The Old Meadow

by George Selden

  Dubber, who was still scootched in the beans, hardly dared to breathe. He’d rather have died than interrupt his master’s bliss.

  The song wasn’t finished, but “Trouble!” Chester Cricket said. “Ashley said we had troubles. He only meant the human worries. Us animals are just as bad. Look—”

  Across Pasture Land a tight hard knot made of blue-and-white wings, like a spiteful small cloud in the air, was flying furiously toward the cabin of Abner Budd—and toward Ashley Mockingbird.

  FOUR

  J. J. Jay

  “Oh, I wish he’d waited till the song was over!” Simon’s shell creaked as he shook his head.

  “When did J.J. wait for anything?” hissed Walter Water Snake, and he sounded for once as if he was angry and dangerous.

  “Okay!” J.J. landed, an iron grip on an iron wing. “We’re going to have this out! Right now!”

  “What’s that, Mr. Jay?” Ashley broke off his song and moved away respectfully. “Have what out? There’s lots of room—”

  “Who owns this weather vane!” squawked J.J. “It’s been my perch for months!”

  “Then welcome to it! But that ol’ man down there—I just thought that he wanted a change—watch out!”

  Ashley pushed J.J. to one side, just in time for the blue jay to dodge an unripe tomato. “He’s woke up.”

  “Don’t you shove me—!”

  “But that tamater—”

  “And don’t apologize!”

  “Well, I would,” said the baffled mockingbird. “If I had somethin’ to apologize for. Here comes another—!”

  “He’ll never hit me!” squawked J.J., and ducked. “This time of day I thought he’d stay asleep. No matter. In sunset, an old man’s eyes are no good. He’s missed me with junk from his garden before. Aw-haw! That stupid vegetable garden!” The blue jay preened himself—smoothed out his feathers—as if proving a bird’s superiority. After all, what were vegetables compared to the speed hidden in a blue jay’s wings.

  “Oh, gee,” whispered Dubber to Chester, “I hope Mr. Budd doesn’t throw them all. The tomatoes were coming so good this year.”

  “He won’t,” said Chester. “He’ll start to feel how full they are. Then start on the corn, most likely. The ears are still only half grown, and green.”

  “Is nothing safe?”

  “Shh! Ashley and J.J. are talking.”

  The animals, of course, could understand bird talk. To Mr. Budd it just sounded like two feathered souls, on his weather vane, who were having a vigorous conversation.

  “You drove me off my perch!”

  “I didn’t! That man—”

  “He’s a dopey old man! I’d point into the wind all day myself, if he’d just let me sit here.”

  “I think that’s right fine—”

  “Just wait’ll you get bean-balled by a squash.”

  “Seems we’ve moved on to another course. Never did like squash. Tomatoes, now—but J.J., seriously—I didn’t want—”

  “And how do you know my name?”

  “Mah new friends down there—”

  “Oh, them!” J.J. shot a contemptuous look at the animals looking up at him. On purpose he rasped his ugliest laugh. “They just common field folk!”

  Down below, in the hedge, Chester Cricket was wondering just whom the blue jay was ridiculing, with his raucous squawk: the field folk, Ashley Mockingbird—or was he, somehow, grating angrily on himself? Everybody and himself too? Most likely.

  “They seem right nice to me,” said Ashley. Unconsciously, he kept his voice monotonous. Somewhere in his head a thought said: Ashley, it’s your voice is the problem. “I’m sorry about that squash, Mr. Jay. I woudn’t like it a bit myself. An’ if this is your perch—”

  “Don’t fly away!” J.J. tried to demand. Beneath the order, the mockingbird heard a hidden plea. A mockingbird’s ears are delicate. Or else how could they sing back the world? “You stay right there!”

  “Watch out now! Somethin’ orange approachin’!”

  A badly aimed carrot flew by.

  “I told you! The old fool’s sight is going,” scoffed J.J. “His mind, too. He might have hit you.”

  “Birds’ eyes go, too,” said Ashley. “When we get of an age. I even knew an owl—”

  “I’m not interested in your broken-down friends!” said J.J. “I’ve been sitting up here, on this perch, for months. And I serve a purpose, too! Why I—I’m downright useful! Apart from helping this iron thing point into the wind—and sometimes it needs help, too, it’s rusty—I often make sounds.” J.J. couldn’t quite bring himself to say “squawk.” “When danger approaches. Like a thunderstorm. We had one last week. I—shouted and shouted. Did anyone care? Did any field creep appreciate me! Not a one. Not even that dope Donald Dragonfly! And he could be knocked cold by one hardy raindrop.”

  “Seems to me you do perform a—”

  “And you! You just sing!”

  “That’s all I do,” Ashley had to admit. “Watch out!”

  J.J. ducked—needlessly. The splattering he and Ashley got was as weak as rain, and not even a thunderstorm. A silly green shower of lima beans fell all around them on the roof. “It’s getting twilight. He can’t stay awake in the dark.”

  J.J. was right. Because after that handful of lima beans Mr. Budd decided on one more squash: he’d had so much success before. But this one was big and heavy—and fell far short of the weather vane. Throwing great big vegetables in the ripe afternoon was one thing, but twilight, lovely as it was, seemed to bring on an old man’s arthritis. Mr. Budd was lame, and tired, too. He sat on his stool, and dozed again.

  Trees, too, get tired—flowers, grass. The leaves begin to show it first. They start to droop. The Old Meadow seemed to exhale a breath as the golden light over Avon Mountain was slowly overcome by a dark blue radiance, and then a purple that deepened into the star-struck night.

  The animals in the Old Meadow never saw the sun set on the horizon. Avon Mountain, a shape of shadow in the west, always hid it. Chester Cricket often spent time by himself in wondering what kind of life lived on Avon Mountain, and how the sunset looked from there.

  Mr. Budd began to snore.

  “J.J.,” whispered Ashley, “would y’all mind if I sang Mr. Budd a lullaby? It works real good for the youngest kids of a couple I know in West Virginia. Hank Junior had the measles once—forgot to get his shots—an’ this tune just sent him right off to sleep, even when he was at his sickliest.”

  “Oh, go ahead!” said J.J., sulking. “A stupid song for a stupid old man.”

  Ashley Mockingbird began. He tried not to make his melody sad, since he’d learned of Mr. Budd’s troubles, but not silly and cheery either, like a shower of unripe notes. The song did its job. Sunk deep in his sleep, Mr. Budd grumbled something down into his beard. Somewhere, in his fear, he knew he might fall off his stool—tumble into the yard. That warning roused him, though his eyes were still closed, and like a blind man he went into the cabin. And there, on his mattress, he did fall asleep.

  “All right! The old geezer’s—”

  “Shh!” Ashley tried to warn. “The first few minutes are very important. They set the dreams.”

  “That’s just superstition!”

  “Maybe so—but it works.”

  J.J. sulked and fidgeted, while Ashley slowly unrolled his song. It was a melody that said farewell to the day that was done. In his cabin, and deep inside his soul, Mr. Budd heard and sighed. It was one more day that he’d been alone, but hadn’t minded. The Old Meadow—its life—had been enough. In his heart, without knowing it, Mr. Budd was keeping count of those days.

  “Okay!” J. J. Bluejay burst out. “Mr. Mockingbird—now what’s so special about you? That everyone makes such a fuss?”

  “Nothin’,” Ashley said.

  “Then why does Mr. Budd—and those varmints down there—think you’re such a prize?”

  “Can’t imagine.” Ashley shifted to a firmer perch. He dreaded
something he felt was coming, and thought that he’d better hold on. “I don’t have near the beauty of your feathers, J.J. Those blues and whites—and the wonder spread of those wide fine wings.”

  “You have that voice!”

  There it was, out loud. Now Ashley understood completely. He looked down, through the deepening evening, to where his friends were listening, watching, waiting—and fearing—on the bank.

  “All critters got their gifts—”

  “Yes, but you have that voice!” J.J. sounded angry. It made Ashley afraid, as if J.J. bore him a personal grudge.

  “An’ you have your voice, too. A voice which is right for you, J.J.”

  “I don’t like this,” Chester Cricket whispered to Simon, down on the bank. “It’s awful not to like yourself! J.J. is furious! Something bad’s going to happen.”

  “Let’s have a contest.” J.J. stamped hard on the iron wing of the bird that was harder, much harder, than he. It hurt his foot, but he wouldn’t admit it. “I’ll beat you! And with my voice.”

  “If you say so, J.J.” Ashley felt a shiver where his feathers fitted into his body—always a bird’s most sensitive place. He wished he’d never left West Virginia. Too late, though, he knew. J.J.’s feathers were all fluffed up by his rage, and every one was bristling.

  “I’ve got to do mah worst,” the mockingbird reminded himself.

  “What’s that—!”

  “Nothin’, J.J. Proceed. If you must.”

  Chester Cricket had hopped, in a nervous fit, right into the middle of the vegetable patch. He settled beside Dubber Dog, who was equally worried. Walter Water Snake, after a soothing dip in the brook—he always took one before going topside—had slithered after him. And even Simon Turtle had crawled up as far as he could. He barely got as far as the beans.

  “I really don’t like this,” said Chester—to Dubber, Walter, the night; he was talking to himself. “J.J. is furious.” His antennae jittered. “It’s awful not to like yourself,” he murmured again.

  “Let’s go!” squawked the blue jay. “And I’ll go first.”

  “He’s had such a pitiful life,” chirped a voice from the dark. “Oh, J.J.—”

  Oh, J.J.…

  After Mr. Budd, J. J. Bluejay was the problem person in the whole Old Meadow.

  His real name was Jonah Jeremiah Bluejay. That was problem enough. He hated his name, as he hated a lot of everything. His father, George Jay, had been killed by a boy with a BB gun who thought it was fun to shoot at birds. To do the boy credit—his name was Bill Furnivall—he cried a lot when he realized that he’d hit George in the head, where birds can be hurt most easily. As he saw the blue jay drop from the branch he’d been sitting on, he suddenly knew what he’d done and threw his BB gun into the brook. It lies there still, rusted and ugly, and the fish avoid it. So does Walter, and so does Mr. Budd.

  Alma Bluejay, Jonah Jeremiah’s mother, became a recluse, and wouldn’t leave the nest. But J.J. left. And after finding his perch in a beech, the first thing he did, to begin a new life, was change his name. Jonah and Jeremiah sounded awful—like two black grackles. So the young blue jay just picked his initials—J.J. J. J. Bluejay—now there was a name! It sounded like an important person. And he’d whack any bird with his wing who nicknamed him Joe or Jerry or Jer-Jer or anything but J.J. The sparrows insisted on calling him Jerry. They were sociable and silly, and well-meaning too, for all their nonstop chattering. But J.J. whacked the sparrows as well. He was one of the biggest birds in the meadow, and a wingwhack from him could knock a sparrow into tomorrow.

  So J. J. Jay it was. The blue jay repeated his name to himself: it sounded—well, like a bird of plumage.

  There was nothing, however, that could make J.J. a bird of voice. Blue jays are born with a squawk! That’s simply the sound blue jays make. They make another noise, too—a kind of “Doodly-oo,” up-and-down sound—but J.J. had never mastered those notes. It may have been that his daddy, George, was never there to teach him, but J.J. was trapped in his squawk. And he hated it. Despite his blue-and-white wings, as lovely as anything in the Old Meadow, and despite the grace with which he alighted on any bough—J. J. Bluejay was mad at himself. That ugly squawk: he could never forgive himself for it.

  But also he never could stop attempting to sound as beautiful as his plumage. He’d go way off and find some corner of the Old Meadow that only the insects and wildflowers remembered, and there he’d practice, day after day, all alone with the trees and the wind and the bugs. He was sure that he was improving. And, indeed, he did learn to squawk somewhat softer.

  “I’m first!” J.J. demanded again.

  “I’m willin’,” said Ashley Mockingbird.

  J.J. fluffed his wings, which still glimmered in the lingering twilight, as if his feathers might help his voice. Then, since he’d decided to begin with a fanfare, he let out a shriek that almost left Chester Cricket cross-eyed.

  “Oh, boy,” whispered Chester, who was leaning on a stringbean to recover, “this contest is going to be something special.”

  “I’m going underwater,” said Walt.

  “I’m going into my shell,” said Simon.

  “Oh no, you’re not!” the cricket squeaked. He couldn’t roar, but he did his best. “You’re both going to stay right where you are. We’ve all got to see this through together. My antennae are telling me that there’s more at stake here than a couple of birds on a weather vane.”

  “What’s at stake?” Walter wanted to know.

  But Chester didn’t have a chance to answer.

  “Mah turn?” asked Ashley politely.

  “Yes!” J.J.’s voice was challenging, hard.

  Ashley worked his mouth a bit, to get moisture into his throat. Then, when he was ready, he aimed for the high note that J.J. had tried to hit, and struck it dead center. The tone swelled over Mr. Budd’s cabin, just like the light of the filling moon that was rising in the south.

  Ashley Mockingbird seemed to like that note. He held it—and held it—then dipped to a note just below it and sang them together, one after the other, very fast.

  “That’s a trill,” sighed Chester. He leaned on the stringbean now in bliss. “The most beautiful I’ve ever heard.”

  “Okay! okay!” On the weather vane, J.J. admitted that he had lost that round.

  “Y’all may have had somethin’ in your throat—”

  “Just listen to this!”

  J.J. croaked a melody—every note of which would have put out a star. They were just appearing.

  “How’s that?”

  “Mighty fine,” lied Ashley. “But how about if you an’ me did it like this? Just a little bit less crackly maybe—”

  Ashley sang the blue jay’s melody. And the stars came out again. It was as if a soothing hand had passed over the face of the whole Old Meadow.

  J.J. suddenly thought of Alma, his mother, and how one time—there’d been thunder and lightning—she’d lifted her wing to shield him from the rain.

  “You’re not playing fair!”

  “I sure am! I’m just singin’ what you do—”

  “You’re mocking me!” squawked J.J.

  “If I was mockin’ you—” Ashley Mockingbird had a peaceful and a loving soul, but he, too, could become infuriated. And most of all when he—of all birds—was accused of being cruel. “J.J., if I was mockin’ you, like what mah name suggests, I’d let go this!”

  In a peal of sound that amazed the fortunate few who heard it, Ashley summoned up all the birdcalls and the animal noises he’d been gathering in his throat from the time that he’d lived in the Old Meadow, and he wove them out in a tapestry of music. In his song there were the conversations of sparrows, the peeps of finches. There was even the snarl of a nasty cat who’d tried to catch John Robin. There was Robert Rabbit’s gulp of joy as he downed a carrot. And also Chester’s chirp was there, though he never dreamed that he’d be remembered. All the meadow noises were in one throat—but made musical and be
autiful.

  And lastly, in this collected music, there was Jonah Jeremiah Bluejay himself. Ashley Mockingbird imitated J.J. He made a squawk—high, funny, and ridiculous. Then, even more mischievous, he turned the squawk into something wonderfully lovely, as if to remind the blue jay of what he had always longed for but never could achieve. But even as he made the sounds that derided his fellow bird, who sat beside him on an iron perch, Ashley knew that he’d made a great mistake.

  Chester knew it too, below, in the dark. “I wish Ashley hadn’t squawked like that. J.J. has no sense of humor.”

  Ashley wasn’t afraid, but J.J. showed fear. His head jerked away, and his eyes sought the night. His small heart had been devastated—more by the beauty of Ashley’s song than by the mockery.

  “J.J., I apologize. It’s not like me to do that. I hope.”

  With one rush of his wings, the blue jay rose from the weather-vane wing. He hovered in the moonlight, loomed dark and strange and threatening.

  “One of us has got to get up on that roof!” urged Chester Cricket breathlessly. “To stop them.”

  “I doubt if I—” began Simon Turtle, about to explain why he personally might have a hard time.

  “Someone hurry!” interrupted Chester. “It’ll be too—”

  Already it was too late.

  J.J.’s wings—he began to beat them furiously—created a downdraft that almost knocked Ashley off his perch. The mockingbird clung for his very life to that iron wing. In the hollers of his home he had never met a single soul—not even the rattlesnake, when disturbed—as enraged as J. J. Bluejay. But echoing, like a bad off-key tune in the back of his mind, was the fact that he’d never been so unkind himself.

  “I said I was sorry—”

  “You said! You said—!” J.J. idled in the air. His claws were extended. They looked like talons, as he toyed with this bird, whose pale feathers shone in the pale moonlight. “I heard what you said. And sang—you creep!”

  Abruptly the blue jay made a dive and yanked out a feather from Ashley’s head. It seemed to excite him, and satisfy his anger. J.J. began to squawk. But he wasn’t just making his natural blue-jay sound now. It was an ugly cry of triumph.