Pinky Pye (9 page)

"It seems wetter when it rains or fogs at the beach than it does at home," said Mama, blowing on a log.

"Well. We don't have to put on our winter underwear," said Uncle Bennie. "It's not that cold, is it? We don't need that, do we? That means it's hot, not cold, if we don't need that." And he said, "Phew!" in disgust, and sat down in a little red rocker in front of the fire with his crickets in their cage on his lap. "Sing, Sams," he said. And one sang.

Uncle Bennie had three crickets now, and in the daytime he carried them around in a box that was like an apartment house, for he had put walls in to make rooms, a room apiece for each cricket. Why? Because (I'm sorry to have to say this, but it is true) many crickets cannot stand each other. They will begin to fight if they find another cricket trying to come into their house, and whoever wins will (I'm sorry to have to say this sad but true fact, too) eat up the one that he has beaten. Uncle Bennie had had this experience, and, in case you do not believe me, you may certainly believe him, for he
knew.
That is why he kept them separated.

Papa was going over the mail. "What do you know!" he said. "Here's a card from Hiram Bish, mailed in Havana. 'Sightseeing here for a few hours,' it says. 'Owl liking boat trip. We are too.' It's signed, 'Myra, Hi, and Owlie.'"

"Where do you suppose his boat is now?" asked Jerry.

"Well..." said Papa. "It takes about twelve days from California to New York. He must be coming in today or tomorrow."

"Unless he is lost in the fog," said Uncle Bennie forebodingly.

All day foghorns had been sounding, and now and then it seemed as though the deep, insistent blast of an ocean liner could be heard. Papa said this was possible. Liners going to and coming from Europe, though not, of course, those from South America or the West Coast, could be seen by the Pyes. And if they could be seen by them, then they could probably be heard by them, too, in a fog.

There was a sudden and swift and very strong gust of wind. Fog blew past the windows of The Eyrie like smoke. The fire flared up in the fireplace. The oil lamps sputtered and smoked. Papa rolled to the window in his wheelchair and looked out. (He was getting so fond of his wheelchair he rolled around the house whenever possible.)

"Fog's lifting," he said. "Quite a wind has sprung up, and it will blow the fog right out to sea. So, Mama, it will probably be sunny tomorrow and you won't have your cold, wet summer at the beach."

Mama smiled. She didn't care when people teased her. "If that's the case," she said, "we better have at least one nice hot supper in front of the open fire." And this they did.

By the time supper was over the wind had reached a tremendous force. Papa let the fire go out, not to have any accident, and they all went to bed. How The Eyrie shook and creaked in the gale! There was no rain, just whistling wind. It didn't hail, and there was no thunder and lightning. "It is not a hurricane," said Papa. It was just a huge great wind and nobody could sleep. From down below they could hear the great waves crashing, and Mama said, "Pity the poor sailors."

Bang!
What was that?

"My sainted aunt!" said Papa. (This was an expression Papa had learned in his youth in Boston.) "That little porthole window upstairs! It's been open all these days. I just plain forgot to close it."

The window banged back and forth, opening and shutting. "Who'll go up and lock it?" Papa asked. "I better not on account of my foot. But we can't have that banging going on all night."

"I will," said Jerry.

"Isn't he brave!" marveled Rachel.

There was a curious rasping noise in the eaves. Mama said, "Oh, goodness! I suppose either some precious belonging of Mrs. Pulie's is being blown out, or some awful thing is being blown in. Hurry, Jerry!"

Jerry climbed up the same way Rachel did when she put Uncle Bennie's crickets up there. First he put a chair on a table. Then he climbed on the table and next the chair, and then he pushed open the little swinging doors and crawled into the alcove in the eaves. The doors closed behind him, and the people below heard him creeping along the floor of the little storage room and to the window.

The wind sounded ferocious, and Mama said, "Hurry up, Jerry! Goodness!" She wanted everyone to be close to her and for none to be in an eave. Then she hummed a little tune, trying to sound lighthearted.

Finally they heard the little window bang shut as Jerry closed and fastened it.

In the eaves, in the uncertain light cast by his flashlight, Jerry had a feeling eyes were on him.
Uncle Bennies crickets,
he thought. And he had to laugh because he thought that crickets and grasshoppers have the funniest faces of anything in the world, they and goats. Of course he never said this in front of Bennie, who was just crazy about crickets. But to him they were funny-looking. He crawled back to the little doors and pushed them open. For a minute he sat on the ledging, and pushing his head out between the doors and dangling his legs down in space, he made funny faces at the family below.

"I'm a cricket," he said, trying hard to look like one.

Uncle Bennie, who had got out of bed to watch, blinked, for, in the darkness behind Jerry, he thought he saw, for just a second, two bright, round yellow eyes. Then they were gone.

"I never knew crickets had eyes that big!" he said. But no one heard him in all the racket of the storm.

Pinky and Gracie, the little and the big cat, sitting side by side down below, were engrossed in watching Jerry. They had, in fact, been mesmerized by Jerry's entire performance, his going up, his disappearing inside, and his trying to look like a cricket now. Gracie's smug face had an expression that looked as though she were saying, "I know something." Pinky's was dark and secretive.

Ginger whined and moaned. He did not like Jerry being someplace that he couldn't get to.

"Come down, Jerry," said Mama. "Ginger is so excited."

With the wind roaring, Ginger whining, waves booming, the noise was becoming nerve-racking. So Jerry came down, and Ginger licked his face anxiously as if he had been gone a long time and on a long journey.

"I hope nothing was broken up there," said Mama. "I did remind you about that window, didn't I?" said Mama to Papa.

"Never listens," said Rachel tolerantly of Papa. "Just never, never listens."

They all went back to bed. Pinky sat at the foot of Rachel's cot from which she could just barely see the swinging doors in the eaves. She studied them thoughtfully. Gracie sat at the tip end of Mama's bed, and she too slyly eyed the eaves. It was a long time before anyone could get to sleep in such a howling noisy wind as this.

Uncle Bennie began to suck his thumb. Every night he tried to not suck his thumb, but every night there was a reason for him to have to suck his thumb—robbers of kittens, broken ankles, wind, something. He had managed to give up pulling on Bubbah, his old piece of blanket that he liked to tickle his nose with while he was sucking his thumb. He had given Bubbah to his littlest bear for keeps. But he had decided one thing at a time, and he still sucked his thumb.

What a foolish thing to have done, to have given Bubbah to his bear! Just before the walk in the fog, "Here," he had said to his bear. "Here's my Bubbah for you, for keeps." How could he have known there was going to be this cyclone tonight and that he would need Bubbah badly? He got out of bed and ran to his big sister's room and climbed into her bed. She didn't mind. Soon, cozy and warm, he went to sleep.

The next thing he knew it was beautiful, broad, sunny, slashing daylight, and one by one everybody was waking up. The high wind had died down and there was not a cloud in the deep blue sky. The air was so light and buoyant, it was a wonder no one could really fly.

Uncle Bennie could not wait until after breakfast to have Rachel climb up and get his singing crickets. He wanted to see if they felt as happy as he. So, Rachel climbed up to the eaves.

Again the two cats lined up and watched with fascinated concentration, and they did not wink once. Rachel remained quite a while.

"Well," she said when she finally stuck her head back out. "There is not a sign of one of your crickets or grasshoppers or whatever they were in the box. Not one is left!"

"Oh-h-h," wailed Uncle Bennie. "Sams!"

"Probably blown away in the cyclone," said Mama. No matter how often Papa said there hadn't been a cyclone last night, just a great big blow, Mama insisted on calling it cyclone. Wind that was that big was more than just plain wind, she said. It was cyclone, typhoon, hurricane, or something. They never had that kind of plain wind in Cranbury, she said.

"Vanished in the storm," said Rachel dramatically. She held the little apartment house of the crickets in her hands. It was curiously mutilated and battered. It looked as though pins had been stuck in it.

"Well," said Uncle Bennie resignedly. "I'll have to catch some new ones."

On the day after the big blow the children went down to the beach early, not to go swimming, but to see what sort of waves there would be on a day like this with air so light they could practically float down the dune. And they saw a marvelous sight. The waves were as high as mountains and burst with a great white spray upon the sand. The sky and the ocean were a deep, clear, unbelievably beautiful blue. And all up and down the beach they saw enough driftwood, boxes, wooden poles, and logs to make not one but, if they wanted to, a dozen wagon taxies. They made a beeline for one large and marvelous deep wooden box. It looked like an old chest that had once held pirate gems and gold.

Jerry also found a handle of a shovel, perfect for the handle to his wagon taxi. "You know," said Jerry. "Some sailor may have clung to this. Perhaps it saved some sailor's life. It could have, you know."

"I know," said Rachel, awestricken and surveying the beach for a blue-clad, half-dead, staggering sailor.

The children plodded home with their finds, the big box, the shovel handle, and other prizes. Pinky was sitting on a windowsill, one paw daintily holding the thin curtain aside, and she watched the children with a welcoming, happy look. The effect of her bright pert face in the window was what she had expected. "Aw-w-w," they said. "We ought to have a picture of that."

Jerry set right to work on his wagon.
Bang! Bang!
The sound of his hammer echoed in the clear and sparkling air. Though Ginger did not like the noise and jumped every time the hammer struck, he remained loyally at Jerry's side. The big weather-beaten box fitted perfectly on the baby carriage wheels that Jerry had brought from across the bay. By noontime Jerry had built the best and roomiest taxi on the beach. He printed his name on it in clear deep blue letters, JARED PYE. Jared was Jerry's real name, and it looked better on a taxi than Jerry, which might have been confused with Berry and would then have given Touhy Tomlinson endless opportunities for teasing. "Hi, Berry!" he'd say. "What kind of berry pie did you say your name is? Blueberry Pye? Oh. Just Berry Pye." Jerry shuddered at the thought and made the JARED extra dark blue, to stand out.

In addition to being the best taxi for meeting boats, Jerry's taxi was a fine one in which to pull Rachel and Uncle Bennie. And sometimes the two of them could pull him. It was so deep Uncle Bennie almost disappeared inside. All you could see were his eyes. So Jerry put a small movable box in the front of it for the riders to sit on. Sometimes Jerry tied a rope around his waist for reins and pretended he was a pony. Sometimes he galloped very fast and sometimes he stopped short and wouldn't go at all, so Uncle Bennie had to crack the whip and make him giddyap.

Mama clasped her hands with joy at the idea of Uncle Bennie being carried around in a wagon. She thought now he would keep out of the poison ivy. The little twins in their peppermint-striped suits had waded in the poison ivy. "See? We don't get it," they said to Uncle Bennie. But after a while they did get it. "No, we don't care," they said. They didn't seem to feel anything, mosquito bites, poison ivy, or sunburn. And when the ocean was so cold that everyone else was frozen from the hips down, they said, "No, it's not cold."

Uncle Bennie had stopped caring about poison ivy too for a while, and he would hardly get rid of one patch when it would crop out somewhere else, so he began to care again. He was getting scared to touch any flower or shrub or even to pet Ginger or Pinky because, although they could not get poison ivy themselves, they could give it to him; and he was really getting tired of poison ivy.

"Stay in the wagon as much as possible," Mama urged Bennie. "What a nice wagon! Think of all the driftwood you can bring home in it for the fireplace. And when we go to the beach, we can pile it high with sweaters, and towels and things."

"O-o-oh," groaned the children. "From now on we'll take everything, just everything."

Sometimes Mama took even their winter overcoats to the beach in case the wind should shift suddenly and they should shiver. "With Jerry just over the measles and all..." she would say firmly when the children protested.

"I'm not just over the measles," said Jerry. "The measles were in May and now it is July."