Miracles on Maple Hill (Harcourt Young Classics)

by Sorensen, Virginia

  The odd thing was that Mr. Chris said her adventure had probably saved the lives of every single calf! He should have known enough to fence that swamp off before this, he said, with an electric wire. Once he had a herd go in and eat those very flowers she was after. They were called cowslips sometimes, and sometimes marsh marigold. If cows ate too many, their stomachs swelled, and sometimes they died before the doctor could come to help.

  What wonderful names he knew for that flower! Some called them "capers" and some called them "meadow boots." And when he was a boy, his mother had called them "crazy bet."

  "I'm going to call them 'meadow boots,' " Marly said. "That's what they need where they grow."

  After the wire was up, she and Mother went back for a nice bouquet and some supper greens. The leaves made fine greens, Mr. Chris said, before the spinach was ready. The cows came thundering toward Marly and Mother just the way they had before, but way back they stopped like magic. It didn't take them long to learn where the electric fence was strung. They looked a little sad, she thought, not to be able to come close enough to see what she was doing.

  7. Foxes

  It was the very last Friday before the very last week of school. As they drove up the hill Mother always called "the great slippery" because of that first time they were stuck on it, Joe suddenly said something wonderful to Marly. "You know, there's the queerest place up this side of the sugarbush. Moss all over on great big bumps. I'll show it to you tomorrow, if you want."

  She held her breath. Had he explored and explored until now he had started to want to show somebody?

  "We called those bump-things hummocks," Mother said.

  "Some are ant-towns," Joe said. "The little ones." He smiled at Marly. "I'll show you tomorrow."

  She could tell he had something very special on his mind. "Shall I fix a lunch?" she asked. He liked it when she fixed a lunch if it didn't slow them up too much getting started. "I can get up real early and fix it."

  "That'll be swell," he said.

  So at last, she thought, the time had come. Now she could go anywhere and be as safe as could be. Even if there were cows, with Joe she wouldn't need to be one bit afraid. She was awake so early the next morning that the birds had hardly beat her to it. As she hurried with the sandwiches and cookies and fruit, she kept humming inside, like a cat.

  Joe was surprised to find her all ready when he came down—and how pleased! There she was, waiting on the back step with two neat sacks beside her, one for herself and one for him, only his exactly twice as big.

  Joe explained some things on the way up the road. Maple Mountain was strange, Mr. Chris said, because it had swamps and bogs right up in its highest places. The humpy-bumpy meadows on top were part of its queerness, too. Joe and Marly went from one hump to the other, opened some to watch ants, and looked at the queer moss and starry little plants on others. Joe had his magnifying glass, and they gazed into the strangest worlds, with funny little bugs tumbling around in the moss like animals in a jungle.

  They went on to a little valley, then, and followed a brook that made one huge curve after another, doubling itself over like a coiled rope.

  Joe said the curves were "meanders," and he showed her rocks in the streambed that were full of ancient shells. They'd been left there ages ago when the ocean was practically everywhere. There were scrapings on the big stones and perfectly round stones that Joe said were shaped by huge slides of ice that were in that very spot about a million years ago—or maybe a billion. Marly couldn't think what the difference might be with those numbers, only that one was lots bigger than the other.

  She felt proud of all Joe knew. Maybe Mr. Chris knew about flowers and birds and things, but Joe was the one who knew about bugs and the queer plants that grew on stumps and fallen trees. They had nice names, too. For instance, there were funny things like little plugged-up funnels, some gray called pixie-cups and some bright red called British soldiers. And there were odd little shelves that looked like they'd been made for fairies to sit on. Only Joe said they were just wood rot. On old logs there were tall black things called dead-man's-fingers. And one funny toadstool was bright yellow, called a jack-o'-lantern, that Joe said really gave light at night.

  "Joe, you know more things than Mr. Chris," Marly said.

  To her surprise he said, "Oh, no, I don't! Nobody knows more than Chris. Who do you think told me most of that stuff? We came out here last week, and Chris showed me some things I wanted to show you. In the fall around here there are mushrooms all over, if you know where to find 'em. One of Mr. Chris's hired men, before Fritz, used to gather quarts and quarts and sell 'em to an Italian in town and make a mint of money every fall."

  She hardly heard the last of it. "Joe," she said, "Mr. Chris didn't climb clear up this hill, did he? Why, if Chrissie heard about that—"

  Joe went red. He pretended not to hear what she was saying but leaned over and then knelt right down on the ground. "Look there, at that striped beetle. Blister beetle, that's who! When we get to a pool I found, I'll show you some diving beetles, too. You ever see a whirligig?"

  "Joe—did he?" she asked. "Because he shouldn't. Chrissie told me to look out for him and not let him climb even the littlest hill. And this one—" She looked behind them at the steep path.

  "You know, the other day I saw a huge bumblebee caught in a lady-slipper," Joe said. "Couldn't get out to save him. I could hear him a block off, roaring—"

  Marly interrupted. It wasn't because she wasn't interested in that bumblebee, but Joe had to know about taking care of Mr. Chris if he didn't know it already. "Joe, you and Chris were supposed to go into town that day in the car."

  He stood up suddenly and turned to her. "I guess you'll go right and tell!" he said. "Just like a girl, can't keep anything to herself! Sure we went to town. We talked with that man in the restaurant, see. He buys all his syrup from Mr. Chris and says it's the best syrup in the world. He buys all his apple juice from Mr. Chris, too. And he says he used to buy chestnuts—but that's been years and years. After, Mr. Chris and I came up here, and he showed me those old chestnut snags—see, along there? There used to be so many you could get a half bushel of chestnuts in an hour."

  "Joe, Mr. Chris didn't walk clear up here, did he?" Marly asked. "You shouldn't ever let him, Chrissie said. She told me we've got to help, because when he gets interested in showing people things, he just forgets."

  "Okay, okay. We walked real slow. And he told me how this country used to look. Lots more forest than now. Between diseases like the one that killed all the chestnuts, and then people timbering their land, he says almost all the virgin forest is gone now."

  Marly stood still. As if what Joe said had started the sound, she suddenly began to hear the whine of a saw. From Mr. Chris's place? "Joe, Mr. Chris isn't cutting down trees, is he? Just for money? He told me he never would."

  "Of course he's not." He looked disgusted that she should even ask. "But I want to watch them cutting that tree. It's an old maple," he said.

  As they walked, the whining of the saw grew louder and louder until it seemed to make huge circles of sound through the woods. They made a big circle and came finally to the sugarbush.

  Mr. Chris was there with Fritz and a strange man with an electric saw. The old tree at which the saw was working was dead except one great branch that stood green among the masses of brown boughs. It was over a yard thick and was giving the saw a very hard time of it.

  Mr. Chris waved to Marly and Joe as they came. When he talked, he had to shout over the ugly whining of the saw. "A grand old tree," he said. "A good sugar tree, for years and years. I've tapped it every season until this last one, for at least thirty years. We used to boil the sap right over there-had a long oven and one big pan. You can even see the old stones where the oven was."

  Joe and Marly stood watching. They didn't try to talk, and Mr. Chris didn't say any more, either, for a while. The saw's humming was almost a scream as it got near the center of the trunk. Mr. Ch
ris leaned close to Marly's ear. "When she falls, we'll count the rings and see just how old she is," he said.

  A red squirrel began scolding from another tree. Mr. Chris looked up and shook his fist, laughing. "It's all right, old fellow," he called. "We're leaving you your butternut tree. But this old maple is going to come home with us and keep us warm this winter."

  The squirrel sat looking at him, its paws folded in front as if it might be saying its prayers. Then the great maple began to crack and groan, and the squirrel turned and vanished into a hole. Fritz shouted, "Watch out! She's coming down!"

  Like a giant, the great tree fell. Its immense dead limbs struck the ground first and broke, crashing, and it sagged and roared and seemed to fight with the air. For a minute it lay trembling all over. Then it was still.

  Marly wanted to cry. But Joe laughed and yelled, "Hurrah! Boy, oh boy!" and before the tree had really settled down, he was into the branches. And then he was counting the rings. That tree had been growing for over a hundred years.

  It was dusk as they started for home. Now that the saw had ceased to whine, the silence seemed immense and wonderful. They could hear the rustling of the trees that still stood up straight into the air.

  Suddenly, just as they came to the hummocky place, Joe clutched Marly's arm. And then, without warning, he laid his hand hard across her mouth, whispering, "Sssssh!"

  It was lucky he saw it first or she might have yelled the way she did when she saw the deer. Joe whispered, "Look!"

  Up on one of those bumpy hummocks, just standing with its huge bushy tail straight out behind, was a red fox. It stood looking down the hill, one paw lifted like a puppy paying attention to everything. Then it leaped suddenly to another hummock and stood there, looking. The sun was down, and a weird light was over everything, so the fox seemed to have a shine all over.

  Marly and Joe didn't move. Neither did the fox. Finally, then, without a sound, looking like a colored shadow, the fox slipped from the hummock and was gone. It disappeared into the ravine, by the brook.

  "I'll bet she's got a den around here," Joe said. His voice was low, and when he walked, he walked easy in a certain way he knew, the way he had learned Indians walked. Marly couldn't hear him past ten yards. She wanted to call, "Don't go out of sight, Joe," because dark was starting and there was that strange light, rather eerie, as night fell over Maple Mountain. But she didn't call. She didn't make a sound.

  In a minute she was glad she hadn't. Joe came slipping back out of the shadows, beckoning.

  "Ssssh! And don't fall over anything!" he said.

  "Joe, what is it?"

  "Sssssh ..."

  At one place the hill went suddenly down, rocky and steep. At the top Joe took hold of her arm hard, and then he pointed with his other hand.

  In the dusk were five little foxes, playing together. They tumbled about like puppies. They chased each other. They made little growly sounds, pretending to fight. They were all red, except for their black pointed noses and their sharp black ears, and each one had a white tip on its long red tail.

  Joe and Marly watched until they couldn't see a thing but the white tips on the tails. Then these too vanished.

  Joe led Marly toward home, over the hummocks, holding her by the hand. She had never loved him so much in all her life. "Joe, if it hadn't been for you, I'd never have seen anything like that. Not ever," she said.

  "Why not? I see things all the time," he said. But she could tell he was pleased that she had said it.

  The Chrises and Fritz were at the house when they got back. As soon as Marly got into the door and saw them, she cried, "Guess what we saw, Joe and me, up by the high pasture. Some fox..." And then she said, suddenly, "Ouch!" because Joe had given her a good big pinch.

  He hadn't done it soon enough. She already had the word out of her mouth.

  Fritz leaned forward in his chair. "Foxes, huh? So that's where they are!" He turned to Mr. Chris. "I knew they were around close somewhere, didn't I, Chris? I can go in the morning. Maybe if I go before light, I can grab the whole bunch."

  Grab them? Marly felt her eyes go wide. "Fritz, you don't mean you want to catch those little foxes, do you?" she said. "Why, this one has five babies, the cutest little puppies—"

  She saw Joe's look. Oh, she never knew when to keep her mouth shut! That's what his look said to her, as plain as day.

  "Five little ones, huh? No wonder she's been busy," Mr. Chris said. "How many chickens does that take every day? Every day for a solid week that she-devil has been at my chickens. We put the flock in the coop last night, and she got in under the wall. Or her mate it was. If they aren't the cleverest—"

  "And that dog, Tony, doesn't even notice anymore," Chrissie said. "I tell Chris he's too old for a watchdog now. He sleeps like a stone."

  Marly's mouth felt dry. "What are you going to do?" she asked. She didn't dare even look at Joe.

  A little silence fell. Everybody suddenly remembered Marly and those mice.

  "Well," Mr. Chris said, and gave a queer little cough, "to tell you the truth, Marly, this country is overrun with foxes the past few years." He turned back to Fritz and Daddy as if he'd rather not talk to her about it anymore. "There's a good big bounty on them now, and if you want to fix the pelts up, you can get more." Then he looked straight at Joe. "You show Fritz the place in the morning, Joe. Maybe you can get a shot or so yourself."

  Was this Mr. Chris? Marly gazed at him.

  "Tell you what, we'll split the bounty, Joe, no matter who gets 'em," Fritz said. He was a good shot, Marly knew; she'd heard them tell about how many rabbits and pheasants and squirrels Fritz got in hunting season.

  "OK," Joe said.

  Marly turned to him in unbelief. After seeing those little foxes playing as the sun went down! "Joe, you wouldn't!" she said.

  "Those things eat mice, too," Mr. Chris said hastily. "Marly, they eat hundreds and hundreds of mice. If I just had livestock and grain or even orchards, I'd say the more foxes the better. But chickens—"

  Marly couldn't manage another word or stand to hear one. Everybody was agreeing, and she knew there wasn't any use. If even Joe—after what he had seen! Suddenly the words of the song Daddy sang sometimes came back to her. Not the song about the fox coming for the big black duck, heavens no! But the one about the cruel hunters in their red coats and the nice boy who felt sorry for the fox and refused to tell them which way it had gone. Had Joe forgotten?

  When the Chrises and Fritz went away, Fritz called back to Joe that he'd be calling by real early, maybe about five o'clock. Joe went right up to bed, then, without a word, and Marly felt herself go cold all over. She reached for Daddy's arm as he started for the stairs. "Daddy—about the foxes—"

  "Marly, please," Mother said. "There's no earthly use of your worrying about things like that. You've got to learn."

  "I was only going to ask Daddy to sing tonight," Marly said. "Those foxes made me think about the fox songs."

  Daddy and Mother looked at each other.

  "First the one about the fox stealing the goose," Marly said to get them off the track of what she meant to do. Then, she thought, if Daddy would sing the one about the hunters and the wonderful kind boy who wouldn't tell them where the fox went, Joe would understand what she was going to say when she went upstairs. He couldn't help but understand, after that song.

  "Well, all right. Just those two, then," Daddy said. "You know, Lee, I'm getting so I can do the hunting song pretty well again."

  And he really could. The first verse about the hunters coming and the horns blowing and the scarlet coats went really fast. Marly opened the door to the stairs so Joe would be sure to hear.

  "'Say there, youngster,' the huntsmen cry,

  'Say, have you seen the fox go by?

  Galloping, galloping, galloping, galloping,

  Galloping, galloping over the hill?' "

  Now, Marly thought, and opened the door a little wider. This was the verse for Joe to hear.

>   "But would I be telling them? No, not I!

  That I saw the fox go wearily by?

  Wearily panting, worn and spent,

  Would I be telling the way he went,

  Galloping ... galloping ... galloping..."

  Daddy was wonderful, the way he made the words sound slow and tired as if the poor fox was ready to drop. Then suddenly he shouted the last two words: "No! Not I!"

  It made Marly's hair wiggle every time she heard it, it was so wonderful. But especially tonight. She kissed Daddy good night more fervently than ever before and went upstairs, closing the door after her. But Joe's door was closed, and his light was out.

  So he didn't want to talk about it.

  But she did. She had to. She opened his door just a crack and whispered, "Joe..."

  No sound.

  "Joe," she said.

  Suddenly he spoke. He wasn't in bed at all. He was sitting in the dark by the window. "Just shut up for a while," he said in a low voice. "Can you? I've got to figure out what we can do. If I went over and threw rocks and tramped all over there where the den is ... See, if I could just scare them out of there before Fritz can get there..."

  "Oh, Joe, of course you can!" she said. And then, excitedly, "Tonight? Joe, way over to the hill tonight?"

  His voice sounded disgusted. "I can't very well wait until morning this time, can I? If Fritz ever heard of me doing a thing like that, he'd think I was crazy. Why, there are seven of'em right there. Four dollars' bounty apiece! That's a lot of money!" She felt his eyes through the dark. "If you just didn't have to tell everything you know! Sometimes I think it's better never to tell you anything—or show you anything."

  "Joe, I'm so sorry. Honest, I'll never, never tell anything again. Why, I just thought Mr. Chris and Chrissie and Fritz would love those little foxes." She looked beyond Joe, out of the window. It was deep-dark and scary, and she shivered. "Joe, it'll be horrible to go clear over there past all those bumpy places and everything in the dark."