Tucker's Countryside Read online

  “Don’t worry, Mousiekins,” said Harry. “I’ll protect you!” He sometimes called Tucker “Mousiekins” when he wanted to tease him.

  But Tucker was not amused. He trudged along behind, muttering, “Bears. I’ll bet they have bears anyway.”

  And at last they reached Grand Central Station. Down they went, through the same series of pipes and deserted corridors and drafty back rooms that Tucker and Harry had passed last September. But then Chester Cricket had been clinging tightly to the fur on Harry’s back. The Late Local Express was still leaving from track 18. This time of night there were very few passengers, so the animals had no trouble slipping into a shady corner in one of the compartments between the cars. And they didn’t have long to wait either. In a few minutes there was a lurch and a screech of iron wheels, and the train began to move.

  “We’re going!” shouted Tucker Mouse. “I feel it—we’re really moving, Harry! Our first trip anywhere! Oh! oh! oh!”

  “Now, take it easy,” said Harry Cat, and lifted his right front paw.

  “You wouldn’t squash me, please, Harry,” said Tucker indignantly. “That’s no way to begin a trip!”

  “Then don’t get too excited,” said Harry, and lowered his paw.

  “A fine thing!” sniffed Tucker Mouse. “I couldn’t even get excited on my very first journey!”

  “You can get excited, Mousiekins. But not hysterical!”

  They all settled back to enjoy the ride.

  * * *

  Three and a half hours later the three friends were wondering about the name of the train they were on. They understood the “Late” and the “Local” part, but they couldn’t imagine why anyone would call it an “Express.” It seemed to stop at every crossroads, and when it did stop, it waited—and waited—and waited! “We’ve been on this thing long enough to get to Canada!” complained Harry Cat. He was a very curious cat, Harry was, and he enjoyed looking at the maps that sometimes appeared in the newspapers he and Tucker used to furnish their home. So he knew the direction in which they were traveling: northwest and then due north.

  “I think we’re almost there,” said John Robin. He flew up and took a look out of the window in the compartment where they were. In the black night heavens, the moon, which was just a few days past the full, was shining brightly. It looked as if some great sky monster had begun to nibble away at it. “I was right—we’re here!” said John, and flew down again. “I recognize the houses outside.”

  “Thank goodness!” said Tucker Mouse. He stood up and stretched his limbs. They were sore from the pounding of the wheels below. “We should have stowed away on a Greyhound bus instead.”

  The train rattled to a halt. “Everybody off!” said the robin. Since no one was getting out at this station, the conductor didn’t bother to open the door, and the animals had to scramble down through an opening between two cars. “Welcome to Hedley!” said John when they were on the platform.

  “Is that the name of the town?” said Harry.

  “Yes.” The robin pointed with one wing. Down on the wall of the station house a sign lit up by an electric bulb said HEDLEY CONNECTICUT. “Hedley was the name of the man who settled this whole part of the state.”

  Tucker Mouse looked around. “Where’s Chester?”

  “Oh, it was too far for him to come all the way to the station,” said John. “I’m afraid we have a long walk ahead of us.”

  “I don’t care how long it is!” said Harry Cat. “As long as we’re off that train!”

  They set off, with John Robin sometimes fluttering, sometimes hopping along in the lead. Tucker had a hard time with his package. He tried to carry it first in his right front paw, then in his left front, then switching often from one to the other. It seemed to get heavier and heavier, and he kept falling farther and farther behind. He wouldn’t think of abandoning it, though. When Harry saw what was happening, he went up to Tucker without a word and hooked the string around the package under one of his sharp lower teeth. It was no weight at all for a big cat like Harry.

  They went on walking. At first they passed stores, offices, a movie theater—the kind of buildings you would find in the center of a town. There was almost no one on the streets. The store fronts were dark, and only the high street lights cast patches of brightness down where the animals scurried along. Then, when they got to the parts of Hedley where people lived, there were apartment houses, and two-family houses, and finally single-family homes. Tucker had never seen one before in his life, and even Harry had only seen the town houses of the upper East Side in New York, and they were all connected.

  “I couldn’t believe it!” said Tucker Mouse. “Look at the size of that lawn over there! John was right—it’s bigger than Bryant Park!”

  “I ’ike it here!” said Harry enthusiastically. “It’s beau’i’ul in ’onne’i’uh—’onnekikuk—” He gave up trying to say “Connecticut” with Tucker’s package dangling from his mouth.

  And on they padded. Until, on their left, a vast darkness appeared. No houses or lawns were there. But the moon, which was dropping toward the morning, silvered the branches of trees and bushes. And a sound of running water came rustling up to them. “The meadow starts here,” said John Robin. “Do you hear the brook?

  “It looks more like a jungle to me!” said Tucker Mouse.

  “This is one of the woodsy parts,” said John. “The flat part, with grass and everything, is down at the other end. That’s where Chester lives. Can you make it?”

  “Of ’ourse!” said Harry. In a minute, though, he suddenly dropped the package and said, “Did you hear anything?”

  “Like what?” said Tucker.

  From the dark ahead came a single chirp. Then another. And another.

  “It’s Chester!” shouted Harry. He grabbed up the bundle and dashed on into the night. Tucker Mouse scuttled after him, and John Robin took off and flew over them both.

  A fence ran beside the road. With each post that Harry went past, the chirps sounded nearer and nearer. They seemed to be coming from one certain post. Harry stopped in front of it. “Chester!” he called up. “Is that you?”

  And down, in one jump, from the top of the fence-post came Chester Cricket. “Harry!” he said. “I’m so glad to see you!” The cat gave him such a big lick on the head that it knocked him right over.

  “Watch it, Harry,” said Tucker Mouse, who came puffing up just then. “With a kiss like that, you could knock the cricket unconscious.”

  “Tucker!” exclaimed Chester Cricket. “Oh, isn’t that wonderful!”

  Then, naturally, everybody started hugging everybody. It isn’t so easy to hug a cricket, either. And they all talked at once—exclaiming and laughing the way old friends do when they haven’t seen each other for months and months.

  “I’ve been waiting on that fencepost for hours!” said Chester.

  “We’ve been traveling for hours!” said John Robin.

  For no good reason everyone burst out laughing again. But gradually the laughter subsided into a few final chuckles. The robin began hopping around nervously. “I guess I’d better get back to my nest, Chester,” he said. “It’s almost light, and I’d like to get a little sleep at least. I have a big morning of worming planned for tomorrow.”

  “All right, John,” said Chester. “And thanks for showing Tucker and Harry the way.”

  The cat and the mouse thanked him, too. Then the little bird flew off into the night. As he disappeared, they heard him saying, “Whee-ooo! Down to New York and back in one day! What a flight!”

  “Come on,” said Chester to Harry and Tucker. “I’ll show you the way to my stump.”

  He led them under the lowest wire of the fence and out into the Old Meadow. There was a path worn through the grass, and the moon, although it was riding low on the horizon, still shed enough light for them to see where they were going. “Be careful you don’t go too far off to the right,” said Chester. “The bank drops right down to the brook. Can you bo
th swim, by the way?”

  “I can, but I hate it,” said Harry Cat.

  “I don’t know if I can or not,” said Tucker. “And I don’t want to find out tonight.” He moved a little over to the left.

  Even before they reached his home, Chester insisted on hearing all about New York—and especially the Bellini family. So, as they walked, and Chester hopped, Harry and Tucker told him the news. Mario was studying violin at the Juilliard School of Music. He had become so interested in music during Chester’s stay in New York that he had decided to make it his career. “And I heard him tell Mr. Smedley that he chose the violin because it sounded more like a cricket’s chirp than any other instrument,” said Harry. As for Mr. Smedley, whose letter to The New York Times had launched Chester on his famous career, he had become one of the most successful piano teachers in the city. “Mostly because he keeps telling everybody that he was the one who discovered you,” said Tucker. “And it was really me!” And Mama and Papa Bellini were doing very well, too. Most of the people who began coming to the newsstand while Chester was giving his concerts there kept buying their papers and magazines from the Bellinis even after the cricket had left. “And you know what,” said Harry Cat. “After all those years of complaining about how old and rickety the newsstand was, when they could afford to have a new one made—they decided they didn’t want to! Mama said it was too much like an old friend to have it changed. So there it stands—the same as always!”

  “I’m glad,” said Chester. “I like to think of everything just the way it was.”

  Their walk through the meadow had brought them at last to Chester’s stump. “This is just the way I imagined it,” said Tucker Mouse. It was on a bank, not too high, not too low, just at the point where the brook made a turn. So it had the water bubbling on two sides. And a big willow tree dropped lacy branches over it.

  “I hope there’s room enough for Harry inside,” said Chester as he hopped through an opening into the stump. “I had some field mice gnaw out some more space this afternoon.”

  “You have mice here?” said Tucker, following Chester in.

  “Lots of them,” said the cricket. “You’ll meet everybody tomorrow.”

  “Plenty of room,” said Harry. He stretched out on the spongy wooden floor of the stump.

  Chester pointed at something above their heads. “Do you recognize that?” The moonlight, reflected from the brook, picked out a spark of silver.

  “It’s your bell!” said Tucker.

  “My bell.” The cricket nodded. “I found some string beside the road and tied it to the ceiling.”

  “Well, I have something else to remind you of New York,” said the mouse. He began carefully untying the package, which he had carried himself since they left the road.

  “At last we see what it is!” said Harry. “We’ve lugged that thing all the way from Times Square.”

  “Liverwurst!” exclaimed Chester. For Tucker Mouse had undone the wax paper to reveal a big chunk of the meat.

  “Stolen only this morning from the Nedick’s lunch counter,” said Tucker. “Remember your first night in the city, when we had the liverwurst together? I thought it would be nice again.”

  “Oh, that is nice of you!” said Chester. “I haven’t had any since I left New York.”

  So the three friends sat down to a delicious, late-night snack of liverwurst. And they talked and reminisced about Chester’s adventures in the city, as always happens when old friends meet. And outside the tree stump the night wore away.

  A lull came in the conversation, and Harry Cat said, “Now what’s this big problem about the meadow, Chester?”

  The cricket shook his head. “It’s something very serious. Come on—I’ll show you. It’s almost sunrise—you’ll be able to see.” He jumped out the opening in the stump, then up on top of it. Harry and Tucker scrambled after him. Above them, a pale lavender light, the color of lilacs, seemed to lift the sky upwards. The heavens stood high. “Now look all around,” said Chester, “all around the meadow, and tell me what you see.”

  Tucker and Harry did as they were told. They could see the flat, grassy land around Chester’s stump, and farther off the woodsy part where the meadow began, and still farther, toward the west, a ridge of hills that were also covered with trees. Here and there, through the brush, through the reeds, they caught a glitter of the brook in its course. In the dawn the meadow looked so fresh, and everything in it, that it seemed as if it had just been created today.

  “Beautiful!” said Harry Cat.

  “But look outside the meadow!” said Chester. “Look all around outside.”

  Everywhere, on all sides—beyond the hills, beyond the woodsy parts—there were houses. To the east, where the sun was just coming up, two new ones were being built. “I only see houses,” said Harry Cat.

  “That’s just it,” said Chester. “Houses!”

  Tucker Mouse scratched his head. “I don’t get it, Chester. What’s wrong with houses?”

  “It’s too long to go into now,” said the cricket. “I’ll explain it when we wake up. Let’s get some sleep while we can.”

  THREE

  The Old Meadow

  None of the animals could sleep very well. Tucker and Harry were too excited at being up in Connecticut at last. And Chester Cricket, overjoyed as he was to see his friends again, was too worried about the Old Meadow to do anything but doze awhile. So after a few hours of napping they all decided it was silly to pretend to sleep when you weren’t really sleeping, and got up.

  The first thing they did was go down to the brook for a drink. “Delicious!” exclaimed Harry Cat as he tasted the icy, bubbling water. “It’s certainly fresher than that stuff we collect from the pipes in the subway walls.”

  “Yes, but how many flavors does this brook come in?” said Tucker Mouse, who was thinking of all the soda pop he scrounged from the lunch counters in the station.

  “Nothing tastes as good as my brook,” said Chester Cricket. With his two front legs he sloshed a little cold water in his face. It was his habit to do that first thing every morning, even on the coldest days in winter, to wake himself up. “Let’s go up on the stump again,” he said. “You can see what the meadow looks like in broad daylight.”

  The cricket jumped up in one hop, and Tucker and Harry followed him. All around them the bright June morning sparkled on young leaves and blossoms newly opened. For a mouse whose only garden up till then had been three pathetic blades of grass, it was an overwhelming sight. Tucker felt his heart grow large with poetry. “Look how lovely, Harry!” he said. “Trees, flowers, little green growing things—ha-choo!” He gave a huge sneeze.

  “God bless you,” said Harry Cat.

  “Thank you, Harry,” said Tucker, and launched into a hymn in praise of Nature. “Oh, the countryside, the countryside!—ha-choo!” But it was interrupted by another sneeze, even larger than the first.

  “What’s the matter with you?” said Harry.

  Tucker wiped his nose on one front paw—not a very nice thing to do, but he had no newspapers handy. Then he rubbed his eyes, which he suddenly realized had begun to itch. “Harry,” he said gloomily, “I think I have hay fever.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re allergic to all those lovely little green growing things!” said Harry Cat slyly.

  “You wouldn’t rub it in, please, Harry,” said the mouse. “Chester, do you have a newspaper or a Kleenex or something in the stump? I have to blow my nose.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t,” said Chester Cricket.

  “Then I’ll have to use a leaf,” said Tucker. He climbed down from the stump.

  “Watch out you don’t use poison ivy!” Harry Cat called after him.

  Tucker searched along the bank of the brook and finally found a clump of fern. They were nice and soft, like Kleenex, but weren’t really ideal for blowing the nose because they were very lacy and full of holes. Still, Tucker thought they were the best he could find. He picked a few extras and
went back to the stump.

  “Here’s our nature lover—back from the fields and the glens!” said Harry Cat when Tucker sat sniffling beside him and Chester again.

  Tucker blew his nose on a fern and then threw it in the brook. “I may be the only mouse in the world who has to use ferns as handkerchiefs,” he said.

  Harry Cat turned to Chester. “Now explain about the houses. Why do they worry you so much?”

  Chester Cricket shook his head. “There’s just too many of them! That’s the whole problem. When I got back to Connecticut last fall, I found they’d built two new ones just in the time I was gone—down on the south side there. And this spring they’ve started three others. Besides those two in the east, across the road, there’s one going up near the north corner of the meadow. All the animals who live here in the Old Meadow are just scared to death that in a year or so there won’t be any Old Meadow at all! Up till now the brook has saved us. It’s marshy along the banks, and sometimes there’s a little flooding. But just two weeks ago Bill Squirrel—he’s a squirrel you’ll meet later on; he’s always swinging around in the trees near the houses, bringing back news—Bill said that he heard two homeowners talking about some plan the town of Hedley had to put the brook down in a conduit!”

  “What’s a conduit?” asked Tucker Mouse.

  “It’s like a big concrete pipe,” said Chester. “And the plan is to put the brook down in this pipe and make it run through concrete underground instead of up in the open where it belongs. Then they could drain the marshy parts. And if they do that, there won’t be any stopping them. They’ll put up houses everywhere!”

  “Wonderful!” said Tucker. “It’ll be just like New York! Maybe they’ll even build a subway!”

  “But we don’t want it to be like New York!” said Chester. “Now don’t misunderstand. I love New York, and I had a wonderful time when I was living there. But I love the country even more. I don’t have anything against houses either—if they stay where they should! Why, sometimes I even hop over just to be where the human beings live. I especially like the time around noon on a weekday. You can hear the housewives using the vacuum cleaner, or see them hanging the laundry up. And the dogs are snoozing in the sun on the doorsteps, waiting for kids to come home from school. I don’t know—it makes me feel all funny and happy. Everything is so busy, but peaceful too. Then I’ll hop back into the meadow—and I’m even happier here. Because this is my home!” The cricket took a long look around the meadow. In his eyes there was both love and ownership. Harry and Tucker glanced at each other.