Tucker's Countryside Page 4

  “Are they any relation to the man the town is named after?” asked Tucker.

  “No. That was Joseph Hedley,” said Chester. “Their name is Hadley. Ellen is the only one of the big kids that the mothers will let take the little kids over to the meadow. You see, in this neighborhood there are big kids and little kids. The little kids like the meadow, but when they get to be big kids, they usually would rather go off to the school yard and play baseball if they’re boys, and if they’re girls, they—they—”

  “They what?” said Tucker.

  “Well, they do whatever girls do!” said Chester. “But Ellen still loves it here, even though she’s a big kid by now.”

  “How old is she?” said Harry.

  “Oh—at least twelve.”

  “Mmm!” purred the cat. “Really getting on, isn’t she?”

  “And the mothers all trust her. So they let her bring the little kids over,” said Chester. “They have a Special Place where they like to sit on the other side of the hill. Come on—I’ll show you.”

  Silently—Harry was especially quiet, so that Ruff wouldn’t notice him—the three of them crept over the hill. There was a glen on the other side, dotted with different kinds of trees. The brook flowed through, on its way to Simon’s Pool, and just before it left the hollow, it made a bend around a plot of land where seven birch trees were growing in a circle. The earth was spongy and comfortable between them, covered with soft grass. This was Ellen’s Special Place—her favorite spot in all the meadow. She and the four smaller children were sitting there now. Chester, Harry, and Tucker edged up through the shrubs to listen.

  “I don’t understand,” one of the little girls was saying. “How can it be magic?”

  “It just is,” said Ellen. “There’s magic all over the meadow. But especially right here.”

  “Magic like what witches and wizards have?” asked John, the other little boy.

  “No, not that kind,” said Ellen.

  “Then it ain’t magic!” said Jaspar.

  “‘It isn’t magic,’” said Ellen. “But it is! It’s—it’s something you feel, that’s all.”

  Everyone was silent a moment and concentrated on feeling as much as he or she could. In one of the birches an oriole sang. Bright patches of sunlight danced around them, filtered through flickering branches and leaves. The brook rustled past them, whispering secrets continuously.

  “I feel it,” said the first little girl.

  “So do I,” said the second.

  “Phooey!” Jaspar gave up on magic and began to wrestle with Ruff. The Saint Bernard let himself be pinned a few times—then he rolled Jaspar over on his stomach and pacified him with one big paw on his back, just the way Harry quieted Tucker Mouse.

  “Anyway,” said Jaspar from under the paw, “that magic better work! ’Cause if it doesn’t, there isn’t going to be any meadow! My dad says it’ll all be built up in a year.”

  Ellen frowned and winced, as if she had been hit on a spot that was already sore. “No, it won’t be built up!” she said. “That’s just talk.”

  “What’s going to stop them?” said Jaspar.

  “I don’t know. But something will,” said Ellen. “Hedley wouldn’t be Hedley without the Old Meadow.”

  Over in the bushes Tucker whispered to Chester, “She’s on our side!”

  “I just wish there were more like her,” Chester whispered back.

  “Tucker, you’ve got to come up with something—for her sake, too!” said Harry Cat. He pushed aside a reed to get a better look.

  Ellen heard the rustling and saw Harry’s whiskered face peeking out. “Shh! No one move,” she said to the children. “There’s the kitty. Now I’m going to take you all home—”

  “We just got here!” exclaimed Jaspar.

  “I know,” said Ellen. “But it’s almost lunchtime anyway. And I’ll bring you back this afternoon—I promise! I want to come back by myself and see if I can make friends with the kitty. He’ll never come out with Ruff and all of you here. Come on now—please.”

  She led the children up the hill and over to the edge of the road. “Everyone take hands.” The children fell into formation—two on each side of her—and all took hands. Ellen took a long look up and down the road. “Quick now—over!”

  “You, too!” shouted Jaspar at Ruff.

  And the six of them, Ruff included, hurried across the road. From there, since there were no more roads to cross, the children could find their way home by themselves. But Ellen came back and sat down again in her Special Place. Sometimes she liked being there alone even more than with the children.

  “Here, kitty!” she called. “Come on. I won’t hurt you.”

  “You made a big hit with her,” said Tucker to Harry Cat.

  “I’m going over and say hello,” said Harry. “It’ll make her happy.”

  “It’ll make you happy!” said Tucker Mouse disgustedly. “You’re just looking for a little free admiration. Mister Kitty!”

  Harry padded out over the grass and sat down beside Ellen. “Well, hello!” she said, and began stroking Harry’s head. “You’re a nice kitty, aren’t you? Yes! You’re a beautiful kitty!”

  Tucker Mouse grimaced at Chester. “I wonder what she’d say if she knew that that ‘beautiful kitty’ lived in a drain pipe in the subway station!”

  “I don’t think it makes any difference where you live,” said Chester. “If you’re nice, you’re nice. And Harry is a nice kitty.”

  “Cat! He’s a cat!” shouted Tucker Mouse, who was actually a little jealous of all the attention his friend was getting. “Don’t use that obnoxious baby talk!” Chester tried not to laugh, and Tucker went on ranting. “Just look at the way he’s buttering up to her, arching his head up under her hand like that! And miaowing like a movie star! I never thought I’d see the day!”

  Ellen had taken Harry into her lap and was stroking his back from his head all the way down to his tail. And, in fact, Harry Cat was enjoying the whole thing very much. With each new stroke he let out a loud purr of pleasure.

  “You have no collar, do you, kitty?” said Ellen. Harry purred. “And I’ve never seen you in this neighborhood before. Are you lost?” Harry purred. “Would you like to come home with me? I’d fix you up a bed of blankets in my room. And I’d give you all delicious things to eat. Would you like to be my kitty?” Harry purred and rolled over to have his stomach rubbed.

  “Come on then!” said Ellen. She picked Harry up and began to walk up the hill.

  “Hey! What’s she doing?” shouted Tucker Mouse. “Chester—look! Do something! Stop her! Quick!”

  “What can I do?” said Chester.

  “But she’s kidnapping Harry Cat!” said Tucker.

  “He doesn’t look too unhappy about it,” said the cricket.

  And that certainly was true. For Harry Cat was lying over one of Ellen’s arms, as limp and content as laundry on the line.

  FIVE

  Harry the House Cat

  Tucker spent the rest of his first full day in Connecticut fuming about Harry Cat and blowing his nose on fern handkerchiefs. When Ellen came back to the meadow that afternoon with the little kids, she did not bring Harry with her. But she told them all about how she had made friends with the kitty that morning, and how nice he was, and how she had brought him home and her mother had said she could keep him a few days on trial, and then, if things worked out all right, she could keep him permanently.

  Tucker was hiding over in the bushes with Chester, listening. “I can’t understand it,” he said. “Why doesn’t Harry fight to get out? Why doesn’t he bite, scratch, claw—?”

  “And he just loves to have his tummy rubbed!” said Ellen to the children.

  “That’s the answer,” said Chester.

  Tucker growled something unpleasant—as much as a mouse can growl, that is—and said he was sure Harry would escape before the day was done.

  But evening came on, and Harry did not return. And night fo
llowed, and still the cat did not come back. Chester and Tucker went back to the stump. Instead of the human food that he scrounged from the lunch stands in the subway station, which was what he really liked, Tucker had to content himself with some nuts and seeds that Chester had collected for him in the meadow. And later, when he tried to sleep, the noise of the brook, which had sounded like laughter in the daylight, kept him awake most of the night.

  “Subways I can sleep through,” he grumbled to himself. “Commuters I can sleep through. But that brook just goes on—and on—and on!”

  The countryside did not seem nearly so charming as it had in the morning.

  * * *

  Next day the sun rose bright and strong. And it woke Tucker up as soon as it climbed above the horizon. One crafty ray darted in through the hole in the stump and landed right in the mouse’s eye. Like most city people, Tucker Mouse was not in the habit of getting up with the sun.

  “Neon lights I can sleep through,” he groaned as he heaved himself awake, “but not that sun!”

  Chester Cricket, who was in the habit of getting up at dawn, had already been down to have his wash in the brook. Tucker Mouse staggered down to the edge of the stream, took a drink, and blew his nose, which still was running, on a convenient fern. “Did Harry come back?” he asked.

  “I don’t see any sign of him,” said Chester.

  “Well, this has got to stop!” exclaimed the mouse. “We have to go over to the Hadleys’ house and see what’s happening! They may have him tied up.”

  “All right, all right, Tucker,” said Chester. “Just keep calm. I’m sure he’s safe.”

  “I am calm!” shouted the mouse, and marched off toward Tuffet Country.

  Chester had a hard time keeping up with him. By the time they had gone through Pasture Land, past Simon’s Pool, up the hill, and across the road to reach the Hadleys’ lawn, the cricket was panting. “Whoa, Tucker!” He gave a last big hop and sat still. “We’ve got to think what we’re going to do.”

  “Bust the front door down if necessary!” said the mouse.

  “Why don’t we go around to the sun porch instead,” said Chester. “Maybe we can get Harry’s attention without anyone seeing.”

  “Okay,” said Tucker. “But I’m warning you—I’m not leaving here without Harry!”

  They crept around to the rear of the house. On one side there was a sun porch, and only a screen door separated it from the warm summer outside. Chester and Tucker peered in. And there, sprawled out on a cushion obviously laid down for him, was Harry Cat, snoozing in a pool of sunlight. “Harry!” whispered Tucker urgently. “Harry, wake up! It’s us!”

  Harry Cat opened one eye, saw who it was, and came padding over to his side of the screen door. “Well, well!” he purred. “It’s my friends from the country. How’s life in the wide-open spaces?”

  Tucker ignored the teasing tone in his friend’s voice and said angrily, “What are you doing in there?”

  “Waiting for breakfast,” said Harry Cat. He gave Chester a quick look and a grin. “Supper was so delicious last night—I can’t wait to see what we’re having this morning!”

  “Supper?” A sad and soulful look came over the face of Tucker Mouse. “What did you have for supper?”

  “Well, they didn’t have any cat food in the house, so they gave me what they had themselves.”

  “And what was that, may I ask?” said Tucker.

  “A little bit of shrimp cocktail first—”

  “Harry, stop it. I changed my mind—I don’t want to hear.”

  “—and then roast beef and French-fried potatoes and cauliflower with a marvelous cream and cheese sauce—”

  “Harry, please! You wouldn’t do this to me, please.”

  “—and for dessert—they all thought it was delightful to see a kitty eating dessert—they gave me vanilla ice cream—”

  “Harry!”

  “—with chocolate sauce.” Harry finished his narration of delicacies and smiled out at Tucker. “Wasn’t that nice of them?”

  Tucker turned to Chester Cricket. “Who would have thought an old friend could be so cruel?” Chester, who was trying not to laugh, just shrugged.

  “What did you two have for supper?” asked Harry.

  Tucker made a wry face. “A few wild nuts and seeds.”

  “Wild nuts and seeds!” purred Harry. “That sounds pleasantly rustic.”

  “Pleasantly rustic they may have been—you would excuse me, please, Chester—but not very filling to a mouse accustomed to scrounging around some of the best lunch stands in New York!”

  Harry suddenly looked into the living room, which an open door connected with the sun porch. “Shh!” he warned. “Here comes Ellen. Hide in that hedge beside the screen door.”

  Tucker and Chester disappeared into a privet hedge just as Ellen stepped out into the sun porch. She was carrying a saucer piled with smoking bacon and eggs. “Mother said she’d get some regular cat food at the store today,” she said to Harry as she set the saucer in front of him. “But in the meantime would you like some bacon and eggs?”

  “Mmm!” purred Harry Cat.

  Ellen went to the screen door and looked out. An east wind had begun to lift clouds, a gray mountain range of them, up into the sky. “If it’s nice, we’ll go over to the meadow this morning,” she said to Harry. “And if it rains, I’ll brush you again.” She went back into the main part of the house, to have her own breakfast.

  Before it was even safe, Tucker Mouse darted out of the privet hedge and had his nose pressed against the screen door. “See what I mean about the food?” said Harry. Very casually he began to chew a piece of bacon. “Nice and crisp—just the way I like it.”

  Tucker’s mouth began to water. “Harry Cat, are you going to sit there and eat that right in front of me?” he asked indignantly.

  “You want me to turn my back?” said Harry.

  “No!” shouted the mouse. “I want you to give me some!”

  “Well, perhaps I could open the door,” said Harry, but he didn’t sound too convinced.

  “You’d better,” said Chester. “Or else he’ll gnaw a hole right through the screen to get at that food!”

  Harry laughed and stood up on his hind legs. The latch of a screen door presented no problems at all to such a big, clever cat, and in a moment he had opened it wide enough for Tucker to scramble in over the sill. The mouse ran toward the bacon and eggs and almost dove in.

  “Tasty, eh?” said Harry.

  “De-glicious!” mumbled Tucker through a mouthful.

  Harry offered Chester some breakfast, but the cricket refused. He didn’t mind a bite of human food now and then in New York, but in Connecticut he preferred the things that grew in the meadow.

  After the cat and the mouse had finished eating—Tucker did most of the eating, Harry only got half a piece of bacon—the mouse licked off his whiskers and said, “Okay, that was good. But let’s get going.”

  “Yes, you’d better be going,” said Harry Cat.

  Tucker stared at him. “What do you mean, ‘You’d better be going.’ Aren’t you coming too?”

  “Well, if it doesn’t rain, I may see you in the meadow,” said Harry. He glanced out the screen door. “I think it’s going to, though. In that case, Ellen will probably spend the morning brushing me. How do you like my coat, by the way? Beautiful, hmm? She brushed me for two hours last night. With her mother’s best hairbrush at that.”

  “You mean you’re going to stay?” exclaimed Tucker.

  “Of course I’m going to stay,” said Harry. “I like it here. After the brushing we’ll have tummy-rubbing time.”

  “I can’t believe it!” Tucker looked out the screen door at Chester in amazement, then back at Harry Cat, who was sitting primly on his hind legs, the very picture of a domestic pet. “Abandoning his friends—for the sake of a few material comforts!”

  “Which you ate most of,” said Harry.

  Tucker shook his head. “Bu
t, Harry—a big, husky tomcat like you, the terror of Forty-second Street—”

  “—and now I’m just a Connecticut house cat.” Harry sighed. “Well, that’s the way it happens sometimes.” He swished his tail neatly around his front legs. “If you’ll excuse me now, I think I’ll go have a bowl of heavy cream.”

  That was too much for Tucker. “Harry Cat, you stay right where you are!” he shouted.

  “Now take it easy, Mousiekins,” said Harry in a voice that sounded more like his own and less like a Connecticut house cat. “Look at the advantages if I stay with the Hadleys. I can swipe you some Kleenexes to blow your nose on instead of those ferns. And I can also smuggle you out some human food. I believe Mrs. Hadley said they were having hamburgers for lunch.”

  “Hamburgers—” That same dreamy expression appeared on Tucker’s face again.

  “And I can also be a spy,” said Harry, speaking more to Chester now. “Last night Mr. Hadley was reading the newspaper, and he said that someone in the Town Council had proposed that they build apartment houses in the Old Meadow.”

  “Apartment houses!” said Chester. “That’s the worst yet!”

  “This article he was reading said that lots of people were moving into town—some factory or other opened up somewhere—and the Old Meadow was the only undeveloped area left. Now if I was living here, I could follow developments and report them to you. How about it, Chester?” Harry looked at Tucker. “How about it, Tucker?”

  “What are they having for supper tonight?” said Tucker Mouse.

  “Probably lobster Newburg!” said Harry. “Think of me as a spy and a food thief, not a house cat—it’ll make it easier for you. But you have to make up your mind right now—here comes Ellen again!”

  “All right, all right—stay!” said Tucker, and scuttled through the crack left open in the screen door. He poked his head back in just long enough to say, “And don’t forget the sauce!”

  Ellen came into the sun porch. “It is going to rain, kitty. It’s started already. We’ll have to spend the day indoors. But I don’t mind. There’re lots of games we can play.” She lifted Harry up and carried him to the screen door. Drops were beginning to sparkle on the grass and the privet hedge. “Aren’t you glad that you’re not out there in the wet?” said Ellen.