaddled in black cloth and marked with the Union emblem.

  Under the cloth, peeking out here and there, are stacks of cheap pine coffins.

  The professor pulls our little caravan over to let the death wagons pass, and bides us stand with hats off and heads bowed, as a sign of respect.

  As the last wagon goes by, it throws a spoke and nearly overturns. The professor leaps down to offer his assistance and puts Tally and Bern to work repairing the wheel while he entertains the driver with his fine talk.

  “A splendid job you’re doing, bringing comfort to the bereaved,” he says. “How is it these men were not buried on the battlefield?”

  “Most are, of course,” the driver says, wiping his sweaty brow with a soiled hankie. “These poor brave soldiers died of their wounds sometime after the battle, and so are returned to their homes.”

  “What battle was this?” the professor wants to know. “We hear only dribs and drabs of the war.”

  “Skirmishes mostly,” the driver says. “The armies are maneuvering, trying to get position.”

  “Near the Potomac, I suppose?”

  The driver shakes his head wearily. “West of the river. Lee has been harassing Harrisburg of late. The Union sends its men to find him and this is how they return — shot to pieces and dying. Some from their wounds, more from sickness and fever. It is a sad business.”

  “Very sad,” says the professor. “Tell me, sir, would a mild tonic help? A pick-me-up?”

  He means his elixir and the driver readily accepts. As he sips from the bottle the weary driver becomes even more talkative, and he and the professor discuss the state of the war.

  It seems that after their triumph at Chancellorsville the Confederate forces have indeed come north as rumored, invading Pennsylvania and looking to put a bayonet through the heart of the Union Army.

  “They say if Lee wins one more battle the war will be over and the South will be triumphant.”

  “Surely not!” The professor says, looking much distressed. “Our General Hooker can fight, can he not?”

  “Hooker?” The driver gives him an odd look as he takes another swig of elixir. “Have you not heard? Fighting Joe Hooker has resigned in despair or bad temper, no one knows for sure. Lincoln has promoted General Meade in his place and ordered him to stop Lee’s army at all cost.”

  “Meade is in charge? Extraordinary!”

  “You know something of the Union generals, do you?” the driver asks suspiciously.

  The professor clears his throat. “Only what I read in the newspapers. I know nothing of Meade but his name, really.”

  The driver shrugs. “Ah well. It is not for us to criticize. It is only for us to serve and die as the generals command. They say that some of the northern states are near rebellion themselves. New York in particular. They want an end to things, one way or another. These are the dark days of the war, a time for dying by the thousand, and for what? To free the slaves? I care nothing for slaves!”

  After that the driver will speak no more. He waits until his wagon is repaired, then trundles off, silent as the grave.

  The professor stands in the road, watching as the coffin wagon rounds a bend and vanishes from sight, then pats me on the head. “Not to worry, young Mr. Figg. If what the man says is true, the war may be over before your brother has to fight.”

  I hope so. I don’t want Harold coming home in no black wagon.

  ONE FINE DAY, NOT FAR from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the wind brings us a present. We been hard upon the road since the night before, on account of a certain colonel who took exception to his new recruits drinking the professor’s elixir and sent a squad of lively fellows to arrest us.

  The professor bribed them with silver coin, but still we had to flee and put many miles behind us before the sun rose.

  I’m riding in the third wagon with Tally, trying to persuade him to stop and cook us breakfast.

  “They say an army travels on its stomach,” I remind him. “What about medicine shows? Don’t we travel on our stomachs, too?”

  Tally shakes his head, keeps the wagon moving. “I believe there’s an old leather boot under the seat,” he says. “Chew on that, if you like.”

  “What’s that I hear?” I say, putting my hand to my ear. “Distant thunder? Artillery? No — it’s your empty belly! What a lonesome, hungry noise it makes. Pancakes, Tally. Fried potatoes. Strawberry pie.”

  “Strawberry pie?”

  “We passed a whole field of strawberries, not a mile back. Fresh strawberries baked in a pie. Mmmmm, good,” I say, taunting him by rubbing my stomach.

  “Stop it, you little scamp! We’ll have our breakfast when the professor says so, and not before.”

  That’s when the great black monster comes over the horizon, blown by the warm summer wind. Looks like a giant head making faces at us as it rises over the grassy hills.

  “Professor!” Tally cries, standing up in his seat. “Look!”

  The wagons halt as an enormous silk balloon fills the sky. The silk bulges and ripples, changing shape with the wind, and looks like a thing alive.

  As it gets closer I can make out a basket hanging by ropes, and a man in the basket, waving frantically and pointing at something. Beneath the basket is another long rope dragging an anchor. The anchor keeps hitting the ground and bouncing back up in the air.

  “Runaway balloon,” Tally says, his eyes lighting up. “Bernard! Let’s grab the anchor!”

  The juggling brothers leap from their wagons and give chase. I follow close behind, striving to keep up. The man shouts from the basket, but he must be a hundred feet in the air and the words are jumbled.

  We’re in a country of rolling hills, running through knee-high grass, chasing the anchor as it tumbles and bounces.

  Tally gets his hand on the anchor and gives a yell of triumph, and then he’s yanked into the air and falls, tumblin
g head over heels in the soft grass.

  Next thing, Bern leaps over his fallen brother and snatches at the anchor. It drags him along and spins him around as the great balloon pops up again, pushed by the wind.

  “Grab my legs!” he yells.

  Somehow I manage to get both arms around his legs. For a moment the extra weight seems to hold us down, with my toes dragging along in the grass. Then another gust lifts us high into the air and we’re both screaming for help.

  Far below us Tally is running to keep up, begging us to come down to earth. We would if we could, but the fall is too far. I’m hanging on to Bern’s legs for dear life. Then as the hill below us rises to the ridge, we swing closer to the ground.

  We’re going so fast the grass looks blurry.

  “Look out!” Tally yells, pointing.

  At the top of the hill looms a cluster of tall elm trees. We’re heading right for it! The thick branches look like spears rushing at us. I’ve half a mind to drop and take my chances, but before I can figure out how to let go we swoosh into the trees.

  Last thing I see is a branch exactly as fat as my head.

  THE SMELL WAKES ME. The delicious smell of sausage cooking in a fry pan, and coffee boiling on an open fire.

  Mini is holding a cool, damp cloth to my forehead, and she smiles when I wake up.

  “Good thing your skull is so thick,” she says. “It’s pure luck your head didn’t get cracked like an egg when it hit that tree. What were you thinking? That you could fly like a bird?”

  Above us the giant balloon is tethered to the elm tree, bobbing to and fro in the breeze. The anchor has wrapped around the branches. The balloon looks so peaceful you’d never know that when it gets loose it has a mind to kill the people that are trying to help it.

  “Glad to see you back in this world,” Bern says, bending down to give my nose a tweak.

  Bern got stove up some, mostly scratches, but he expects breakfast will revive him. Tally is busy cooking, using every available fry pan. Preparing sausage and eggs and fried potatoes and onions and what he calls his sure-fire pan-fried biscuits.

  When he notices me sitting up, holding my swollen, achy head, he apologizes for not getting any strawberries.

  “I was willing to go back,” he says. “But the professor insisted we all stay with the balloon.” Whispering, he adds, “I think he means to buy it!”

  Sure enough, the professor is deep in conversation with the man who was riding in the basket. He’s a young, slender, dandified fellow with a wispy black beard and a long skinny nose and the blazing eyes of a true believer.

  “Aeronautics is the future!” he’s telling the professor with great enthusiasm. “Thaddeus Lowe is the living proof! Nine hundred miles in nine hours!”

  The young man, Mr. Dennett Bobbins by name, explains that Thaddeus Lowe was appointed by President Lincoln to be Chief of Army Aeronautics after Mr. Lowe flew a balloon from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Unionville, South Carolina, in the aforementioned nine hours. For a time his fleet of army airships flew over the northern part of Virginia, reporting on Confederate positions.

  Lately, it seems, Confederate sharpshooters and artillery men have learned how to shoot down the balloons, which do make rather large targets.

  “A thousand square yards of silk!” Mr. Bobbins raves. “Twenty-eight thousand cubic feet of hydrogen, generated on the battlefield! Ten thousand feet of cable to tether us in place! From ten thousand feet you can see to the ends of the earth, Tilda and I! The movements of the enemy lose all mystery! Armies can no longer rely upon surprise attacks! I tell you, aeronautics is the future! The future, I say!”

  And then suddenly he commences to sob. Tears stream down his cheeks as Mr. Bobbins tells us that on account of so many unfortunate accidents — the unpredictable wind, the hydrogen gas catching afire — the entire aeronautical division is to be shut down. Mr. Bobbins’s balloon is the last of the fleet and he has failed in his attempt to survey the Potomac valley and relay intelligence by telegraph to the ground.

  “A summer storm!” he wails. “I saw a few thunderheads gathering, but gave the order to launch despite the threat of storms! It’s my fault, not Tilda’s! It was our last chance to prove the value of airships and I failed! I failed most miserably! Oh Tilda, do forgive me!”

  As the young airship pilot weeps and wails, Professor Fleabottom pats him on the back and comforts him.

  “It’s not your fault, my good sir, you can’t be responsible for the weather,” he assures him.

  After a time Mr. Bobbins calms down, accepts a tin mug of coffee from Minerva, and only then seems to take note of his surroundings. “Where am I, precisely?” he wants to know.

  “In the general vicinity of Lancaster,” the professor informs him.

  “Lancaster! Indeed. Then according to my calculations, we covered less than fifty miles.” He looks up at the balloon bobbing over the elm tree. “She’s a good ship. With a will of her own, obviously.”

  “Tell us, please, of your great adventure,” the professor says, sounding very kind and solicitous. “Were you able to survey the Potomac valley? Could you discern the Confederate positions? Were you able to pass useful intelligence to the Union generals?”

  Young Mr. Bobbins sighs and shakes his head. “Alas, no. There were obscuring clouds and then, just as Tilda and I attained peak altitude, we broke loose from the cable. Disaster!”

  “You keep referring to a woman named Tilda. Had you another companion along for the ride?”

  Mr. Bobbins looks shocked at the question. “Another companion? No, no. The ‘we’ is Tilda and I. She is my only companion.”

  “The balloon?”

  “The airship!”

  “Of course. Yes, indeed, the airship. Tilda being the name of the airship,” the professor concludes thoughtfully. “Mini, would you get Mr. Bobbins a plate of food? I fear his head may be somewhat light from lack of sustenance, or possibly oxygen. Ten thousand feet is very high indeed. The air must be terribly thin.”

  “Not so thin as to addle my brain, if that’s what you’re implying,” Mr. Bobbins says, sounding hurt and angry.

  “Nothing of the sort!” the professor assures him. “Men have always given female names to waterborne ships, why not to ships of the air? Makes perfect sense if you think about it. Tilda, yes, she’s a lovely creature.”

  “She’s not a creature, she’s an airship!” Mr. Bobbins protests.

  “Of course, an airship. Please take no offense at our ignorance, good sir. We are fascinated with the whole concept of airships, and how they might prove useful to our little traveling enterprise.”

  “Aeronautics will change the world!” Mr. Bobbins exclaims, regaining his enthusiasm. “There will come a day when all of humanity travels by air. We must learn to control the wind! That’s the secret! That’s the answer! Once we control the wind, we control the world!”

  “Windmills, I suppose?” the professor offers cautiously. “Is that how you will control the wind?”

  The young pilot gives him a disappointed look. “You doubt me, but one day it will be true. Humanity will travel by air, and conduct war from the air, and seek peace in the air. The air is the future, not the land! Mankind must be made free! It must unshackle from the slavery of gravity and be free as the clouds, like Tilda and me. Air, do you hear me, air!”

  Poor Mr. Bobbins is still raving when the cavalry charges over the hill to arrest us all for treason.

  IN LESS TIME THAN IT takes to whistle “Yankee Doodle,” we’re surrounded by a squad of grim-faced soldiers on horseback, all of ’em pointing long rifles in our faces.

  “Keep your hands in plain view!” one of them shouts. “Anybody moves they are done for!”

  The captain dismounts from his horse. He’s a tall, fine-looking fellow, taller even than Professor Fleabottom, with piercing dark eyes and a nose like a hawk. Like the hawk, he has the look of a dangerous creature, one who may attack without warning.

  He adjusts the cu
ffs of his white leather gloves, then strides up to the campfire and demands a cup of coffee.

  “Are these true coffee beans?” he wants to know, seizing a battered tin mug. “Or have you taken up the rebel habit of adding chicory?”

  Tally, who is tending the fire, looks like he don’t know what to do or say.

  “Cat got your tongue?” the captain demands. “Or is it General Lee who has charge of your tongue?”

  Tally glances helplessly at Professor Fleabottom, who gathers himself up and says, “We beg your kindness, captain. This man is simpleminded. Your sudden arrival has confused him.”

  The captain snorts and puts his hand upon the pistol holstered at his waist. “Simpleminded, is he? I doubt that. Maybe the recruiters fall for such nonsense, but not me.”

  “Please, you are welcome to coffee, or indeed to any food we may have,” the professor says, sounding rather grand. “Would your men like biscuits and jam, sir? Our cook may be simple, but he makes a very fine biscuit. Or if you prefer, we have sufficient bottles of my, ah, special elixir.”

  The captain gulps down his coffee, spits some of it back, and drops the mug in the fire. Then he strides full up to the professor, so close they almost bump chests. “You’d addle the brains of my men with your moonshine whiskey?” he asks, very quiet. “Is that your plan of escape? Get us drunk and sneak away?”

  “Elixir for what ails you,” responds the professor, holding his ground.

  “Whiskey!” roars the captain. “Cheap whiskey!”

  Mini dabs a hankie to her eyes, weeping. Bern and Tally both look like they want to bolt, but don’t dare for fear of getting a bullet in the back. Mr. Bobbins just looks confused, and me, I’m thinking when the shooting starts I’ll climb the tree and hide in the branches like a squirrel.

  The captain whips a folded piece of paper out of his jacket and reads from it. “Reginald Robertson Crockett, also known as Fenton J. Fleabottom, as the duly authorized representative of the United States of America, I place you under arrest for the felony crime of treason.” Looking up from the paper, he adds, “The specific and mortal crime of passing military intelligence to the enemy. Seize him!”