A Stitch in Time

by Daphne Kalmar

“Sit down, you knucklehead,” said Donut, clenching her fists.

  Pete laughed. Wally sat back down and whacked his brother on the shoulder with his paddle. Pete swung round and whacked Wally. The boat rocked.

  They got about twenty feet from shore, stopped paddling, and sat in the Nehi, both grinning, knowing full well that she couldn’t grab hold of them and wring their scrawny necks.

  “This where you’re hidin’ out?” asked Wally.

  “What’s it to you?” said Donut.

  “Whole town knows you gave that aunt of yours the slip.”

  “Marcel know you’re using his camp?” asked Pete, leaning over the side of the boat with his hand in the water.

  “What business is it of yours?”

  “Boy, oh boy, we ever ran off, wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week,” said Wally, shaking his head. “You’re gonna catch it when they find you.”

  They were trouble. The worst kind of trouble. Miss Beebe’d worn out a couple of rulers on these two on account of them being real stinkers—tripping little kids, stealing lunches and nickels. Last winter they’d loaded the woodstove in the schoolroom with firecrackers, and when the string of kabooms went off it about gave Miss Beebe apoplexy. Too dumb to look innocent, they were the only ones laughing and got a good whack from her and a tanning from their dad when he found out.

  “I need that boat,” said Donut.

  “Did you hear that, Pete? She needs her boat,” said Wally.

  Donut knew she had to calm down. Getting her all riled up was way too much fun for these two. She found a large rock close to shore and sat down all peaceful.

  “Gee, boys, I sure hope you’re not gonna squeal on me to Ernie or anyone else.”

  Wally got a disgusted look on his face. “We ain’t squealers. And besides, you’ve done pretty good, for a girl, sneaking off like that.”

  “And we’re just borrowing your boat,” said Pete.

  “It’s my pops’ boat. Kind of tippy. Don’t want you to drown even if you did steal it. I gotta have it handy ’cause I might need to make a quick getaway.”

  “Not much of a getaway, stuck paddling around in this puddle,” said Wally.

  Things had gotten sort of friendly. Donut grinned. They grinned back and Pete smacked the water with his paddle. The Ducharme boys were trouble, but they had no liking for grown-ups and rules. Their dad snapped orders like he was spitting tacks, and they hopped to it. He was hard on his animals, too.

  “Listen, my aunt’s gonna haul me off to Boston. I’ve got to hold out here until she gives up and leaves. I need your help.”

  “Well, sure. We could stand guard. Set up snares,” said Wally.

  “Thanks for the offer, but what I really need is for you two to swear you won’t tell a soul where I am.”

  Wally nudged Pete and they paddled into shore alongside the rock where Donut was sitting. He studied her for a minute, spit in his hand, and offered it up. Donut spit in her own hand, reached across the water, and they shook. Pete did the same.

  “Meet you over by the camp,” said Wally, pushing off from the rock with his paddle.

  Donut hiked back, and she and Wally carried the Nehi up over the rocks, flipped it over, and set it under the cedar tree.

  “So why aren’t you two in school?” said Donut.

  “No reason.”

  “You’re gonna catch it from Miss Beebe.”

  “Get whacked with her ruler plenty when we’re there. What’s the difference?”

  “Yeah, what’s the difference,” said Pete.

  “That’s true.” Donut marveled at the logic of it.

  “Okay. Got things to do,” said Wally. He pulled his slingshot out of his back pocket.

  “Yeah, stuff to do,” said Pete.

  “Thanks for staying quiet,” said Donut.

  She watched them disappear into the woods and felt kind of bad for the squirrels along the trail since Wally could knock a nickel off a post with that slingshot of his. The Ducharme boys weren’t all bad when they weren’t caged up in the schoolhouse. She filled her water bucket and climbed back up the trail to the cabin.

  The rest of the morning she spent on the map of South Dakota out of respect for Teddy Roosevelt. There were a lot of buttes—Thunder Butte, Red Butte, Slim Butte. They were like giant tree stumps or Lincoln’s top hat, but jagged and rocky, not like the soft, green hills in Vermont. She’d like to see one of them up close one day.

  Donut had sardines and crackers for lunch, cleaned up, and sat back down at the table. This running away business was going to bore the teeth out of her head. The cabin was scrubbed raw, probably cleaner than it’d been in years, and she’d hauled enough wood inside to last a week. How could Aunt Agnes stand it, sitting in the parlor all day with no company, no nothing to keep her occupied except knitting those blasted socks?

  Donut pulled her coat on, walked down to the shore, and collected about twenty skipping stones—flat and round, just the right size. She stood on a rock close to the water and practiced her side-arm throw. She got six skips out of her last stone and climbed down for more.

  “Thought you’d be studying your atlas,” said Tiny from up by the trail. “You should have the whole thing down cold with all this time on your hands.”

  Donut grinned at him. He’d come back. It was better than good to see him. The joy of it about knocked her off her feet. “Finished with geography for now,” she said. “Time moves so slow out here. If I had a clock it would stop ticking.”

  “Well,” said Tiny, “clocks are ticking along everywhere else, and I’ve got news.”

  Inside Chanticleer she set a pan of milk on the stove to warm while Tiny watched from a chair at the table. She was so glad he was sitting there in the cabin she didn’t much care what the news was, good or bad.

  “I’m really sorry, Tiny.”

  He frowned. “You oughta be.”

  “But how’d you find me yesterday?”

  “You weren’t at the bridge. I knocked on the door and your aunt said you’d left already. You weren’t in the schoolyard. Figured you were playing hooky, gone fishing. Got up here and the boat was gone. Thought you’d drowned. Saw the smoke at Marcel’s here. Took the path, ran the whole way.”

  “Sorry I scared you. Really.”

  “But why’d you do it? You’ve stirred up the whole village.”

  “The supper didn’t work. Sam tried, even told her I could live with him, but she turned him down flat. I had to run away. Had no choice.”

  Tiny shook his head. “She’s gonna wait you out, you know.”

  “I know, but maybe she’ll see what a load of trouble I’m gonna be and let me stay with Sam.”

  “Might work,” said Tiny. He punched her on the arm, kind of hard. “But why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Aunt Agnes gets you all twitchy, and you’re already an awful liar. You really are. You just don’t have the face for it.”

  “I can lie when I’ve got to. Does Marcel know you’re here?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Tiny didn’t say anything. Just sat in his chair, bumping one knee up and down, fingering a throwing stone in his big fist.

  “What?” she said.

  “First off, you shouldn’t be using his camp without asking. And you’ve got everyone worried—Sam, my folks, the Mayos, Miss Beebe. Ernie’s Ford was parked at your house this morning.”

  “Aunt Agnes told them, right? Told them I left a note, that I didn’t drown or get lost in the woods?”

  “Yeah, they know you ran, but that doesn’t mean they’re not gonna worry.”

  “I know, okay. I know.”

  Donut stood and kept her back to Tiny as she poured hot milk out of the saucepan into two mugs and stirred in the Ovaltine. She handed Tiny his mug and sat down with hers.

  “Got you yesterday’s Gazette out of Sam’s wood box.” He pulled the wrinkled newspaper out of his back pocket and set it on the table.

  She was glad to have Tiny sittin
g there, but it was tough being a fugitive, so close to home, with everyone else’s feelings getting tangled up in hers. A clean break would have been a whole lot easier. Across Lake Champlain, in some deserted camp in the Adirondacks, she would have been totally, completely alone and probably scared silly day and night, but it would have been way simpler.

  Donut gazed out at Dog Pond. She kicked the table leg and their mugs of Ovaltine jumped and slopped over.

  “You can tell them, Tiny. Sam and the rest. Don’t tell them where I’m hiding, just that you’ve seen me and I’m fine. But not Ernie. If he gets wind of it Mr. Hollis’ll be tacking my picture up next to the ten-most-wanted list at the post office.”

  “Nobody tells Ernie anything. He’ll just keep driving round in circles.”

  They both laughed. But Tiny’s laugh was a kind of a smothered laugh.

  “How’s Winnie?”

  He was quiet for a while. Sipped at his Ovaltine. “She’s not eating much of anything.”

  “Oh, Tiny. That’s not good.”

  He stared down at his boots. Donut reached across the table and gripped his arm. He looked up at her.

  “I’m some kind of fool to care so much for a damn cow.”

  “But she’s Winnie.”

  “Yeah.” He stood up and pulled on his boots and coat. “Got to get back.”

  Standing right outside the door he gave her a serious look, eyebrows hunched up. “I won’t tell where you are even if the whole lot of ’em gangs up on me. I promise.”

  “Thanks, and give Winnie a scratch behind the ears for me. I’m really sorry I was such a louse.”

  He turned and headed for the trail at a good clip.

  Just then, Donut realized she’d forgotten to tell Tiny about the bears.

  16

  Her second night in Chanticleer Donut lay still under the blankets doing her best to fall asleep. She steadied her breathing, tried to ignore the scampering of the mice. Alone in the dark cabin, the night noises were so much closer—the creak of wood, movement in the forest, the squawk of a bird awakened by some unknown night animal. Something scraped against the back wall of the cabin and Donut sat up and stared into the dark.

  And then the bears began their hooting barks. Back and forth across Dog Pond. The same double call, over and over. It was sad, really, that call. Hadn’t they found each other last night? It was dark as pitch, with clouds blocking the moon, so Donut lay back down in her warm bed and listened.

  Would her bear find the apple? Wonder where it had come from? She could invite him in for a cup of Ovaltine. He could sit in Tiny’s chair at the table. Tell her of the forest—of climbing apple trees, raiding beehives, and his dreams in winter while he slept in some cave or great hole dug into the side of a hill. Like Badger in The Wind in the Willows, which her pops had read aloud to her, her bear would be dignified, his home well appointed with easy chairs and a very large feather bed.

  * * *

  At dawn, Donut woke to a steady rain pounding on the roof. The cabin was dark and cold. She got up shivering, built a fire in the stove, and climbed back into bed.

  “This just beats all,” she said, rolling over and kicking at the covers.

  A cold rain would keep her cooped up all day. Tiny probably wouldn’t come, what with the added work of the cows in the barn, the slog through the mud to the cabin, and Winnie.

  She finally had to get out of bed to use the outhouse. And no matter the rain, she had to check on the apple. With her hat pulled down over her ears Donut walked down to the shore. The apple was gone and fresh bear tracks were everywhere, filled up with rainwater—bear puddles. She’d leave a fresh snack for him.

  “Would you like cheese? Or maybe sardines?”

  She knew she shouldn’t be feeding her bear, drawing him to the cabin. He was a bear, after all, with claws and teeth, and used to getting his own way. But she wasn’t scared of this particular bear.

  Donut slipped and slid her way back up the trail and settled down at the table with the Gazette. She read it straight through—every news flash, article, advertisement, and two pages of personals. A freight train had derailed in Maryland and carloads of Florida oranges had rolled down a hillside. What a sight that must have been.

  Done with the paper, she stared out the window at the rain. The cabin would float away soon. The pond would rise and rise. She’d fill a sack with food and float off in the Nehi, drift south all the way to Maryland, where oranges would be bobbing in the floodwaters. Easy pickings. She’d fill the boat and paddle north as the water receded.

  The rain kept on all day. At sunset Tiny still hadn’t come. Donut opened her last can of sardines, laid half of them out on a metal pie pan, and carried her offering down to the shore. The bear tracks were blurred by the rain, their edges worn down. She set the pie tin on the flat rock.

  Back inside, she sat at the table and watched the shore. There was no movement, no wind. She heard the scribble-scrabble of a mouse and turned slowly toward the sound. He was on the counter, a deer mouse with a notch in his left ear, on the top edge—a near miss. He held a cracker crumb in his front paws, nibbled at it, turned the crumb over and nibbled some more.

  “You’re awful daring,” she whispered.

  The mouse froze, twitched his whiskers. What did they tell him, those whiskers? He relaxed and continued nibbling. Donut watched the movement of his delicate fingers. The crumb gone, the notch-eared mouse disappeared behind the counter.

  It was dark now, and the rain had eased up a little. She ate the rest of the sardines with crackers and a mug of Ovaltine. That was the end of the milk. Cheese and apples and crackers were all she had left for food. If the blasted rain would let up she’d go fishing tomorrow and have a proper dinner.

  It was early still, but Donut cleaned up and went to bed. Being a runaway was dull as ditchwater. She was still a little scared when she blew out the candle, but the scariness of the night noises and dark in the cabin were familiar now. Besides, her bear was probably nearby, standing guard while he ate his fish dinner.

  * * *

  Donut woke to still more rain. Down on the shore a couple of blue jays had dumped the pie tin into the mud and were dickering over the sardines.

  All day she sat in the cabin. All day it rained.

  How did Robinson Crusoe do it, all this peace and quiet? He waited for years and years for a ship to appear on the horizon. If she got shipwrecked, she’d build a raft straight-away and go to sea. Drifting toward the world was better than getting old, waiting politely for it to arrive.

  The rain started to let up in the late afternoon. Donut sat at the table studying the map of North Dakota.

  The cabin door opened behind her.

  “Just sittin’ there like the queen of Sheba.” Tiny set down a sack by the door. “And you’re dry as a chip.”

  She laughed at the sight of him—a drowned rat with a large puddle already forming under him from the drip-drip of his boots and coat.

  “It’s not funny. I’m soaked through.”

  Tiny wrestled himself out of his coat and muddy boots and set a milk can on the table. He grabbed his chair and plunked down close to the stove. Steam rose off his wet shirt and hair and socks.

  “I sure am glad to see you,” she said. “And fresh milk, thanks.”

  She filled the saucepan, set it on the stove, and pulled up a chair next to him.

  “There’s more,” said Tiny, reaching his stocking feet out toward the fire.

  He pulled a waxed-paper package out of his sack and handed it to her.

  She knew right away what it was. She could have smelled Mrs. Lamphere’s gingersnaps a mile off.

  “I was in the store and Mrs. Stratton pulled them out from under the counter. ‘We know you know where she is,’ she says. ‘And Gladys made this batch up special for you to take to our young runaway.’”

  “What did you say? You didn’t let on where I was, did you?”

  “No. And she never asked.” Tiny started pul
ling other things out of the sack. “A Hershey bar from the Barclay boys. Pudge sent along a deck of cards. Doris says hi, and she sent this brand-new tablet. Said you should write down your adventures and sell ’em to the Saturday Evening Post.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Sam sent on the latest Gazette and your taxidermy tools.”

  Tiny kept hauling things out of the sack. An old compass from Artie Bellevance, mittens from Tiny’s mom, a jug of maple syrup from Beryl. Donut laughed—Mr. Hollis at the post office had sent her an orange.

  They were all on her side. She hadn’t really run away, what with the bits of everyone now stacked up on the table.

  “What about Aunt Agnes?”

  “Don’t know. I duck past your house pretty fast. And been steering clear of Ernie.”

  Donut fixed mugs of Ovaltine for herself and Tiny and unwrapped the gingersnaps. He was quiet, staring out the window.

  “How’s Winnie?”

  Tiny’s shoulders sagged.

  “Poorly,” he said, not looking at her. “Leg won’t bear any weight. We’re gonna have to put her down.”

  “Oh, Tiny.”

  “She’s suffering. Ribs are showing.”

  “There’s no way to fix it? Put a splint on her leg? Keep her in the stall ’til it heals?”

  “She doesn’t understand what’s happened, just keeps trying to get up, move around.”

  “I’m so sorry, Tiny.”

  “Winnie’s a good girl.”

  They sat at the table drinking Ovaltine and eating gingersnaps and the rain started up again, drumming on the roof. There wasn’t anything Donut could say to make it easier for Tiny. That was one thing she knew for sure. Everyone had tried for words to say when her pops had died, and they always just fumbled around, making a mess of it. Sometimes a person could stand up to the sadness better without words stirring it up. She tried her best to sit still with Tiny and his sorrow.

  After a bit he set his empty mug down on the table. “So what’s your plan?”

  “Don’t really have one besides hiding out here.”

  “Sooner than later your auntie’s gonna flush you out.”

  Aunt Agnes. She was the only one in Cobden besides Ernie who was in the dark. Aunt Agnes, sitting in her wingback chair, was more alone than Donut was hiding out in Chanticleer. She picked up another gingersnap and chewed at it. If Aunt Agnes was lonely, she could always get on the train and go back to Boston.