Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet

by Henry Homeyer

  “Why it’s my old friend, C. Clement Longsworth. Good to see you again, Clem,” said the president. “And this must be Wobar . . . and Roxie. I’ve heard a lot about you both. please do come in.” They all went into the Oval Office. “I’ve invited the press to send a few of their people. after all, this is a very special day.”

  As soon as the television crews were ready, the president asked Wobar to tell about the magic pipe. Wobar explained about the Indian who had tried to bring the silver pipe to General George Washington, and what the pipe could do, and how it had been stolen. He sort of skipped over the part about Simon, since lots of people don’t believe in ghosts. He unwrapped the pipe, taking it out of the towel he had used to protect it while traveling, and presented it to the president.

  “Wobar,” said the president, “on behalf of the people and government of the United States of America, I would like to thank you. I will try to use this pipe to help to spread peace throughout the world. I hope that we can stop the wars in progress and help all people to get along. As a token of my appreciation, I would like to present you with this presidential medal of Honor.” He got up and pinned a gold medal on Wobar. “And,” he said, “for the first time in the history of America, I have a medal of Honor for an animal, Roxie. She helped you find the pipe, so she deserves a medal, too.”

  Fortunately, the president had thought to have the medal put on a long loop of ribbon since he couldn’t pin it on Roxie. He slipped it over her head.

  Roxie didn’t smile, even though she wanted to. She knew her teeth were ferocious looking when she smiled, and the security people still looked nervous.

  “Congratulations and my thanks to you both,” said the president. After they posed for pictures with the president, Roxie and Wobar left. They had finally done it. Their job was done. Now they could return to Woodstown. Wobar knew his parents would see them on the six o’clock news. He hoped that all would be forgiven.

  CHAPTER 38

  Paying Off Debts

  THAT NIGHT, WOBAR, Roxie, and Mr. Longsworth had dinner in the fine dining room of the Longsworth Hotel. As a special treat for Roxie, Mr. Longsworth had arranged to have roast rabbit for her. He and Wobar had huge steaks. Several people came up to Wobar to thank him for what he had done. A few even asked for autographs. No one teased him about his mustache. everybody had seen them on TV or on the front page of the newspaper. Wobar and Roxie were famous.

  “Well, Wobar,” said Mr. Longsworth, “you’ve done a wonderful thing. Tomorrow, my jet will fly you back to Woodstown. I’ll come along because I want to meet your parents. How do you feel?”

  “Gee, it feels great. I’m really looking forward to seeing my family. I just have a few little things worrying me.”

  “Tell me what’s on your mind, Wobar, and perhaps I can help.”

  “Well, first, I hope that my teacher and the principal of my school aren’t still mad at me. I’ve really worried about being sent off to reform school,” said Wobar.

  “You don’t have to worry about that, “said Mr. Longsworth. “I called the principal of your school just after the six o’clock news. He said he was proud to have you as a student in his school. And Mrs. Murphy said she’d help you make up the work you missed while you were away.”

  “Wow, that’s terrific!” said Wobar. He took another bite of the big banana split in front of him. “Um . . . another thing has to do with Roxie. I know she needs to live in the woods up on Grantham Mountain, but I hope my parents will let her come in the house and visit from time to time. maybe sleep on my bed once in a while. We’ve gotten to be real good friends.” Roxie gazed at Mr. Longsworth very seriously.

  “Naturally, I wondered about that, too,” said Mr. Longsworth. “I had to call them to let them know what time you’d be arriving tomorrow. I took the liberty of discussing that with them.”

  “What did they say?” Wobar asked. Roxie let out a series of chuffs. Mr. Longsworth couldn’t understand Roxie, but he got the idea. They were both really anxious to know the answer.

  “Well, quite frankly, they didn’t think it was a very good idea. Roxie belongs in the wild, they said. And you have a cat and a dog. They were worried that Roxie might attack them. Or vice versa. She is a wild animal, you know.”

  Wobar groaned. Roxie’s eyes looked very sad.

  “But I told them how well behaved Roxie is and reminded them that Roxie saved my life and won the Presidential Medal of Honor. Finally, they agreed to let her visit any time she wants.”

  “Yahoo!” shouted Wobar. Roxie clapped her front paws the way she’d seen people do. Her paws didn’t make any noise, but Mr. Longsworth understood.

  “Is there anything else worrying you, Wobar? Since you saved my life, I’d be glad to do anything I could to help you.” Wobar looked at Roxie. “Well, it’s not for me, really, it’s for Roxie. She heard that one of her children is in a zoo in the next state. Do you suppose you might be able to arrange to have him brought back to Grantham Mountain and set free?” Roxie was all ears, waiting.

  “I should be able to arrange that. In exchange for a generous donation to their zoo, I suppose they would be willing to let him go. Roxie is known all over the country now, and that should help.”

  Roxie turned to Wobar and said, “That’s wonderful. Please tell Mr. Longsworth how much I appreciate that. I’ve been worrying about my son ever since I saw those lions in the Central park Zoo. and thank you for thinking of him, Wobar.” Wobar translated what Roxie said for Mr. Longsworth.

  “Is there anything else, Wobar? Don’t hesitate to ask.”

  “Well, Mr. Longsworth, there is one last thing,” admitted Wobar. “I owe some people money. It’s going to take years to pay it all back, even if I get a paper route and save all my allowance, too. But that’s okay, I should pay them back myself.”

  “I would be delighted to help you pay them,” said Mr. Longsworth. “After all, I promised you a reward for saving me. I would like to consider you like one of my grandchildren and help you any way I can. Who do you owe?”

  Wobar got out his notebook. “Well, I owe the veterinarian for saving Roxie. Then there were some groceries I took from Spencer’s Family Market. I kept a list so I could pay them back. And there’s the boat in St. Louis that I borrowed. I should pay for the repairs of the bullet holes.” Wobar paused to think. “Then there’s Acme Air Freight and Gulf Airways. We tricked them into flying us to New Orleans. I need to pay them back.”

  “Why those few things won’t add up to much. The reward I planned to give you will easily cover that with plenty left over,” said Mr. Longsworth.

  “Really? Wow, that’s neat! Then I can send a present to Madame Gazonga for helping me. And next summer when Oscar the hobo comes to visit his sister, I can give him something nice, too.”

  Wobar and Roxie were very happy. They were also very tired after their long day, so they thanked Mr. Longsworth and headed off to bed. Tomorrow they would be home.

  CHAPTER 39

  Going Home

  THE NEXT MORNING, Wobar ate a big breakfast of waffles with real maple syrup, and Roxie wolfed down a heaping plate of sausages. Then Mr. Longsworth came by, and they all got into a limousine and went to the airport. His jet plane was ready for them, and minutes later they were airborne, heading home.

  When they were nearing the airport close to Woodstown, Wobar saw Grantham Mountain. He pointed it out to Roxie and Mr. Longsworth, who asked the pilot to fly close by it. Roxie got very excited.

  “Look, Wobar,” she said. That’s my old cave. And my favorite hunting ground for rabbits. Say, we never did eat any rabbit ice cream, did we?”

  Wobar laughed. It would be good to be back. Roxie would soon be able to go hunting again, and he would be with his family. And Roxie could come to visit. Mr. Longsworth had already helped them solve so many problems.

  Wobar’s parents and his brothers and sisters were all waiting for him at the airport. The mayor of Woodstown was there, and Mr. Benson, the principal
of the school. Wobar hugged everybody in his family and shook hands with the mayor and Mr. Benson. Roxie was wearing her medal and looked very proud. She sat up and put out a paw so people could shake with her, too. Somebody took pictures for the local newspaper, the Woodstown Valley News.

  Wobar, Roxie, and Mr. Longsworth rode into Woodstown with the mayor. He had an old convertible, and they rode with the top down, even though it was kind of cold.

  When they got to Woodstown, everybody in town lined the streets, waiting for them. Mr. Benson had let all the children out of school to greet Wobar. They were there, waving. The mayor drove slowly up Main Street. Roxie and Wobar waved to everybody, and the crowds cheered. Some people held up signs saying “Welcome Home Wobar” and “Thanks for Finding the Peace Pipe.” The mayor turned the car around, and they rode down Main Street again, waving. Wobar’s mustache tickled his nose as it blew in the wind.

  The mayor stopped the car in front of the Town Hall and made a speech. He thanked Wobar, Roxie, Mr. Longsworth, the president, and even some people Wobar had never heard of. He talked too long, but finally someone started singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” about Wobar, and the mayor stopped talking, and they all went home.

  Wobar’s mother invited Mr. Longsworth to stay for dinner and even spend the night.

  “Thanks very much, but my jet is waiting to take me back to Houston. You have a very brave son. Here is a check as his reward for saving my life. I will always consider Wobar one of my grandchildren.” Then he shook hands with everyone, thanked Wobar again, and left.

  After Wobar told his family all his adventures, he took Roxie upstairs to show her his room. “You know, Roxie,” he said, once they were alone, “there is still one thing left for us to do.”

  “What’s that, Wobar?”

  “We have to go back to the haunted house. I want to see if Simon the ghost has gone off to heaven now that we’ve found the magic pipe and given it to the president.”

  So after supper, Wobar and Roxie slipped away and headed for the haunted house. Although Wobar would have liked to see Simon one last time, he hoped that Simon had gone to heaven.

  When they arrived at the haunted house, Wobar took a deep breath. “Well, now we find out if Simon was right,” he said to Roxie. They went inside. “Hello? Anybody home?”

  They heard a familiar rattling of chains in the basement, then a crash. “Simon is that you? This is Wobar! We found the pipe! We gave it to the president!” The cellar door opened, and Simon appeared.

  “Simon, what happened? We thought you’d be gone! But you’re still a ghost.”

  Wobar was terribly disappointed. It was wonderful that the magic pipe would be used to stop wars. But what about Simon? Was he stuck as a ghost forever?

  “Welcome back, Wobar and Roxie,” said Simon. “Yes, I’m still a ghost. There is still one thing that has to be done.”

  “Oh no!” said Wobar. “I thought our adventures were over.” Wobar couldn’t believe it. They had gone all the way to New Orleans to find the pipe. They had been shot at, chased, and nearly buried alive. They had gotten the pipe and given it to the president. What else was there to do? Had he forgotten something Simon told him?

  “Don’t worry, Wobar,” said Simon. “The last thing is very easy. It’s for me to do. Here goes! Thank you very much, Wobar. Thank you, Roxie!” And then with a wink and a smile, Simon disappeared.

  Postscript

  A WEEK AFTER THE president received the magic calumet, dawn came quietly on a battlefield in a faraway land. An old man walked to the edge of a wide river and began to sing. His voice carried well in the still of the morning. The strong sun bathed all in its light. Across the river, one man laid down his rifle, then another. Then three put down their guns on the old man’s side of the river. The magic had begun.

  A note on illustrating (and reading) Wobar

  JOSHUA YUNGER

  READING IS A skill just like any other. Some are born to read, and others, like me, have a hard road to travel on the way to achieving this ever-important skill. As a learning disabled, dyslexic third-grader, I struggled with word comprehension and often gave up after the fifth time through a difficult paragraph. My best bet for a good printed story was a comic book. They served me well. The visuals would always pull me through.

  Word books, as I called them, were very intimidating indeed. That is until my stepdad, Henry, handed me his typed manuscript for his book Wobar. He wanted my thoughts as a young reader of the story he had told one summer while he was in college and finally written as a book. I was worried. But I started in. To my great surprise, I was reading as fast as I ever had! On top of that, I was getting every little detail. This was the first time a book had read me. The first time a book had dragged me through it as if it were pulling me by a rope tied to my brain. The way it was written, with its short, cliff-hanging chapters, was just what I needed to get me into that next skill level. I read it in one long night under the covers with a flashlight. It was magic for me.

  Some twenty-five years later, I have now illustrated Wobar. I did my first drawing of Wobar when I was ten, and I realize now that Henry and I have been working on it, off and on, the whole time. I love thinking of Henry’s faith in me as an artist even way back then, and he will always be the author who made me realize I could really read.

  Acknowledgments

  I LEARNED THE ART of storytelling from my grandfather, Henry Homeyer Sr. (1878–1953), who encouraged my sister, Ruth Anne, and me to sneak away to his basement den during nap time to listen to his wonderful original tales.

  My parents, Henry Jr. and Elfrieda Homeyer, helped me to develop a love for books, particularly those with a good story. They read aloud to me many of the classic tales, and when I became a good reader, introduced me to the wonderful books of Thornton W. Burgess and Walter R. Brooks. The Freddy the Pig books by Brooks made me want to believe that animals can talk and think as we do. Then Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn made me want to run away on a big adventure—which I did as an adult when I went to Africa. Wobar is a thank-you to them.

  The children of Saxtons River, Vermont, were my first guinea pigs, listening all gathered in that wonderful circle under a big maple tree as I told the tale of Wobar, episode by episode, during the summer of 1966, when I had the pleasure of running the town recreation program as a summer job. Some of those first Wobar fans were John and Bobby Hitchcock, Ruth Fry, Frannie Rogenski, Steve Saunders, Susie Frazer, Charlie Hancock, Ellie Choukas, Keith and Tom Lockerby, Michael, Debby, and Richard Sprague, Richie Rice, Debra Johnson, Grace Boyd, Carolyn Gibson, Debbie Fletcher, Billy Turner, Peter Higgins, Peggy Sue Gibson, Scott Carroll, Judy Griffin, Dayle Knight, Tim Hemingway, Paula Page, Vicki Atwood, and my coworker Tony Dambrava. My thanks to all the parents who heard Wobar secondhand, and encouraged me to write it as a book. My thanks to Barbara Skapa and John Gruwell in Dakar, Senegal, who took care of me while I labored over the book.

  Thanks to Kurn Hattin Homes for feeding and lodging Tony and me that summer and especially to Gwen Hitchcock who was our surrogate mother.

  By the time I got back to America in the summer of 1982, after ten years living abroad, I had a finished draft, and I shared it with other young readers, including Lisa and Becky Lasor Of Athens, Ohio, and my sister Ruth Anne’s daughter, Sarah Mitchell. But my most enthusiastic fan was my stepson, Josh Yunger, who has illustrated this book almost thirty years after he first read it.

  That same year, I knocked on the door of Caldecott Award–winning illustrator Trina Schart Hyman of Lyme, New Hampshire, to see if she would do the drawings. She offered me great encouragement and stayed up late to read the manuscript all in one night, but she said she couldn’t illustrate it. She wrote two of her publishers on my behalf, but Wobar’s time hadn’t yet come.

  After Wobar languished in a drawer for years, I picked it up again in the late 1990s. David Gee of Cornish, New Hampshire, was kind enough to scan it to a computer disc for me, page by page, to make revisions
and editing easier.

  Then Nardi Reeder Campion, my mentor and friend, convinced me that Wobar had to be published and helped me to edit and rewrite it. Without her enthusiasm, Wobar never would have made it to press.

  My thanks to Willa and Gavin McGough of Plainfield, New Hampshire, who read Wobar in its final version and suggested that I should give each chapter a title. My partner Cindy Heath offered advice and encouragement as Wobar neared completion.

  Finally, I must thank my publishers Carole and Ib Bellew who not only published Wobar but whose suggestions strengthened the book and whose keen eyes ensured consistency and accuracy throughout.