The Old Meadow

by George Selden

  “The Hawk! Wow!” said Chester. “Someone has to tell Ashley—”

  “I will,” said J.J. “He’s got to take a break between songs.”

  “That’s the trouble,” said Chester. He looked up at Bill Squirrel’s maple. “He’s got to sing all day. Find a quiet song—and then whisper to him about the Hawk. And the time. He’ll understand. Great birds always recognize one another.”

  * * *

  “So far, so good.”

  It was almost noon, and J. J. Bluejay had flown back to the log. He’d been following Ashley all morning, since he got back from the wild part, mostly to keep him informed of the progress of the plan, but also to give him encouragement and keep him company. Once Ashley had darted down himself, to take a drink and have a gargle, but he hadn’t said a single word. Everyone knew he was saving his voice.

  “Where is he now?” asked Chester.

  “Up toward the reservoir. He stopped fifty cars this morning, on Mountain Road, and decided he’d better move on.”

  “That’s what we decided last night,” said Chester. “That he’d move around. It’s safer for Ashley, too.”

  “I hope those cars get gridlocked!” Walt snapped his tail like a whip.

  “What’s a gridlock?!” asked J.J.

  “Ask Chester. He’s lived in New York.”

  “It’s when cars get all packed together so tight that not one of them can move. The human beings all swear and shout, and honk their horns—”

  “—and serves them right!” said Walt.

  “One funny thing did happen, though,” J.J. laughed. “On the way to the reservoir Ashley perched on Mr. Budd’s weather vane. Not for long! Don’t look so concerned now, cricket. He knows what we’re saving that for. But he sang a while—and ‘ol’ Malvina heard him. She made her boys carry her favorite armchair all the way out to the edge of the brook. And it is big! But there she sits, even though the mockingbird has moved on. She hears him faintly—and that’s enough.”

  J.J. reverted to an “awk! squawk!” laugh. “And she said, ‘I’m so glad that you two didn’t catch him!’ ‘But Grandma,’ says Alvin, ‘it was your idea!’ ‘Hush, child,’ Malvina says grandly, ‘and listen to beauty. But before you do—go get my footstool.’”

  The animals took a long laugh at that; it broke the tension of the day.

  “And then,” J.J. went on, since he was as nervous as all the rest, “she made one of her sons get a saucer of real corn kernels! Not corn candy.”

  “Did Ashley eat some?” asked Chester.

  “No. I thought they might give him strength, but he just shook his head and said, ‘Don’t sing well on a full belly, J.J.’”

  “That Ashley—” Walt shook his head, in awe. “He’s a wonder—”

  “Hush! Listen! There he goes,” said the blue jay.

  In the distance, a far-off song seemed to float to the north. “He’s heading for the wild part.”

  “Not too near, I hope!” said Chester. “That’s where Dubber and Mr. Budd are hidden.”

  “Oh, no,” said J.J. “But he told me he needs to sing on every side. He has to turn this Old Meadow into a magnet made of music. So the humans will all be drawn to it everywhere. The Hawk’s hidden somewhere up there, too—”

  “The Hawk—! Already?”

  “I think so. He heard the singing way up in the sky, and came down to hear it clearer. I saw a shape, falling,” said J.J. “But I’m not sure. Don’t worry, though, Chester. Tonight he’ll do what He promised He would.”

  “I hope!” said Chester.

  No one spoke. In the silence, their ears could get sharp. They all followed the mockingbird’s traveling song.

  All day he’d been singing, from tree to tree, never lingering long in one place. But what all the field folk didn’t know—he was singing of them. Some suspected—like Chester—even though they weren’t sure. His first joyous greeting, from Bill Squirrel’s maple, had been for the summer day itself. But after that carefree serenade, the mockingbird had to think of things. Sometimes Ashley made up a melody just for melody’s sake, but most often a mockingbird thinks of things. Not necessarily all the things that his voice imitates: sometimes he need only think of—a tree, say, or a daisy, or rapids where a stream runs on under the sun. He needn’t be seeing or hearing them now, just only imagining them. Faced with all those hours that he knew he had to fill with music, Ashley summoned up thoughts of the world he knew and the worlds he’d only dreamed about.

  But since there he was in the midst of the Old Meadow, he decided to start with the friends he had there. In a rippling little ditty Henry and Emily Chipmunk were discussing whether to bite their lawn—that’s how they mowed it—or polish the white stones that formed their front walk. A fanfare, which Ashley announced around ten o’clock in the morning, lead into a solemn parade: Bea Pheasant, followed by her mate, was strutting past Tuffet Towers, her home. And at high noon, as a special present that he knew would not be received, when the sun was dazzling everyone, Ashley sang a song about the light on Donald’s wings and the colors they cast on Simon’s Pool. Of course Donald didn’t understand, although he did hear. He was too busy rousing fireflies—they do get tired in August—and telling them they had one more job to do.

  Donald Dragonfly didn’t understand that this song was for him, and neither did the human beings who heard it. But they all knew, the people who screeched to a halt on the roads surrounding the meadow, that something strange—a few called it “unnerving”—was happening in this quaint little space, grass, flowers, trees, that had been declared “A monument” amid concrete and brick.

  On the local radio station, a diligent announcer kept commenting on Ashley: at nine in the morning, the early news, he was “an unusual event”—by noon he was “something very special”—and by three in the afternoon “a miraculous phenomenon!” Word spread among the human beings almost as fast as among the insects that Donald Dragonfly kept stirring up.

  By four o’clock, cars started to block one another. The drivers first honked, and then got out to shout at anyone who was handy. The gridlock built, all during the evening.

  It wasn’t evening that Ashley feared. Or Chester Cricket, on his log. His antennae twitched at the sounds all around—brakes, doors slamming, voices arguing—but they were the daytime human noises. It was the night Chester Cricket dreaded—and Ashley, too, as he sang. This night. When the Meadow saved Mr. Budd—or all the field folk failed together.

  * * *

  Then the August darkness finally was there. The human beings, clustered around the Old Meadow, were full of wonder at Ashley’s song. And the animals, clustered within green boundaries, were full of fear—could Ashley’s song work? The full moon rose in the southeast sky, silvering the green willow trees. It was neither worried nor wondering. For itself the full moon was only fulfilled, like a wish come true.

  The human beings were watching the moon, too. But few of them suspected what Chester Cricket could hear: that as the moon rode higher and higher, the mockingbird was working its light artfully into his song. Still, some people had the cloudy thought, somewhere in their minds, that the light of a full moon and a mockingbird’s singing might both be part of one single day.

  Ashley had circled the meadow five times, in the course of the hours, perching here, perching there, but always careful to avoid the same trees. Now, however, he decided that this was the time to return to Bill Squirrel’s maple. The largest crowd of human beings was gathered there, and Ashley knew that, for better or worse, the final moments of this day were approaching.

  First he needed a drink. From a willow tree beside the bridge he flew to Simon’s Pool. In the darkness, his fluttering arrival surprised everyone.

  “Time’s gett’n’ near.”

  “Ashley Mockingbird,” began Chester Cricket, “you are a wonder!”

  “Yup. The ol’ throat’s holdin’ up. So far.”

  “You get better and better! How do you do it?”

&nbs
p; “When the voice is workin’, I think it’s better not to question it.” Ashley took his drink. Then looked up at the sky. “Sure is a lovely night. Just so balmy an’ beautiful. Reminds me of West Virginia—”

  “I wish it was absolutely black!” said Chester. “That’s what we need. Complete darkness.”

  “May get your wish,” said the mockingbird. “Look yonder—in the west. Those big clouds still are gatherin’.” He took a second drink and sloshed it around in his throat. “Has somebody fetched Mr. Budd and Dubber?”

  “I got them as soon as the night settled in,” said J.J.

  “The whole day’s a bust, if Abner’s not here.”

  “They’re back in the cabin,” the blue jay explained. “Keeping very quiet! Mr. Budd doesn’t know what’s happening—but he sure knows that something is!”

  Ashley glanced up and searched the night sky. “If that Hawk now just sticks to his word—”

  “Look! There He is!” whispered Walt.

  A black shape hovered against the moon—then slowly edged out of the shining white face. Chester knew that the Hawk was circling, for stars disappeared, momentarily, as he blotted them out in his flight.

  “I’d like to meet him,” murmured Ashley. “A wonderful flyer. He lives so high.”

  “No one knows the Hawk,” said Chester. “Not even the ones who have talked to Him.”

  “Well—back to work! Here I go—”

  “Good luck!” Chester shouted.

  “Good luck to all of us!” added Walter Water Snake.

  Ashley flew to the maple. His song this time was all about Simon’s Pool—and Simon and Walter and Chester Cricket. He’d been saving them up, all day, for one of his most important melodies. And all the while he kept an eye cocked toward the west, where rising black clouds were canceling stars.

  Simon’s rhythm, in the song, was sort of plodding, slow but sure. Walter has a slithery tune. It was beautiful, but teasing, too. Chester got four chirps—and Ashley imitated him exactly—but they formed a music that pierced the hearts of the human beings, the animals too, whoever heard it.

  Those clouds reached the moon. The sky was now black.

  “Oh, now!” Chester Cricket said to himself. “If ever—now!”

  The Hawk couldn’t have heard him. Perhaps he felt Chester’s urgent wish. For high up in the sky a scream was heard—a terrible shriek, which felt like a threat to everyone. Down it plunged, that sound, until animals and human beings blocked their ears. The August sky was filled with terror.

  “He did it!” said Chester, to himself.

  Ashley broke off his song in mid-melody.

  And the Old Meadow vanished.

  The scream that fell down from the sky and the silence of the mockingbird were the signal for the world to end.

  It was utterly dark, and when Ashley stopped singing, the jubilant sounds of summer died. The happy, confused din of insects and the rustling of the animals failed. There was little wind, but it, too, seemed to fall still. Or did Chester only imagine this? The brook, too—there was no silencing it—but a living stream hushed its rapids and eddies. And the cricket didn’t imagine that.

  No human being dared to speak, and no animal would. In the cars lined up on Mountain Road, where men and women had been chatting, happy—some kids had been crying, because they were tired—all around the Old Meadow the human beings seemed frozen with fear.

  For this was the dreadful and endless dark that filled the enormous emptiness—which was all there was—before the heavens and earth appeared.

  Ashley stiffened himself for several minutes, in Bill Squirrel’s maple. He wanted the human beings to know what this silence and this darkness felt like. Then soundlessly he flew down to Mr. Budd’s cabin. He’d memorized the way. Flew in through the open door, and perched on Abner’s only table. Abner always kept a candle there. Ashley made the softest chirp he could.

  The man and his dog had been outside, amazed and marveling—like everyone else. But Mr. Budd knew that voice. “Is it you, my friend?”

  “Chirp!”

  Mr. Budd went inside. “Do you want a little light! Is that it?”

  “Chirp.”

  “Well, all right, then. But for me—I’m not scared of the dark. At least not tonight.”

  “Chirp.”

  Mr. Budd found his matches and lit the candle.

  Those human beings who were in a position to see the cabin first saw a single bright spark shine out. Then a steady thread of light appeared. The fate of the meadow—not only the meadow—the future of the whole world seemed to hang from this filament of light that shone through the cracked glassine window of an old man’s ramshackle cabin.

  Ashley stayed by the candle a while and let the light shine on his feathers. Then he flew through the door and up to his proper perch: Mr. Budd’s weather vane.

  He waited there, for a couple of seconds. So much, he knew, depended on him. He took the deepest breath of his life—and sang a scale. In a voice that no mockingbird had ever had to use before, both beautiful and powerful, his sound raced from high to low. Then reversed. Up. Up! His voice went from low to high. Then he sang about Mr. Budd, and his years in the meadow, his loneliness and his happiness there—his age and his youth. And not one soul understood that song—not even Mr. Budd.

  “Now! Now!” whispered Chester to Donald.

  The dragonfly flew off.

  “Me, too,” said J.J. “And they’d better be awake!” He, too, flew away.

  Fireflies, like children with sparklers on the Fourth of July, came alive beside the brook. When the woodchuck saw life was possible, he began to belly-laugh. Robert Rabbit beat his left foot on a tree trunk. And underground, Paul Mole sang the song of the earth.

  Chester Cricket sang, too—all the songs, both animal and human, that he could remember.

  Some insects simply banged their antennae together, and hoped that the sound would be heard. Most thrilling of all—in the dead of this night, all the birds of the meadow began to sing.

  Far above, the clouds lifted from the moon, like a veil lifting off of a human face. And the Hawk, who had one sweet note in his voice, as well as a scream, sang it over and over, as he circled around. Perhaps he, too, had been taking singing lessons.

  The human beings breathed again. And the world was remade.

  * * *

  There was gridlock in Hedley that night. But as the cars and the human beings extricated themselves, not one person dared to honk a horn.

  TWELVE

  Avon Mountain

  “There he comes again!”

  Walter Water Snake was a very different snake than the one who’d grumbled at Dubber’s arrival a short few weeks before. He also knew he’d be greeting a very different dog.

  “Hi, Walt!” Dubber Dog lumbered up and settled himself on the bank. There was a single tuffet there that made a great backrest. “Hi, Chester! Hi, everybody! Can I join y’all?”

  “Tchoor!”

  Everybody—a squirrel, a robin, a rabbit, one turtle, one cricket—said, “Hi!”

  “Am I part of everybody?” asked Donald Dragonfly hopefully, in his crackly, uncertain voice.

  “You sure are! You dashing dragonfly!” Walt was feeling expansive. Not expansive in his neck, as in his cobra impersonation at the Hedley Police Station, but his heart was expanded with happiness.

  “Me? Dashing?” Donald rasped his laugh, which sounded as if someone using sandpaper had just come down with the hiccups. “K! k! k!”

  “How is the Grand Old Man of the meadow?” Walt asked Dubber.

  “The Grand Old Man—” Now Dubber laughed. And his laughter sounded like someone’s stomach who’d had too much to eat. “The Grand Old Man is as mad as a hornet!”

  “I once—” began Donald.

  “When wasn’t he?” interrupted Simon, whose memory was as long as Abner’s.

  “The old gaffer! They’re letting him stay. He ought to be grateful!”

  “Don’t you
call him that, Walter! He’s not an ‘old gaffer’!”

  “I meant it in the very best way.” Walter apologized grandly, by bowing in the brook.

  To prove that all he had said was true, he whipped himself up and became a dog collar—once more—around Dubber Dog’s neck. Since the trip from the dog pound, poor Dubber had never known when to expect this playful and loving behavior from Walt.

  “Am I chokin’ you?”

  “Yes!”

  “Har! har!” Walter loosened his grip and dropped down on the meadow grass. It felt almost as cool and smooth as the waters in Simon’s Pool. “So the Grand Old Gaffer’s as mad as a hornet.”

  “I once knew a hornet who niver got mad!” mused Donald Dragonfly, all by himself in his thoughts somewhere. “His name was James.” He thought about this peaceable hornet for as long as he could remember to think—at least a minute. “I wonder where James is now.” Then the yellow of a passing butterfly’s wing set him thinking about the sun. And that was Donald’s favorite topic for thought.

  “What’s he mad at?” asked Walt.

  “The Town Council’s not only letting him stay. They’re putting in plumbing and electricity!”

  “Oh!” moaned Walter Water Snake. “Can things get any worse?” Then he started to laugh, and slipped over the bank and into the water.

  “They almost wanted to put in gas!” said Dubber. “For a brand-new stove. But Abner—in my heart I call him ‘Abner’ now—said he’d burn down his house if they did. So it’s going to be an electric stove.”

  “We didn’t know things had gone that far,” said Chester.

  “They went that far the day after Dark Night. The Town Council met—whoever does run it—and while whoever was making up everybody’s minds, the Irvins roared in, Malvina at the head of them. Of course they’d been out on Dark Night and all of them realized how much Mr. Budd meant to everything, and Malvina demanded that he be protected—as if Abner was a mountain or valley. Anyway—‘Something natural!’ she screamed. ‘He cannot be replaced!’ One son suggested he be ‘an endangered species,’ but nobody cared for that. If one lonely old man was an endangered species—then everyone is. They decided to spruce up the cabin—mostly, I think, just to get Malvina out of the room.” Dubber sighed. “And, given Malvina—I think I’d agree to anything, too.”