Meet the Austins

by Madeleine L'engle

  John petted him, saying, “Oh, Rochester, I wish you’d been over in the churchyard half an hour ago.”

  “But what on earth happened?” I demanded.

  John gave a very lopsided grin. “We were in a fight.”

  “Who? Why? Do Mother and Daddy know? Where are the others?”

  “Hold it,” John said. “We’d better go wash before we do anything else.”

  “No you don’t!” I cried. “You tell me what happened first!”

  John gave Maggy a funny kind of rough hug. John has never been one for hugging and kissing, so this was all the more remarkable.

  “I got involved in a monstrous battle,” John said, “and Maggy was coming down from the Sunday-school room and saw me, and she lit into the boys like a hurricane and did her best to rescue me. It was a doggone good best, too. If it hadn’t been for Maggy I’d have had a sight worse licking than I got.”

  “But why were you getting a licking?” I asked. “Where was Dave?” I didn’t think anybody’d dare pick a fight with John if Dave was around.

  John gave that funny, lopsided grin again and I realized that his lip was cut and swollen, too. “Dave has measles. Come on, Mag, let’s wash up.”

  “No!” I shouted. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I think I’d better sit down,” John said. “I feel wuzzy.” He flopped onto the rocker and closed his eyes, and his eyes without glasses were as strange-looking as the cuts and bruises on the rest of his face.

  “Where are your glasses?” I asked.

  “Smashed. You all right, Maggy?”

  “No,” Maggy said. “I’m mad. John was fighting all by himself, with at least a dozen boys on top of him. It wasn’t fair. And I didn’t have a chance to run up to the Sunday-school room to get Suzy or Rob to help. It wasn’t fair. It was the meanest thing I ever saw.”

  “But what happened?” I asked again.

  “Okay,” John said. “Let’s make it brief, Mag. Mr. Jenkins wasn’t there. Nanny and Izzy said there was something wrong with the big deep freeze in their store. He came hurrying after the big battle was over, but that was too late to do me any good.”

  “What does Mr. Jenkins have to do with it, anyhow?”

  “Well, he is the Sunday school superintendant after all, and he always does the opening service for the Sunday school,” John said. “You know that. Added to which, Mr. Vining’s away this week.”

  Mr. Vining’s the minister. This explained nothing. “What’s all this got to do with you?”

  “When it was obvious Mr. Jenkins wasn’t going to get to church on time, Mr. Ulrich asked me to do it,” John said.

  “To do what?”

  John gave a funny sort of groan. “The opening service.”

  “It wasn’t fair,” Maggy protested again. “I heard Aunt Victoria telling Uncle Wallace Mr. Ulrich should never have asked it of John.”

  Mr. Ulrich teaches the high-school Sunday-school class, and I guess he’s sort of second in charge if Mr. Vining isn’t there, because sometimes he gives the opening service.

  “But he asked me,” John said. “He kind of looked around the church. He looked us all over, and his eye lit on me, and he said, ‘I’m willing to bet John Austin can get up there and do the opening service for us. How about it, John?’ What was I to do? There was nothing I wanted to do less, but I felt I was sort of stuck with it; if I didn’t do it I’d be letting Mr. Ulrich down—and Dave, too. At first I didn’t say anything, and then Mr. Ulrich said, ‘How about it, John?’ and I said, ‘Okay, Mr. Ulrich, I’ll try.’ And I had to get up and go to the front of the church and everybody was watching me and some of the boys were grinning, and I thought, I’ll show them. So I gave the call to worship, and then had everybody sing Holy, Holy, Holy, to give myself time to think. Then I told one of Grandfather’s stories, the one about the shoemaker who was so poor and yet he helped all those people—you know the one, it goes with the part in the Bible about if you do it unto the least of these you do it unto me.”

  “It was a wonderful story,” Maggy said. “The girls all thought you were marvelous.”

  “Yes,” John said, “that was the trouble. And I made one terrific goof.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “I took off my glasses.”

  “But why! You know you can’t see two feet in front of your nose without them.”

  “That’s exactly why,” John said. “I thought if I couldn’t see the kids I wouldn’t be so scared. I was afraid if somebody made a face at me or giggled or looked as though they thought I was a dope or something, I’d forget what I was saying and not be able to go through with it. So I took off my glasses so everybody’d look like a vague blur and I couldn’t see who was who, or what they were thinking, or anything. But a lot of them thought I was doing it to show off.”

  “But you weren’t—”

  “Of course I wasn’t. But they thought I was.”

  “It was those dopey girls,” Maggy explained, “giggling and carrying on and saying how dreamy he looked without his glasses.”

  “I don’t think anybody listened to a word I said.” John sighed, heavily. “That’s almost the worst of it. Maybe some of the little kids listened to the story, but nobody else. Well, then we had the collection, and I had two of the smallest kids take it. Maybe that was being a coward, but I felt safer that way. And then I had to do the prayer.”

  “What did you say?” I asked. “Did you make it up?”

  “No, I was too scared. I said the St. Francis Prayer.” And he began to say it softly, as though he needed it for himself. “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is discord, union; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O divine master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” He took a deep breath. “Well, then we went to our classes. But I knew trouble was coming. A couple of the kids kind of poked me and whispered things like, ‘You just think you’re the most beautiful boy, don’t you?’ And Mr. Ulrich made it worse by trying to set me up as an example to the rest of the class and I couldn’t shut him up. If Dave had been there he’d have shut his father up. When classes were over, the Sunday-school teachers were supposed to be meeting about something, and the minute I got outdoors the kids were waiting for me, and one of them said, ‘Got your glasses on now, haven’t you, gorgeous? ’ and I said, ‘Yeah, what’s it to you,’ and he said, ‘Take ’em off so we can see those dreamy eyes,’ and I said, ‘Take ’em off yourself,’ and that’s how it started.”

  “They were cowards,” Maggy said, “all of them together and John all alone, and when his glasses got busted they knew he couldn’t even see what he was doing. But he was doing okay. I came out in the middle of it, ’cause someone told me what was going on, and I was just so mad I jumped on Sammy Calahan’s back and pulled his hair and then I saw somebody else’s leg sticking out and I bit that. I don’t know whose it was, but I bet I drew blood.”

  “Kind of backhanded tactics,” John said, “but they surely helped. The others weren’t fighting exactly fair, either.”

  “What about Mother and Daddy?” I asked. “Do they know about it?”

  “Dad brought us home,” John said.

  “Did he break it up?”

  “No. One of the girls ran in and got the teachers out of their meeting and they all came out and everybody kind of got off me and Maggy was fighting so hard by then she didn’t even realize the fight was over till Mr. Ulrich pulled her off one of the boys. Then people started coming to church, and Mother and Daddy came up the path and saw us, and Dad brought us home, and that’s all.”

  Maggy gave a contented sort of sigh. “Maybe Suzy and Rob don’t even know about it y
et. They were in the upstairs Sunday-school room.”

  “Somebody’s told them by now,” I said.

  John stood up. “Well, I guess I better grope my way to the bathtub. I’ll take the upstairs bathroom, it’s colder, and you can use the one downstairs, Mag.”

  Maggy ran off, and I thought she seemed different than she had been with us. Mostly she’s pulled against us, tried to be different, to have special privileges, to be a TV star, and suddenly she seemed not only more like one of us but as though she actually finally wanted to be one of us. And once again I was glad she hadn’t been thrown to the lions.

  John said, “Well, see you later, Vic,” and went off with Rochester thumping anxiously at his heels. I heard him bump into a chair or something, and then a moment later I heard his bathwater running. I lay in bed, stroking Colette’s ear and thinking about what had happened, till John came back in, wrapped in his bath towel, and sat down in the Boston rocker again.

  “I get on okay with Dave,” he said. “I thought I got on okay with the others, too.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. I murmured, “Oh, John …” and if I’d been Mother I could have gone to him and put my arms around him and given him some love. But I was only his kid sister, Vicky, and all I could do was lie there and look at him, his body firm and lean and still white from winter, his face all battered up, and the cut by his eye going right through one of his eyebrows. Without his glasses his eyes seemed much bigger than usual, and they looked unhappy. His reddy-brown hair was wet, and he’d slicked it down, but a tuft of it stuck up in the back.

  “Well,” I said at last, “maybe it comes down to muffins again.” (About muffins I will explain in just a minute.)

  John nodded. “Sometimes being muffiny can be very tempting. Listen, Vicky, as soon as you’re better let’s have a meeting. Is it okay if I propose Maggy? As far as I’m concerned, she qualified this morning.”

  I remembered Maggy’s look as she’d gone down the hall to take her bath, so I said, “It’s okay with me if you think it’ll be okay with the others.”

  “We’ve never turned down anybody anyone’s put up, yet.”

  “It’s never been anybody who didn’t belong here,” I said, “and Maggy’s really only a visitor.”

  “That’s a muffiny remark if there ever was one,” John said.

  I thought it over for a moment. “Yes, I guess it was.”

  “Do I look awful?” he asked.

  “Kind of like a prize-fighter.”

  “That’s one thing I’m not and never will be. Well, I’d better go get some clothes on.”

  He’d just gone out the door when the phone rang and he headed into Mother and Daddy’s room, bumping into things on the way.

  I heard him say, “Dave! … But you have measles! … Well, it wasn’t your father’s fault … No, if I’d done it differently, or something … well, sure I’m not mad at him … They home from church already? … Well, sure, I’m mad at the others. I was so mad by the time they broke it up I was beginning to enjoy the fight … Listen, you’d better get back to bed. You don’t want any secondary infections … Sure. Be over to see you as soon as you’re feeling better. Hey, Dave, I sure look a beaut, you ought to see me … Okay. Bye.”

  As he hung up I heard the door downstairs open, and Colette leaped off my bed and dashed down, barking her welcoming bark; and then there was the sound of a small herd of elephants and Suzy and Rob came dashing up the stairs. And then Mother and Daddy came along and then the telephone rang again, and it was the father of one of the kids in the fight, to complain about John’s starting it! And the rest of the day was like that, a peaceful Sunday, all full of sound and fury.

  Mr. Ulrich called, very upset, and Mother had to reassure him that John wasn’t seriously hurt, and he really wasn’t to blame, it was just one of those things. The father of another of the boys called up in a rage because John had given his boy a bloody nose, and Daddy told him off about that.

  In between times Daddy cleaned up John’s face and put a bandage over the cut above his eye, and told him not to read till his glasses were fixed. Maggy had a big scratch on one leg, but otherwise it was her clothes that got it; she was okay. And Mr. Jenkins called up, all worried, and Daddy had to calm him down. “Look, boys will be boys, and problems like this happen occasionally. Nobody was badly hurt, and maybe they’ve all learned a lesson. But let’s not have the whole village get into a turmoil over it.” All in all, we had about as much Sunday peace and quiet as we’d have had at a three-ring circus. Mr. Jenkins came over with a big carton of ice cream from his store as a peace offering.

  The next day one of the Granby boys got into real trouble. He “borrowed” one of the Hendricks’ horses and the horse stepped into a hole and sprained its foot, and he was scared to tell the Hendricks he’d taken the horse and what had happened, but of course he didn’t get away with it, and in the ensuing excitement John and the Sunday-school fight got forgotten. John got new glasses and his face unswelled and his cuts healed and things went back to normal.

  A week later I went back to school, and so did Dave, and suddenly we were plunged into summer. It had been a long, cold, snowy, rainy spring. In fact, there was hardly any real spring to speak of at all, and then all at once at the end of May it was summer, with hot, sunny days and swimming in the pond after school, and we all went to sleep lying on top of our beds with the covers pulled down, and Mother and Daddy pulled our sheets up when they came upstairs at night.

  On Friday at breakfast John asked if we could have a picnic up Hawk Mountain that night.

  “Why, John? I don’t see why not, but is it for anything special?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Muffins. We want to take in a new member.”

  “I see. Okay with the others?”

  “The picnic or the member?”

  “Both.”

  “The picnic’s fine. I haven’t brought the member up yet.”

  Maggy was putting her cereal dish in the sink, something it took her months to remember to do. Mother glanced at her. “Am I right in my guess as to the new member?”

  John grinned. “Could be.”

  “All right, John. Just don’t make it too late for the little ones, will you? What do you want to take for supper?”

  “Could you make us a big dish of baked beans with hot dogs cut up in it? You know the kind. If we start out with it good and hot it’ll be okay. I thought I’d ask Dave and Betsey Ulrich to bring a salad, and Izzy and Nanny Jenkins can bring ice cream and Coke.” Izzy is Nanny’s older sister and a good friend of John’s.

  “All right,” Mother said. “I’ll drive you up at five and come for you at nine. Okay?”

  “Thanks,” John said. “That’ll be super.”

  So at five we got in the car, the four of us and Maggy, and picked up Dave and Betsey, and Izzy and Nanny, and Pedro Xifra. John didn’t ask Pedro to bring anything, because his parents don’t have much money and aren’t likely to. Mr. Xifra’s a tenant farmer, and he stays on Creighton’s farm and works long hard hours, with little time for his family. Pedro helps out as much as he can when he gets home from school and weekends. We knew he’d worked extra hard to be ready when we came for him.

  First we stopped off for Dave and Betsey. Dave had a big wooden bowl with tomatoes and celery and Betsey a tea towel wrapped around lettuce and a big jar of dressing to pour over it. Luckily, at the last minute Mother’d remembered we’d need something to eat our food with, and off, so we had a stack of paper plates and cups and forks as well as our hot dish of beans. I think Mr. Ulrich still feels kind of bad about John, because just as we were about to leave he came up from his lumber yard in Clovenford and handed us a big box of cookies. Then we went to get the Jenkinses. Mr. Jenkins put a big case of soda in the back of our station wagon, and Izzy and Nanny had ice cream packed in dry ice.

  Then we went to get Pedro. He’s in the middle of a whole lot of kids. Their house is across the road from the barns, and needs painting, and l
ast summer their stoop started to fall off, and it would have fallen off if Pedro hadn’t fixed it.

  He was waiting for us by the mailbox. He had a brown paper bag with him and he said he’d made egg-salad sandwiches. John said, “Oh, great, Pedro.” The eggs must have come from Pedro’s own chickens.

  Mother drove the station wagon, which was by now pretty jammed, up the dirt road to the top of Hawk, and we all tumbled out, carrying the picnic stuff. Mother waved and honked and took off, and John and Izzy got the picnic all organized, and we ate and talked and laughed and the evening was warm, but not hot, with a breeze cool enough so that we put on our sweaters or jackets.

  When we’d cleaned everything up and put all the trash in the big trash can, John said, “You’ve probably all guessed what we’re here for.”

  “It looks like a meeting of the anti-muffin club,” Pedro said.

  “How’d you guess? And I wanted a meeting because I’m proposing a new member.”

  He was smiling, and I looked over at Maggy and she was sitting looking a little pink and flustered.

  Pedro said, “If it’s Maggy, I’m all for it,” and smiled at her.

  Nanny said, “It must be Maggy, because all the rest of us are members.”

  John said to Pedro, “We had a whopperoozo of a fight in the churchyard, and Maggy pitched in to help me, and didn’t give a hoot what anybody thought.”

  Pedro wasn’t around at the fight, because his family goes to St. Francis Church in Clovenford.

  Izzy asked, “Does she know about muffins? Do you, Maggy?”

  Maggy said, “I like them when Aunt Victoria makes them for breakfast,” and everybody laughed, even Rob. One thing Rob’s learned is that he couldn’t belong, being so much younger than the rest of us, if he made any noise or disturbance, and he was so thrilled at being included in something that had so many big kids in it, that he sat quiet as a little mouse at all the meetings, with an expression so solemn it was funny. The main reason we let Rob be in the club was that it was a family thing, and then it got expanded, and if ever anybody was perfect anti-muffin material, it’s Rob. Added to which, he really kind of started the club.