Ginger Pye (18 page)

Rachel and Jerry had not often been for rides in automobiles. Mr. Pye did not own one, for two reasons. He could not afford one. And he was not of a mechanical mind.

Grampa had an old Ford somewhat on the order of Sam Doody's jalopy, but riding with Grampa was such a breathtaking experience they did not enjoy it. The sensation was more like that of riding the Whip at Plum Beach than of a pleasant outing in an automobile enjoying the scenery. For instance, Grampa was apt to drive too close to the other side of the road. On one long trip, to visit a soldier cousin at Camp Niantic, going across a bridge, he had nearly deposited them all in the Connecticut River. So it seemed anyway from where Rachel and Jerry

sat in the front seat, and they courteously said, "No, thanks," when Grampa asked them if they would like to go for a ride.

"When Grampa gets really old and drooling I will go with him not to hurt his feelings," Rachel promised herself. But so far Grampa was such a young grampa it was still all right to say no thanks to something he suggested. Anyway he was just learning to drive. When he got the hang of it better they would go with him.

So now, off they went with a sputter and a bang and they sputtered and banged all the way out of town, through the city, and out to East Rock. Sam Doody drove on the right side of the road and it was a lovely ride. Sam parked his car near the foot of the great rock and they all got out, Rachel carrying the little bag of sandwiches. Since they were already hungry they ate these. This was a good idea for now they would not be encumbered with them climbing the Rock.

Jerry had no doubt but that they were to scale the face of the Rock, which is certainly what he wanted to do. Rachel, on the other hand, had no doubt they would go up by way of the Giant Steps, wherever they were. Naturally neither one of them would make a suggestion to Sam Doody.

They were standing at the base of the sheer face of the Rock now, looking up. Standing here, they could scarcely see the top. It looked as high and as slippery as the glass hill on top of which the princess lived. Since Jerry was a boy interested in rocks, he, of course, picked up some very interesting specimens and soon his pockets bulged with trap rock.

Sam was studying the Rock. He had a way of breathing through his smiling mouth and it was a comfortable sound to hear, Sam's breathing, like an audible smile. Would he take some shots here? the children wondered, and waited respectfully. But then Sam said, "Well, let's get going." And he strode up the road to the right.

Jerry could see that climbing the face of the Rock was not in the program. Quickly he said, "Ever climb the face of this Rock, Sam?"

"Well, not the face right in the middle where it is the sheerest, but on the edge, sort of, where there's sapling or a bush to grab hold of."

"That must be fun, too," said Jerry quickly. After all, the side of the face was almost as perilous as the middle of it, he thought.

"That the way you'd like to go up?" asked Sam Doody.

Jerry nodded, too happy to say anything.

"You, too?" asked Sam Doody of Rachel.

Rachel nodded courageously. It would be interesting, she assured herself, to scale East Rock, and she hoped to find an owl in its eyrie and tell Papa. "Dear Papa," her mind began the letter. "We climbed East Rock with Sam Doody and I saw an owl in its eyrie." That's what she would write Papa. She would be like Papa on Mount Pisgah. The Giant Steps would have to wait for next time, though of course it was a disappointment not to see these. She thought if they went up the face they would likewise come down it.

Jerry had to empty out his pockets of all the heavy rocks he had gathered. He hid them under a laurel bush and then, up they started. At first the going was easy because there were shrubs and small saplings trying persistently to grow in the Rock that they could cling to. But presently there was nothing but the beautiful copper-colored Rock itself and they had to feel with their fingers and grip with their knees and toes. It was the biggest climb that Jerry or Rachel had ever undertaken. They were both enjoying themselves and they felt very exhilarated. They went in this order: Jerry first, then Sam Doody, then Rachel. Soon Jerry was way above the others.

"Slow up there, fellow," said Sam Doody.

I'll have to hurry,
thought Rachel.
Not to slow them up too much.
So she hurried. She was not the least bit afraid and she laughed to herself thinking of a certain time when she
had
been afraid on a high place. And that high place had been nowhere near as high as this.

That time, she and Jerry and Dick Badger had been climbing up onto Dick Badger's barn and jumping off onto a pile of old hay. They had done this over and over, taking turns, Dick first, then Jerry, then she, with no pauses or intermissions. Up, down, up, down, over and over. Suddenly at her turn to jump, Rachel's feet seemed to take root in the tar-papered roof. After all the jumps she had taken, for no reason she could think of, she simply could not jump again.

"Jump," said Dick. He had nearly bumped into her and knocked her off, the game, until now, had been going so rhythmically. "Jump," he said.

"Jump," urged Jerry. "You're holding us up."

How could Jerry and Dick jump with her standing there as though ready for the dive but not diving? At last, ashamed, she had moved over to the corner. She watched Dick and Jerry jump over and over again with no waits between. They paid no attention to her and she sat miserably on the corner banging
her heels against the barn, watching the fearless ones.

At last she stood up and went over to the jumping spot. Now she would jump, she decided. But still she could not jump. She had to move aside again for the boys. And then they had had enough.

"C'mon, Rachel," called Jerry. "I'm getting hungry." He and Dick disappeared. But Jerry came back alone in a second. "Hey, Rache," he said. "Shall I get the ladder?"

"No," said Rachel. If she were to get down she must get down by herself or be a coward the rest of her born days. She must jump like she had a million times already.

Rachel sat on, in a sort of mesmerized misery. Dick's big dog, Duke, came out of the house and he looked up at her mournfully and curiously, sniffing gently. Then he went into his doghouse for his afternoon nap. From her high place she saw Dick and Jerry going off up the street together. They didn't even look to see if she were still up on the roof.

Finally, she stood up and she went over to the edge of the roof and without any more standing and trembling and "Oh, I can'ts" or anything, she jumped. She just jumped the way she had been doing before. And she went home and she never went up on that roof again. But anyway, she had jumped.

Well, now, she thought. This going up the face of East Rock was not in the same category as that time of being up on the barn roof and being scared to jump. Because this time she was on land. Her hands and feet were on land and there was no soaring through the air involved. It is true the land was practically perpendicular. Still it was land and all she had to do was keep her hands and feet on it and soon she would be at the top.

Rachel looked up. It was certainly a long way to the top. She couldn't even see the top, only copper-colored rock with here and there a tough weed to grab hold of. But see! What a good climber she was. Her father would soon be taking her with him on his arduous bird trips. And this reminded her of the owl eyries she hoped to see. She paused a moment and looked around. There were no owl eyries above her, or beside her, and—oh, here she made her big mistake—looking down, she saw none below her.

She saw no owl eyries below her but she did see what a high place she was on now, sticking like a fly to the side of a mountain. And suddenly, just like that time on the roof, she was afraid to keep on doing what she had been doing so very nicely. She was afraid to keep on going up.

The perpendicular swimmer, with his fondness
for the up-and-down position, might enjoy this, but not she. Furthermore, she did not see how, unless she slid, she was ever going to get back down. And there was Sam Doody to consider. He had to take pictures and here she was, holding up the works. Sam Doody or no Sam Doody, she could not go on. Rachel was clinging to a rather good spot, with hands and knees and toes, and she thought,
In a minute I will be able to go on, just as that time on the roof. When I finally did jump, it was as though I never had had the frightened time when I couldn't.

So when her brother and Sam Doody called down to her, for they had kept right on up, never dreaming she was not at their heels, "Coming, Rachel?" she answered, "Soon. In a minute." She trusted the minute would not stretch into hours as that time on the roof.

Jerry kept right on climbing. But Sam Doody stopped and he looked down at Rachel.

"You OK?" he asked her.

"Sure," she said. But she could not budge.

In spite of her precarious position, Rachel's heart swelled with love for Sam Doody. She loved him next to her mother and father and Jerry and Uncle Bennie and Gramp and Gramma. He would bring her a sandwich if she stuck for always. Better still,
he might not let her stick for always. This thought gave her great courage and she inched up another notch. But then she inched back because the new spot was not as good a spot to be stuck in as the old spot.

Then it dawned on Jerry, quite a few feet above, that his sister had stalled. Had he or Sam Doody, unwittingly, made some remark to Rachel that would scare her? A remark, for instance, such as he had once made to her when he and she were in swimming down at Sandy Beach? He had happened to mention that there were eels in the water and she got so scared he thought it was funny and added there were also sea monsters.

Then she had swum to the raft like sixty, screaming and gasping that there was an eel on her left shoulder. She was shuddering so she would not look to make sure, but she was positive it was, or at least had been, there. Probably she had swum into a long slithery piece of seaweed but she was convinced it was an eel. And she wouldn't swim back to shore no matter how much he told her he was joking and that an eel wouldn't hurt anyway and the monsters were a myth.

She wouldn't believe him and sat in the broiling sun on the raft, her arms folded around her knees,
her eyes fastened dreamily on the shining water, and she wouldn't swim back, and she wouldn't swim back. Of course Jerry couldn't go home without her and he kept calling her and calling her. It was only after all the kids had gone home and the tide was low and there was not much water left to swim in, that she silently and calmly made her way back to land.

Well, he hadn't made any remarks now about monsters, and he doubted that Sam Doody had either. Anyway, what sort of monsters could cling to this precipice? But he, Jerry, never made a scary remark to Rachel at all anymore, because she believed everything, everything.

"What's the matter, Rachel?" he called down to her.

"It's so far to down."

"Don't look down."

"I already did."

"Must only look up."

"I saw down."

And there she stuck. There was nothing for Jerry and Sam Doody to do then but inch their way back down. Once they were past and below her, Jerry beside her and Sam below, Rachel was able to lower herself slowly back down the cliff. The going down took almost no time at all.

When Rachel looked back up she marveled at how little a way up they had gone. It had seemed a mile, at least, at the time. She was glad to be down on the ground again, flat ground, and she was very grateful that neither Jerry nor Sam Doody made any comments that she had altered the plans for the scaling of East Rock.

Sam Doody smiled his white-teeth smile just as always; and he gave her a piece of chocolate and off they went around the Rock to find the Giant Steps, which were the regular way up. And then Rachel found that Sam Doody never expected to reach top anyway. He said he wasn't going to let them go very far up. Too dangerous. He said, "There were a few kids tried to climb East Rock once and they had to call out the Fire Department to get them down."

"I was almost to the top," said Jerry proudly.