“Yes sir.”
For the first time John-Boy realized how bright and clean the house was. There were fresh cut flowers on every table, and all the old family pictures he’d brought down from the attic were now dusted and polished and hanging on the walls. With sudden alarm he also realized that this was Saturday, the day of the reunion—and the day he was supposed to deliver the battery to Cousin Homer. But Cousin Homer appeared to be perfectly at ease, and the ladies were now consulting their guest list, apparently resuming their excited speculations from before his arrival.
“I just can’t imagine where we’re goin’ to put all these people if they’re expectin’ to stay overnight,” Miss Mamie said. “But then I remember Third Cousin Efram always seemed to enjoy sleepin’ in his car. He’s such a hardy soul.”
“Yes,” Miss Emily agreed, “and I do hope Cousin Cora comes. Remember how sweet she was to come and stay when Papa died?”
Cousin Homer smiled wistfully. “Ah, yes, dear Cousin Cora. Such charmin' feet. A lovely lady.”
“Oh, Cousin Cora’s sure to come. Washington, D.C., isn’t all that far away. Cousin Tyrone is the one I’m dyin’ to see.”
Miss Emily gave her a surprised look. “I thought Cousin Tyrone was the one they had to . . . confine.”
“Oh, he’s perfectly harmless, Emily. It was those nosy neighbors who were so suspicious because he built that chariot and drove it around the place.”
“I would have loved to have ridden in a chariot! Wouldn’t you, John-Boy?”
John-Boy smiled. “Yes’m.”
“Well, don’t you two give up hope,” Miss Mamie said. “Perhaps Cousin Tyrone will drive his chariot over from Buckin’ham County.”
Miss Emily sighed happily. “Oh, it’s goin’ to be such a grand party. I declare, I just can’t hardly wait for the first ones to start arrivin’.”
John-Boy glanced at the big grandfather clock, but its hands were still frozen at twelve minutes after two. He guessed it was a little past noon by now. He cleared his throat and moved forward on the chair. “Is there anythin’ you ladies will be wantin’ me for? If not, I expect I ought to be gettin’ home.”
“Oh dear, now I just don’t know,” Miss Mamie said, looking around. “I do think just about everythen’s been done. But we’d certainly love to have you at the reunion, John-Boy.”
Cousin Homer seemed to come quickly alert. “Ah, now, Miss Mamie, I do think everythin’ is about as nearly perfect as it could be. Your charmin’ abode could be no more refreshin’ and spotlessly hospitable than its present condition, and I can imagine no more gracious hostesses than you two lovely ladies. However, there is one small item, one very last touch of elegance, that I fear we have neglected.”
“Neglected? Is somethin’ wrong, Cousin Homer?”
“Wrong? Ah, ladies, to suggest somethin’ is amiss is an audacity far beyond consideration. It is a small thing, perhaps, but it comes to mind only with fond reflections upon the memory of your dear, departed father.”
“On Papa? I declare, Cousin Homer, I just can’t fathom what you’re talkin’ about.”
“Branch water, Miss Emily.”
“Branch water?”
“Branch water!” Miss Mamie exclaimed. “Why Cousin Homer is perfectly right, sister. Papa always took his Recipe with branch. And a good many of the Baldwins still do!”
“That’s right! I do recall now! How clever of you to have remembered, Cousin Homer.”
“To have forgotten would be the gravest expression of ingratitude, dear Emily. And as I recall, it was a very special branch water, taken from a very special place.”
“Yes. Don’t you remember, Mamie? It was about a mile up the stream, wasn’t it?”
“My!” Miss Mamie sighed. “Do you suppose it’s still there? Papa’s old cup still hangin’ from that dogwood tree?”
“We could certainly look. Cousin Homer and John-Boy could go up the stream. I’m sure they can find it.”
“What pleasure it would give me,” Cousin Homer said, “to find the very cup with which Judge Morley Baldwin so lovin’ly dipped the sparklin’ nectar from that bubblin’ brook. Alas, however, it is a pleasure I must forsake until a more propitious time. My leg, I’m afraid, prohibits contemplatin’ what, under other circumstances, would be a most delightful outin’.”
“Your leg? Have you injured yourself, Cousin Homer?”
“I’ll bet you did it while you were pushin’ the car,” Miss Emily said. “Cousin Homer thought he could get our car started if he could push it out to the road. But the old thing was just too heavy for him.”
Cousin Homer lifted a protesting hand. “A matter of minor consequence, my dear. A small sprain. But I am certain John-Boy will have no difficulty locatin’ the place in question.”
They all smiled at John-Boy. “Of course not,” Miss Emily said. “You wouldn’t mind doin’ that, would you, John-Boy?”
“I’m afraid I’ve never been up that stream before, Miss Emily.”
“Oh, you won’t have any problem. It’s a lovely little place in a grove of spruce trees. And you just can’t miss that charmin’ little dogwood at the bend in the stream. The cup is hangin’ right out over the water.”
Miss Mamie was already on her feet heading for the kitchen. “I’ll get you a container, John-Boy.”
“It’s goin’ to be so lovely havin’ branch water,” Miss Emily said. “Cousin Homer, I think that’s just the cleverest thing! I declare, it’s goin’ to make our party just like old times again!”
The container John-Boy carried into the woods was a ten-gallon cask with a wooden bung. He also had instructions from Miss Mamie to rinse it out thoroughly before filling it. The directions for finding the particular spot they had in mind were a little vague. Miss Mamie thought it was about a half mile upstream; Miss Emily thought it was closer to a mile, and Cousin Homer was sure it was much more than that. John-Boy suspected there wasn’t a whole lot of difference between the water downstream, and that running under the dogwood tree with the hanging cup. But it seemed to mean a lot to the Baldwin sisters.
What puzzled him was Cousin Homer. When John-Boy left the house Homer limped along a few yards to get him started in the right direction, and John-Boy told him he would drive into Ike Godsey’s and get the new battery as soon as he got back with the water.
“Don’t worry about it, John-Boy.” Cousin Homer smiled. “Plenty of time to take care of that. And with all the relatives comin’ this afternoon, I don’t expect I’ll have a chance to get away anyhow.” Then he clapped John-Boy on the back and grinned after him until he was out of sight.
Cousin Homer’s enthusiasm for the reunion party didn’t make any sense. At least it didn’t go along with the way Sheriff Bridges had it figured out. If Homer didn’t get the Recipe out of the Baldwin house before all those relatives came there wasn’t likely to be any left for him to sell. And people would probably be arriving within four or five hours.
It was possible, John-Boy guessed, that Cousin Homer had given up the whole idea. Maybe the kindness and love of the Baldwin sisters had inspired him to walk a narrower path from now on. It was not likely, but such things sometimes happened.
John-Boy walked for twenty minutes before he found the hanging cup. There were times when the spruce groves were so thick he had to make long detours around them to follow the stream, and other times he had to tramp through boggy meadows. Then he was suddenly there, at a heavily shaded bend where the dark water made soft sucking sounds as it flowed under the moss-covered bank. John-Boy was surprised; the water did look different. And the old blue-enameled cup was hanging from a piece of twisted wire, dangling only a few inches above the water’s surface.
The water was amazingly cool and refreshing. John-Boy took a long drink and stretched out on the shady grass for a few minutes before he filled the cask. It was a beautiful spot. He wished Jenny had been able to come along with him. But he would have plenty of time to bring her up here. As soon as her
stepmother was fully recovered they would have the rest of spring and all summer to explore the brooks and streams for miles around. John-Boy smiled and closed his eyes for a minute. Thank you, Lord, he thought, for bringing Jenny back. And take care of Dave Pendleton. You’ll like him very much.
John-Boy didn’t notice it at first. Lugging the ten-gallon cask down the stream was a harder job than he had anticipated, and when he got to the house his arms and shoulders were aching, and his only thought was to get the thing inside and catch his breath. But there was something odd about the Baldwin house—something not in its right place. And then he stopped, staring.
The truck was gone. He had parked it under the big tree over the garage—he was certain of that. But now there was no sign of it; no vehicles of any kind in sight. John-Boy’s heart pounded wildly as he headed for the back door.
“Oh, there you are, John-Boy.” Miss Mamie smiled in the kitchen. “Did you find the branch water?”
“Yes’m, I did. But Miss Mamie, my daddy’s truck is gone.”
The news had no visible effect on Miss Mamie. “Yes, Cousin Homer just borrowed it for a little while. Let’s put the water here on the sink, John-Boy. That’ll be fine.”
John-Boy put the cask down and felt in his pocket. “But I still have the keys, Miss Mamie. How—?”
“Yes. Cousin Homer said it wouldn’t hurt the truck any. He just did somethin’ with those little wires, and it started just fine. Cousin Homer is awfully clever.”
“But, Miss Mamie—”
“Now don’t you worry about a thing, John-Boy. Cousin Homer will only be gone for a little while. And he’s goin’ to replenish any gas he uses.”
“Did he say where he was goin’?”
Miss Mamie brightened. “Oh, you know how thoughtful Cousin Homer is. He decided to check the train station over in town to see if any of the Baldwins have shown up yet.”
In town? That meant Charlottesville, and it probably meant Daisy Burgess’s beauty shop. “Miss Mamie, you know all those jars of Recipe you been makin’?”
“Yes. We’ve got almost three hundred of them, John-Boy. I declare, I think those shelves are just about to burst with all those jars.”
“Miss Mamie, I think we ought to take a look at those shelves.”
“Oh, I’m sure they won’t really break. Papa built them himself, and I expect they’ll just last forever.”
“Can we look at them, Miss Mamie?”
Miss Mamie gave him an indulgent smile and headed for the Recipe room. “I declare, John-Boy, you’re just the most conscientious young man. Just like your father and your granddaddy. It’s just a pleasure to—”
Miss Mamie stopped abruptly in the center of the Recipe room, her smile suddenly turning to dismay. “Oh, my!” she breathed. “Oh, dear me! Emily!” she cried.
John-Boy was fairly certain the shelves would be empty, but still his heart sank. The jars were gone and Cousin Homer was gone, and Sheriff Bridges was probably nowhere to be found.
John-Boy had never used a telephone before. Ike Godsey showed him how to crank the handle, and then the voice of Fanny Tatum came mysteriously through the black piece John-Boy held at his ear.
“Hullo?” he said as Ike had instructed him.
“Hello? That you, John-Boy? John-Boy Walton? You got a telephone out at your place now?”
“No, Miss Fanny, I’m talkin’ from Ike Godsey’s.”
“Well, you say ‘Hey’ to Ike for me. How’s your mama, John-Boy?”
John-Boy wasn’t sure if all this was required for him to get a message to Sheriff Bridges. Altogether it was a strange sensation to be talking into a perforated black hole and be hearing Fanny Tatum’s voice at his ear. He looked apprehensively at the mechanism and glanced over at Bee. “Miss Fanny says to tell you ‘Hey,’ Ike. And Mama’s just fine, Miss Fanny.”
“Tell Fanny I appreciate it,” Ike said.
“Ike says he appreciates it, Miss Fanny.”
“Well, he’s sure welcome, John-Boy. Wasn’t that a nice funeral this mornin’? I declare I don’t think I ever saw so many pretty flowers.”
“Yes’m. Miss Fanny, is there some kind of way I can use this thing to talk to Sheriff Bridges?”
“You sure can, John-Boy, if he’s home. You just hold on a minute.”
Ep Bridges answered sleepily, but came wide awake when John-Boy told him what happened at the Baldwins’.
“Three hundred jars? And he took it all in your daddy’s truck?”
“Yes sir, and I’d say that was about an hour and a half ago, so I reckon he’s already been to Charlottesville by now.”
“Lordy me,” Ep groaned. “Well, you better get off the phone, John-Boy, so I can make some calls. That scalawag’s likely roarin’ through Carolina by now.”
“You want me to call Daisy Burgess’s beauty shop?” Fanny Tatum broke in.
“No,” Ep said, “I wanta talk to the state police in Richmond.”
“But Ep, if you call Daisy’s you can find out if Cousin Homer’s been there yet.”
“Damn it, Fanny, will you just take care of the telephones and let me handle the police work?”
“Well it seems to me that . . .”
John-Boy took the receiver from his ear and looked questioningly at Ike.
“Just put it in that little hook, John-Boy. Then you give the crank a turn or two to let Fanny know you’re done.”
John-Boy did what Ike told him, then looked at the silent mechanism. Sheriff Bridges’s house was more than a mile away—it just didn’t seem possible that he had been talking directly to him.
“What’s your daddy gonna say ’bout his truck turnin’ up missin’?” Ike asked.
In his concern to report to the Sheriff, John-Boy hadn’t thought much about that. But his father sure wasn’t going to be happy about it. “I don’t know. But I expect I’ll find out soon enough.” He dug some money from his pocket. “Here’s four more dollars for the washin’ machine, Ike.”
Ike smiled and took the money.
“That makes ten dollars total,” John-Boy said.
Ike gave him a quick glance and scratched his chin for a minute. “Yes,” he said hesitantly, “I guess that’s about right.”
“That’s exactly right, Ike. Ten more dollars and it’s paid for.”
Ike still appeared uncertain. “Well, don’t you worry none about it, John-Boy,” he said and made out a receipt. “And I’ll hang a Sold sign on it so’s nobody else can have it.”
“But I only owe ten dollars more. That’s right, ain’t it, Ike?”
“Like I said, John-Boy, don’t worry about it. The price of the washer was twenty dollars, and you got receipts sayin’ you paid ten. That’s clear enough.”
John-Boy looked at the receipt and glanced uneasily at Ike. It seemed clear enough all right, but he had the feeling Ike was up to something. But Ike wouldn’t try to cheat him, would he? Or would he?
The bell tinkled on the door and Ike turned away with a broad smile. “Afternoon, Miz Merrill.”
“And then when I got back,” John-Boy said to his father, “the truck was gone, and Miss Mamie said he’d gone over to town to pick up people for the reunion. And all the Recipe jars were gone. I guess he did somethin’ with the ignition wires to make it run, because I was careful to take the key, Daddy.” John-Boy handed over the key to prove he had taken the proper precautions.
John Walton was surprised by the announcement, but he had a hard time holding back a smile when he pictured Cousin Homer Lee bouncing down the road with close to three hundred jars of Recipe in the back of that old truck. He and Grandpa were sawing wood when John-Boy came trudging up the road with his tail between his legs. John glanced at Grandpa, who was smiling openly.
“You say he took all the Recipe?”
“Every last drop. And Daddy, they got a hundred and twenty-seven people comin’ to the house this afternoon.”
That was even funnier. Picturing a hundred and twenty-seven Baldwins in
one place, and not a drop of Recipe—that was like a whole herd of thirsty cattle finding their water hole dry. The roar and moaning of Baldwins was likely to be heard through the whole valley before sundown.
John-Boy saw his father glance at Grandpa, and then the two of them suddenly burst out laughing. His father stopped after a minute, but then couldn’t control himself and started all over again.
“There’s not a drop of Recipe in the whole place?” he asked incredulously when he caught his breath.
“No sir.”
Grandpa guffawed again, and sat down on a log, slapping his knee. “Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see that!” he choked. “A hundred and twenty-seven of ’em!” and laughed harder yet.
John-Boy stared from one to the other, wondering for a minute if they understood about the truck being stolen.
“John-Boy,” his father finally said, “that’s about the funniest thing I’ve heard in years. I expect that’s goin’ to be the most memorable reunion in the history of Walton’s Mountain.”
“But Daddy, how are you gonna get along without your truck? What’re you gonna do?”
John thought a minute and smiled. “What I’m gonna do, son, is just keep right on cuttin’ wood. That ol’ truck is such a broken-down eyesore, Cousin Homer’ll be picked up in no time at all. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he don’t bring it back himself and hand it over in disgust.”
John-Boy doubted that. But his father’s words relieved him some.
“You goin’ to stay here and help us?” Grandpa asked.
There were a half-dozen heavy logs waiting to be rough cut, and Grandpa looked like he’d welcome a rest. “I’d sure like to, Grandpa. But I promised the ladies I’d come back and help with the reunion.”
His father laughed again. “They’re sure enough goin’ to need all the help they can get when all them Baldwins show up with their tongues hangin’ out. You might be smart to take along my rifle, John-Boy.”
Grandpa grinned, and the laughter started again as John-Boy headed for the house.
John-Boy decided not to mention the disappearance of the truck to his mother. She would not take such a casual attitude as his father, nor was she likely to let him return to the Baldwins’. But John-Boy had no need to worry. His mother was involved in other, more distracting problems.
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