by Jane Langton
In the round garden John finished the job of loosening the dirt in the track of the invading motorcycle, and began trampling the soil with his new sneakers. It was the second pair of new shoes he had been forced to buy this summer. His feet were getting huge.
“Oh,” exclaimed Virginia, “look what I found.” She stood up and showed him a robin’s egg. The egg had fallen apart in her hand, revealing an infinitesimal piece of folded paper. “A robin seems to have written me a letter.”
John glanced at the word Virginia on the scrap of paper. “A million robins with a million typewriters, they’d write all the works of Shakespeare sooner or later.”
“Oh, is that it?” said Virginia, leaning forward, kissing him gently.
“The kiss of peace?” murmured John.
“The kiss of war. Against weeds and poison ivy. Against cherries and peaches. Against all kinds of scary things.”
“Where do I enlist?” said John huskily.
“You already have.”
John grinned and went back to work, his head spinning. Virginia knelt down and stared at the next patch of weedy garden. It was a planting of shrub roses and globe thistle, humming with bees. A long claw of bramble had leaped up from below the grafted union of the rosebush, a turbulent wild species that would boil up over the stone wall and reach for the sky, given half a chance.
Virginia looked at it with reluctant admiration. It was like the girl from the church, nature red in tooth and claw.
Thirty-Six
“I’M SORRY, JOHN, DEAR,” SAID HIS AUNT MARY ON THE PHONE. “They’re your second cousins, and they haven’t seen you since you were a baby, and they’ll be starting back to California tomorrow afternoon in their camping van. I’m really sorry, dear, but I’m afraid it’s a command appearance.”
So John biked home to Barretts Mill Road and met his cousins, Bob and Dorothy, and their little kids, Ruthie and Hamilton, and they all had supper, and then Aunt Mary made Uncle Homer take a picture of everybody around the table and Uncle Homer’s flash didn’t work and he got mad, and then somehow or other Benny managed to push Hamilton off his high chair, and Hamilton bumped his head and cried, and at last John biked back to Lincoln at midnight.
He was tired, exhausted with his long day, but he couldn’t sleep. He lay on his mattress in the cool wind of his electric fan, his mind racing. He felt poised on some kind of pinnacle, in a state of nervous exaltation. He could think of a hundred ways to answer Virginia’s careless letter to the air. Small ways, miniature ways. John sat up in bed, staring in the dark at the dim jars where his spiders hung suspended in their silken lairs. He felt clever, excited. His fingers were nimble, ready to manufacture a dozen ephemeral pieces of correspondence. “A crush,” his mother would have said. John suspected that his Aunt Mary knew what was the matter with him, although she didn’t say anything. And Barbara — well, you couldn’t hide much from Barbara. Sometimes he would catch her glancing at him keenly, and then she would smile and look away. As for Virginia herself — oh, Virginia. John groaned and fell back in bed. That hadn’t meant anything, had it? That time when he had seen her in Buddy’s arms? She couldn’t really be serious about Buddy, could she? John could feel Virginia’s presence, two walls away, lying there in her own bed. Was she awake? What was she thinking? Did she hear the owl hoot? What kind of owl was it? Did owls eat spiders? Would his bam spider be safe?
Another part of John’s brain was taking over. From owls and spiders he went on to owls and chickens. Owls liked chickens. Oh, God, Mrs. Bewley’s chickens. The roof of Mrs. Bewley’s chicken yard had sprung loose, he had noticed it the last time he had passed her house. He would have to mend it, to keep her chickens safe from owls by night and hawks by day. Tomorrow, bright and early, he’d get over there and take care of it.
But next morning he was too late. Only three of Mrs. Bewley’s little bantam hens were stepping around the chicken yard. John opened the door of the henhouse and looked inside. It was empty. He stared in dismay at the surrounding woods. Then he walked up Mrs. Bewley’s back steps and knocked on her door to ask what had happened, to say he was sorry.
But in answer to his knock, Mrs. Bewley merely opened the door a crack, and cried, “SHOO, SHOO,” and then slammed it in his face. John stood there a moment in surprise, then went back to the henhouse. Scooping some chicken feed from the big bag in the corner, he poured it into the feeder. It was nice there in the henhouse. John lingered to watch the three hens duck through their little door and run to the feeder, their foolish ankle feathers dragging on the floor. He reminded himself to get some antilice powder. But on the whole the chickens looked healthy. Their plumage was sleek and fluffy. They were burbling contentedly like pigeons. John went outside and got to work on the roof of the chicken yard.
The job didn’t take long. When he was finished, he picked up his clippers and his spool of wire and started for home, walking quietly, trying to be inconspicuous, since Mrs. Bewley seemed to have taken a dislike to him.
But at the end of her driveway he was startled by a commotion at her front door. Buddy Whipple was catapulting down the broken steps. Mrs. Bewley was shaking her fist at him and waving her glasses on their long chain and swearing at the top of her lungs. Mrs. Bewley slammed her front door. A shingle dropped off the roof. The chickens in the chicken yard fluttered up against their chicken wire ceiling, squawking loudly.
Buddy picked himself up and grinned sheepishly at John. There were red scratches on his cheek. “What a nutty old girl,” he said. “She really put me through the wringer.”
“Wow,” said John. “What did she do? Scratch your face?”
“I don’t know what got into her,” said Buddy. “I was just making a neighborly call. You know, checking up on her.”
“She seems to have a grudge against me too,” said John. “It’s really strange. Say, listen, how are things in there? A lot better than they were before, right?”
Buddy reached down for a handful of grass and patted his bleeding cheek. “Mrs. Bewley’s house is in a very satisfactory condition,” he said. “It’s just fine.”
Thirty-Seven
THERE WERE SUMMER TOURISTS ON THE STREETS OF CONCORD. They were not a pushing crowd but sober visitors, politely interested in local history. Parked beside the information booth on Heywood Street their cars bore license plates from North Dakota, from Tennessee, from New York State. Fathers of families asked questions in regional accents, mothers consulted maps. They had spent a rainy morning in the neighboring town of Lexington, touring the Hancock-Clarke house and the Buckman Tavern, and they had crossed the wet grass of Lexington Green to gaze up from under their umbrellas at the glistening bronze statue of Captain Parker with his nicely buttoned gaiters and his musket. Then the sky had cleared, and now they were on their way to the North Bridge in Concord to admire the equal determination of the Concord Minuteman to abandon his plow and take up arms. Then they would walk patiently up the hill beyond the Concord River and sit in the dark to watch cartoon minutemen reenact the stirring events of April 19, 1775. Later they would visit the Old Manse and Orchard House while guides repeated again and yet again, “Nathaniel Hawthorne came here with his bride on his wedding day in 1842,” and “At this desk between the windows Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women.” At last the exhausted tourists would come back to the Milldam to buy ice-cream cones at Brigham’s and saunter among the old gravestones beside the parking lot.
On Main Street Amelia Farhang hurried importantly past a travel-worn family — mother, father, daughter, and small male child whining and sucking his thumb — and paused on the corner of Walden Street to examine critically the wooden barrel of petunias on the sidewalk.
Not bad, thought Amelia. A workmanlike job. Someone from the Concord Garden Club had assembled it, no doubt. Of course if anybody had asked Amelia Farhang to manufacture an arrangement for such a prominent place, something for the tourists to admire, something to symbolize Concord, Massachusetts, with all its distinguished h
istory and its place in the American heritage, she would have come up with something truly inspired. Amelia drifted along the sidewalk with half-closed eyes, imagining a patriotic creation in red, white, and blue, using the American flag as an accessory. When Buddy Whipple gave her a cheery wave from the driver’s seat of his car, she failed to see him. The sun was in her eyes. She was transported, inspired by a sudden fit of cosmic understanding. The sun itself was a blossom, a great dahlia in the sky, God’s own glorious flower arrangement, with the planets cunningly placed here and there as fascinating accessories. And the stars! What were they but celestial posies!
Buddy’s greeting had been perfunctory. Mrs. Farhang was merely a female fruitcake who happened to be the wife of Putnam Farhang, the president of the Paul Revere Insurance Company, a man with whom Buddy had important matters pending. Buddy’s business at the moment was with the post office. There was a parking place right in front of the building, behind a big camping van from California. Buddy nipped into the parking place, ran up the steps of the post office, bought his stamps and mailed his letters. Then he took a quick peek at his private box.
Was there anything in it yet? No, not yet. No interesting little package was blocking up the window. But wait — there was something in there after all. Opening the box with his key, Buddy took out a pink slip.
Package too large for box. Present slip at desk.
Shit! What was the point of having a private box if it didn’t stay private? He couldn’t ask for the box at the desk. Not in person! Not when he’d taken all that trouble to arrange for the box by mail under an assumed name.
Furious, Buddy strode out of the post office and ran down the steps. Then he stopped and looked curiously at the camping van parked at the curb in front of his car. The license plates of the van said California. Its windows were plastered with stickers from Yellowstone Park and the Grand Canyon and the Carlsbad Caverns. A small boy was sitting in the front seat, all by himself. The van obviously belonged to some California people who were making the grand tour of the whole goddamn country. Today they were here in Concord looking at the Old North Bridge and Walden Pond, but soon they’d be someplace else, a thousand miles away.
Buddy strolled across the sidewalk to the window of the van. “Hi there,” he said to the little boy. “Hey, how’d you like to make a quarter? Want to get a package for me in the post office? You just take this card up those steps to the counter, and they’ll give you the package, okay?”
The boy looked up from his book and stared at the pink card. Buddy was faintly surprised to see that his reading matter was a heavy college text entitled Introduction to Astronomy. Gazing brightly at Buddy, the boy said, “It won’t blow up or anything, will it?”
“Blow up? The package?” Buddy laughed hugely. “Oh, no. But it’s a secret, you see. It’s a birthday present for my brother, and he’s in there in the post office, and I don’t want him to know.”
The boy looked wisely at Buddy for a minute, and then he reached out for the card, slid down from the high front seat and trotted up the steps of the post office.
Five minutes later he was back, carrying a small square package, holding it to his ear. “Gee,” he said, “what’s in here? It says, Live Material, Rush!”
Buddy was ready for the question. “Worms,” he said. “My brother loves to fish. It’s a big supply of fishing worms.”
“Oh, I see,” said the boy. He shook the package beside his ear, as if he hoped to hear the worms tumbling over themselves with soft thudding sounds.
“Hey, don’t do that,” said Buddy. “You’ll get them all black and blue.”
Reluctantly the boy released the package and put out his hand for his quarter. Reaching in his pocket, Buddy pulled out a handful of change. A grubby scrap of paper fluttered out of his pocket at the same time. The boy plucked it deftly out of the air, handed it back to Buddy and took the quarter. Then he marched back to the van on his fragile legs and struggled back up onto the front seat.
Buddy looked at his package. Pleased with himself, he spun on his heel, intending to run around the corner to Vanderhoof’s hardware store and get some heavy working gloves, good thick ones with leather palms. He almost ran into Mary Kelly, as she came out of the ten-cent store with her husband Homer. Buddy gave them a loud, “Whoops, sorry!” and a grin and a wave, then bolted across the street, leaving behind him a floating piece of paper. As Mary and Homer ambled along the sidewalk, the slip of paper drifted unnoticed into a slender stream of water that was trickling slowly along the edge of the pavement below the curb. Carried along by the little rivulet of fresh rainwater and bits of sticks and fragments of last year’s crumbled leaves, the scrap of paper journeyed to the drain at the corner of Waluen Street and Hubbard, stuck for a moment in one of the clotted openings of the grillwork, then slipped through in the next miniature surge of dirty water.
Mary and Homer found Benny holding the fort in Uncle Bob’s big camping van all by himself.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Benny old boy,” said Homer, crowding his large bulk into the back seat.
“We just had to pick up some things for your Aunt Dorothy, you see, Benny,” said Mary, “so they can start home again this afternoon for California. Oh, there you are, Bob. Come on, Ruthie, you sit with us in back. Move over, Benny, so Hamilton can sit on his mother’s lap.”
“Oh, Benny, dear,” said Aunt Dorothy, “thank you for minding our stuff for us. You’re a real good scout.”
Benny was excited. “Hey, listen, Aunt Mary,” he said, as his Uncle Bob pulled the van out of the parking space and started around the block, “guess what?”
“What?” said Mary. “Here, Ruthie, just squeeze over a little bit. Uncle Homer’s squashed the picnic basket. Oh, Homer, for heaven’s sake.”
“Mr. Whipple gave me a quarter. He got some worms in the mail, and he gave me a quarter and I went in and picked up the worms. Right there in the post office!”
“Worms? That’s nice, dear,” said Mary vaguely, trying to rescue the picnic basket.
“Ouch,” said Homer. “There’s something sticking into me. What’s that, a paring knife? Listen, Bennie, that’s a crazy way to earn a quarter. Why didn’t Mr. Whipple pick up his worms himself? Was he squeamish or something?”
“Well, he said his brother was in there,” said Benny in his shrill piping voice, “and the worms were for his brother’s birthday, because his brother likes to fish, and he didn’t want his brother to know he was getting these worms for a present. So he asked me, see?”
“His brother?” said Mary. “What brother? Buddy Whipple doesn’t have a brother. Are you sure it was Mr. Whipple?”
“Oh, yes. He used to visit Pop and borrow stuff. And the package said Fragile, Live Material, Rush! on the outside, and it had eighty-one cents in stamps on it, and it was mailed on August fifteenth from the South Georgia Biological Supply Company in Brunswick, Georgia, with laboratories in Portland, Oregon. And he dropped his prescription.”
“His prescription?” said Aunt Dorothy. “Oh, Benny, I hope you gave it back?”
“Oh, sure. It was for epi-neph something. He must be sick, right, Uncle Homer?”
“God knows.” Homer shrank sullenly down in his corner of the back seat, disgusted by yet another exhibition of his little nephew’s photographic memory. Damned show-off little kid.
But Benny’s Uncle Bob was a pharmacist. “Epinephrin, probably,” he murmured, turning the van left onto Heywood Street. “Maybe he suffers from asthma.”
Homer sat up. “Hey, maybe he stole the prescription from Edward Heron, and that’s why Edward didn’t have his medicine that day. No, that won’t work.” Homer slumped down in the seat again. “Barbara swore she saw the stuff in her father’s pocket.”
“Buddy doesn’t have asthma, does he?” said Mary. “Barbara would know. I’ll ask Barbara. He couldn’t hide anything like that from Barbara.”
And then Benny began tormenting his two-year-old cousin Hamilton, who was sitt
ing pudgily beside him on his mother’s lap. “Maybe that box had a tarantula inside it,” he said, leaning close to Hamilton, breathing in his face. “And it got loose, and it’s going to crawl all over you with its eight big HAIRY LEGS.” Benny crooked his fingers wickedly and ran them up Hamilton’s stomach.
Hamilton howled and threw his fat arms around his mother.
“Oh, Hamilton, don’t be such a baby,” cried his mother.
“Now, Benny, stop being mean to Hamilton,” shouted Mary.
Thirty-Eight
IT WAS JOHN’S DAY OFF AGAIN. HE SPENT AN HOUR SWEEPING UP flies in his butterfly net and feeding them to his spiders. It was tricky getting a fly past the plastic film on the front of a web frame and safely into the reach of one of his Nuctenea sclopetarias. As often as not the fly got away, and John had to try again. It took a lot of stubborn perseverance.
The weather was still insufferably sticky and hot. The only thing to do about it was to forget it and keep busy. John picked up his tweezers and his little brush and his plastic pillboxes and went on a collecting expedition. He found a bowl-and-doily spider in a white pine tree, but they were a dime a dozen, and he left it there. In the raspberry patch he looked for the garden spider, and found her still poised in the middle of her giant web. He let her be. Then, crawling on his hands and knees under the sugar maple tree in front of the house, John found a wolf spider with an egg sac attached to her abdomen, and he scooped her up in one of his pillboxes. And then he ran down into the jungle at the bottom of the lawn and waded through catbrier and honeysuckle and blackberry into the old orchard, to see what he could turn up along the stone wall.
