Part 9

“That’s right,” said Mom. “It was a root cellar. Great-grandmother searched carefully, but the potatoes were gone, and the carrot bin was empty. The last of the turnips and pumpkins had been used in March. There never was a root cellar that looked more like Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. She picked up her candle and started to leave when she spied a crock jar in a far corner.

“‘Why they’re apples,’ she exclaimed. ‘Enough dried apples to make a pie, if only I had some sugar.’ She didn’t tell her husband about what she had found. I’ll wait until the sugar barrel comes, she thought, and surprise him.

“At last the rain stopped and the sun and the wind dried the fields and the trails. The road to Sturgeon Bay was open, and Great-grandfather started off with the ox team and the big-wheeled wagon. The trip took two days, and on the evening of the second day the creaking of the wagon wheels and the lowing of the oxen announced his return.

“How happy they were to be all together again. Great-grandfather picked the children up and swung them in the air. The little girls each got a stick of striped peppermint candy and Nick got a mouth organ. Great-grandmother got a length of calico for a new dress.

“After supper they sat in the dooryard enjoying the mild spring evening. Nick almost learned to play Yankee Doodle, and he entertained them while his father talked of the news at the settlement.

“‘I saw a Boston paper,’ he said. ‘The Texas treaty of annexation has been signed. Tyler will find himself in trouble over that. The Mexican government says it means war. The Indians have pulled out of the country along the shore of Lake Superior, and the white men are moving in fast. Bob McIntyre says that iron has been discovered at Marquette and copper at Kewanaw Point.’

“Great-grandfather leaned over and knocked the bowl of his pipe against a rock. ‘I heard something amusing, Mother,’ he said. ‘Folks say that a dentist in Hartford, Connecticut, has discovered a painless method of pulling teeth. Laughing gas, they call it. Ha! Ha! Did you ever hear of anything so far fetched?’

“‘What are they reading?’ asked Great-grandmother with her hand on her cheek.

“‘Reading, indeed,’ said her husband. ‘Sure, and they’re all too busy for that, but if it was reading they had time for it would be a book by a Frenchman, Alexander Dumas.’

“‘Yes,’ said Great-grandmother, leaning forward. ‘What is the name of the book?’

“‘It’s a novel,’ said Great-grandfather, ‘by the name of “The Count of Monte Cristo”, but that,’ he continued, ‘is of no real importance. Something wonderful and strange has happened that will conquer the space of loneliness of this great country more than anything that has happened so far. A man by the name of Morse has built a telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington. Imagine that, over forty miles.’

“‘Did he send a message?’ asked Great-grandmother. ‘What did he say?’

“Great-grandfather looked up at the first star. He said, ‘What hath God wrought?’

“Bright and early the next morning Great-grandmother took a hatchet and opened the sugar barrel. She sent Nick to the root cellar for a crock of dried apples, and she worked busily at her pie. The children stood around and watched her. My! it smelled good.

“Just as it was time for the pie to come out of the oven there was a click of the latch and who should walk in but Ninnecons and Shabeno. Oh bother, thought Great-grandmother. They will sit here all day unless I give them some, and if I cut it up there won’t be enough for Johnny when he comes home for his dinner. There are no apples to make another. Perhaps it will go around if I give them extra small pieces. She bent over the oven and lifted out the most luscious, mouth-watering apple pie that you ever saw. The Indians had never smelled anything half so good. Their nostrils widened, and their black beady eyes shone.

“Great-grandmother carried it proudly over to the open window, and placed it on the sill. ‘You mustn’t come too close,’ she warned the eager children. ‘It’s very hot, and you might burn yourselves.’

“‘Oh please, Mother. When may we have some?’

“‘When your father comes in from the fields at noon.’

“The Indians sat against the wall and smoked silently, and the children played on the floor. Suddenly little Katy pointed and screamed and Mom rushed to the window. There facing her, was a great, shaggy, brown bear! He stood up on his hind legs, and right before her astonished eyes he picked up the pie in his paws and ran off with it.

“Now, your pioneer ancestor didn’t stop to think of the bear as a dangerous animal. All that she knew was that a thief was making off with her precious pie.

“‘Stop!’ she cried, picking up her rolling pin. ‘Don’t you dare run off with my pie!’

“The solemn Indians and the goggle-eyed children followed her outside. Across the clearing they raced, the great upright bear with the pie in his paws, and the angry little woman brandishing her rolling pin.

“‘Stop! Stop!’ she called out. ‘Put that pie down this instant!’

“Then something wonderful happened. The heat of the pie tin penetrated the thick leathery paws of the bear and burned him. With a roar of fright, he dropped the pie and disappeared into the woods at the edge of the clearing.

“Triumphantly, Great-grandmother picked up the pie with the edges of her apron, and bore it back to her admiring family and friends. She cut a small piece for each of the Indians and they went their way. When her husband came in for dinner he roared with laughter.

“‘Janey, Janey,’ he cried, slapping his knee with the palm of his hand. ‘What a wonder you are! I knew that you had complete mastery over me and the children, but I didn’t know that the wild beasts of the forest obeyed you!’

“Ninnecons and Shabeno were profoundly impressed. The story spread through all that part of the country, and from then on, when the Indians spoke of Great-grandmother, they called her Wee-a-gon-hee-meechie, which means ‘small squaw who chased large bear.’”

The fire was almost out. The children stirred sleepily. Daddy rose and helped Mom to her feet.

“Thank you, my dear. That was a very fine story. How does it happen that you know so much about my family?”

“Why that’s very easily explained,” answered Mom. “During the long summer evenings when Grandma and I are sitting on the porch she tells me everything of interest that has happened to the family as far back as she can remember.”

_Chapter Thirteen_

_An Honest Reward_

It was Saturday morning and James lay full length on the wicker davenport reading _Boy’s Life_ and yearning for a really sharp pocketknife so that he could whittle. “Just look at those penguins,” he said to Jane. “Boy, I’d surely like to make some like that.”

Mom was sitting at the end of the long table. She was making her grocery list. “I’ll give a prize,” she announced, “to whichever side has the cleanest bathhouse, the boys or the girls.”

“What is it going to be,” demanded James. “Candy?” Mom continued to write, and answered without raising her eyes. “I don’t know yet what it’s going to be, but I do know that _if_ it’s going to be, there’ll be a clean bathhouse first. My prize goes to the cleanest side.”

“Oh boy,” said Jane. “This is easy. I’ve got the cleanest side to start out with, because Mom and Aunt Claire don’t toss stuff on the floor like you boys do.”

“That’s no fair,” yelled James. “It’s a cheat!”

“It’s not a cheat,” retorted Jane. “I had all sorts of company on my side during the week and they left hairpins and face powder all over the place.”

Mom finished her grocery list and stood up to leave. “Well,” she said. “I’m still offering a prize. If you two would rather argue about it than win it, I’ll give the job to Davey and Bill instead.”

“No, no, Mom. We’ll take it. We’ll go right away,” and they ran in the direction of the bathhouse.

Jane opened the door and got to work. She swept the floor, wiped off the bench and even polished the mirror. While she was hanging fresh towels she called to James.

“Why don’t you hurry? Mom will be back from shopping, and I’ll win.”

“Aw, I could win with both hands tied behind my back. I can clean mine in five minutes and still win.”

He lay flat on the pier, idly kicking the boat back and forth, but all of a sudden he realized that his boasting wouldn’t take him much farther, because Jane had almost finished with her side and he still had everything to do. He sauntered over to the bathhouse, being careful to give the impression of great leisure, just as Jane emerged.

“I’ll win,” she said cockily. “You haven’t got a chance. You started too late.”

“Pooh, pooh,” said the master mind, but the minute her back was turned, he hurried as fast as he could. He was almost finished when Mom returned from shopping. All that was left was a pile of dust in the middle of the floor. Jane had taken the dust pan back to the cottage with her. If he swept it out on the brick steps he would be disqualified. He could pick it up in his hands and stuff it in his pockets, but there were no pockets in this suit. Mom was on her way across the lawn for inspection right this minute.

“Aha,” he thought, in a burst of pure mischief, and as quick as a wink he swept the remaining dust under the partition and over to the girl’s side. Broom in hand and eyes dancing, he stepped outside and bowed to Mom.

“Everything is in order, Mom,” he said. “I get the prize.”

Mom stepped inside the boy’s side and looked around carefully. “Very good,” she said. Then she stepped out and walked around to the girl’s side. She looked around carefully again. James giggled, expecting her to see the joke, but her face was grave as she noticed the dust spread fan-wise from under the partition.

“You have the cleanest bathhouse, James,” she said. “You win the prize,” and she gave him a candy bar.

James gulped. “But Mom....”

She looked at him in a funny sort of way, but she didn’t say any more, and then she walked up toward the house.

Janie was getting ready to go to Deerpath with the Landrys when the prize was announced, so her normal surprise and protest were somewhat muffled in the mild excitement of leaving.

That was the end of it. James felt baffled. He walked around with the candy bar in his hand. What was the matter with Mom? Couldn’t she see a joke?

The rest of the afternoon passed in a dull sort of way. Mom was busy with preparations for Sunday and she didn’t seem to pay any attention to him. Billy and Davey were fishing at the dam and Janie wasn’t home. He walked around with his face squinted up in a frown, kicking at tufts of grass.

“Maybe tonight I can finish my sunset,” he muttered.

Early in the season Aunt Claire gave James a piece of canvas and some tubes of oil paint.

“Paint the sunset,” she encouraged him. “You draw well and we have such beautiful sunsets out here. See what you can do.”

Every evening, as the sun sank, James hauled forth his canvas and brushes. He’d get everything organized for painting. The sun got splashed in the middle of the horizon, an oily red blob surrounded by sausage-like clouds in a glazed blue sky. His nose would wrinkle in a distressed sort of way.

“This isn’t the way Aunt Claire’s sunsets look.”

By the time he had mixed the right shade of purple for the low-banked clouds the sun had disappeared and he’d put everything away until the next evening. The next evening the clouds that had been fat and fluffy were long and wispy, and the rose colored sky of the night before would be changed to gold.

Hurriedly mixing his colors, he’d attempt to change his canvas to match the changed sunset, but again the magic colors eluded him and darkness came before he was finished.

“Creepers, I never can work fast enough. I’ll never finish this thing.”

As the days went by the canvas became more and more covered with paint, but James wasn’t cast down. He was always certain that the next night would see the finished picture.

On this Saturday night there was no sunset, only a solid bank of black storm clouds.

“Make everything fast,” called Dad. “We’re going to have a blow,” and then the sun appeared between a crack in the clouds.

“Hurry, boy, hurry,” called Dad. “Finish your picture.”

James ran for the paints. The many-colored clouds of previous attempts were hastily covered with black and gray. The sun peeped through as always, and a few quick strokes with a clean brush made a golden halo. The trees at the horizon were greenish black, and he finished the broad sweeps of leaden gray that were the lake just as the first rain hit him.

“Hurray,” he exulted. “I’ve got it! I’ve got it,” as he ran for the cottage holding the masterpiece over his head.

“That’s wonderful,” beamed Aunt Claire. “You’ve got real stick-to-it-iveness. You have talent, too, but persistence is more important. Let’s prop your sunset here on the floor against the wall so that everyone can see it.”

All evening James heard nothing but praise and admiration for his black sunset. By bed time he was beginning to feel pretty good, but then he reached his hand in his pocket and felt that old candy bar.

Sunday was always a quiet time at the lake. The grown folks sat around reading and taking naps, and even the children quieted down. Jane drove to church with Daddy and Aunt Claire. She wore her white dress, and her wide-brimmed floppy hat. All the way along there were folks going to church. Cars slid out of side roads and chortled and wheezed down farm lanes. They streamed up hill and down on the road to Deerpath. It would be fun, thought Jane, to watch them from a plane. They would look like a procession of shiny-backed beetles.

The church was crowded with summer people, and Daddy stopped at the door to speak to some folks he knew. Inside, it was dark and cool. The altars were filled with beautiful garden flowers. There were roses during June, and larkspur, then white gladioli and lilies, making the air heavy with their perfume. When the phlox and asters appeared Janie always knew it was time to start thinking about going back to town.

The windows were swung open, and inquisitive sparrows came to the ledge and looked in. Sometimes a fat bee would lumber about in the roses, and then take off, heavily, for the summer world outside. Janie thought of the psalm:

“I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of Thy house, And the place where Thy glory dwelleth.”

This must be the place, she thought, looking around her, here in a country church, with the doors and windows flung wide, filled with music, and fragrant with the flowers of a country garden.

On the way home they stopped at the drug store to buy a paper. Later breakfast was served on the terrace at the back of the cottage. It was another one of Mom’s romantic ideas. It wasn’t entirely practical. You see, the terrace wasn’t screened. Birds and butterflies entered at their will, also dogs and mosquitos and ordinary flies.

Buick, the neighbor’s dog, always enjoyed having breakfast on the terrace with the Murrays. He strolled over on this particular morning looking around for his old enemy, Butch. Not seeing him, he made straight for Janie’s chair. She absently gave him a piece of her coffee cake, and went on reading the funnies. Aunt Claire was always generous, so Buick looked pathetic and waited. Another piece of coffee cake dropped into his jaws, and he said “Thank-you” in dog fashion, and strolled over to Daddy’s chair.

Now, Daddy didn’t like dogs in general and Buick in particular. Not that he would ever hurt a dog, or even a fly for that matter. He just insulted them by ignoring them, and he was ignoring Buick completely just now. Deep in the sport page, he read with perfect concentration. Buick waited patiently, but no gifts were forthcoming. There was a lovely curled strip of bacon getting cold while Daddy read. It was so close to his moist black nose he could almost touch it. It smelled so good he quivered. Suddenly there was a black streak of flying dog, and a murderous roar out of Daddy. Buick and the bacon were gone.

“Bah!” Daddy fumed, shaking his paper in mock rage. “Butch is right in his instincts about that pup. He’s nothing but a low down bacon snitcher.”

In the afternoon Davey took Butch down to the lake front where they watched “old rubber-back” paddle about in his tub. The boys lay on the pier watching a sailboat race, and Janie took a pillow, an apple, and a book and made for her favorite perch. It was up in the branches of the old willow tree, right at the shore of the lake. The branches were as thick as a man’s arm, and worn smooth with the clambering of the Murray children. Ever since they were little Janie and the boys had played up there. You could see all over the lake. It was cool and quiet, and if you knew just how to prop your pillow, it was comfortable too. She took a big bite of apple and sighed contentedly. This is the kind of a Sunday afternoon I like, she thought.

James walked under her tree perch and glanced up.

“Can I come up, too, if I get a book?”

“You can, but may you?”

“Smarty!”

Jane laughed. “Come ahead. There’s room for the whole family.”

James ran for the cottage to get an apple and a book. The door of his room was closed. It was a pretty nice room, and he was very proud of it. It was always a comfortable place to come back to. As he opened the door he noticed that the radio was turned on and the windows were open. The pillows were plumped up in just the right way for reading. The bedspread was neatly drawn across the bed and the books had been restacked, and ... right in the middle of the room stood an enormous pile of dust!

He turned and ran to the front yard and climbed the tree where Jane was sitting. Much to her astonishment, he handed her a wrinkled, slightly melted candy bar.

_Chapter Fourteen_

_Dad Finds a Treasure_

Billy and Jane sat on the big stone posts at the gate swinging their legs and watching for the mailman. They tried to guess what he would bring.

“James will get his usual letter from that stamp dealer down east,” said Jane. “He will say: ‘Dear Mr. Murray, I received your want list, but you failed to include your money’ or he’ll say: ‘Dear Mr. Murray, I received your dollar and three cents, but you failed to include your want list. Please advise, etc.’” They laughed merrily at absent-minded James and his difficulties, and then Jane heard the familiar squeal of the mailman’s brakes.

“Here he comes,” she cried. “I’ll race you to the mailbox!” They jumped off the posts and ran across the road. Jane had the shorter distance, but Billy won by throwing himself full length on the grass and sliding to touch the post.

“Really, Billy,” panted Jane. “Sometimes you use the foulest and the most unfairest means....”

Billy hooted. “Foulest and unfairest!” Then, imitating her angry voice, he said, “Really, Jane, you use the most unusual adjectives!”

She threw a shoe at him, and he ran away laughing.

The mailman’s car slid in close to the mailbox. He had a brown face, all wrinkled from smiling. He was an usher at the little church in Deerpath, and when he passed the collection plate to Janie on Sunday his eyes crinkled up in a smile just as they did now when he passed the letters from box to box at the lake.

“Here you are, young lady,” he said. “Letters for everybody today.” There was “Popular Mechanics” for the boys, and a letter for Mom from a dress shop. There were some letters for Daddy in long business envelopes and a post card for Davey. At the bottom of the heap was a square envelope addressed to:

Miss Jane Murray, Oak Lake, Wisconsin. R. R. 1

“From Dor,” Janie exclaimed, and sat down on the grass to read it.

Hi, Janie,

How are you? I am fine. My mother is going to Michigan tomorrow, and I’d like to come to visit you for a few days. I will come on the five o’clock bus, Your loving friend, Dor

Janie gathered her mail together and ran down to the cottage with her news. “Here you are, my wonderful family,” she said. “Mail for all of you.” Mom sat down to glance at her letter and the boys tore the wrapper from their magazine. Davey’s post card was from a school friend, and he chuckled at the picture on the cover. It was a garish scene of an over-sized fish leaping into a row boat with a frightened fisherman. “Look,” he said, “at the big fish Greenie caught.”

Janie waited for Mom to finish, and then she burst out with, “May Dor come? I have a letter from her. May she come tomorrow?”

Mom blinked at the suddenness of it all, and put her glasses on the table. “Why yes, of course. I’d be glad to have her. What does she say?” Jane handed her the letter, and she glanced through it quickly. Then she smiled.

“It’s not tomorrow,” she said. “It’s today. This letter was written yesterday. She’ll be out on the five o’clock bus this afternoon.”

The boys were deeply absorbed in a marvelous invention that would make an iceboat out of an old baby carriage. Jane grinned and put her finger to her lips. “Don’t tell them,” she said to Mom. “They weren’t paying attention to what we said.”

She held out her arms for Butch. “Come, my little brown friend. Let’s go down to the pier and catch flies.” She stretched out on the hot boards and dreamed in the sun. Butchie scrambled around on the braces under the pier, snatching at shadows and frightening schools of timid minnows. In a little while the boys came down and jumped into the boat and rowed away. Janie stretched lazily. Two weeks from today, she thought, I’ll be back in school. It doesn’t seem possible. Why the summer has just begun. I don’t like to leave this. The sky will be just as blue when we’re gone, and the water will be just as warm. Of course school won’t be too bad, and this year there’ll be dancing class. I’ll waltz and waltz (she dreamed), in a pink tulle gown, with pale pink ostrich feathers in my hair.

_Bump...._ The boys banged into the pier full force with the boat and Janie sat straight up.

“Hey, hey!” she yelled. “What are you trying to do, break the pier down? Why are you back so soon? I thought you were going fishing.”

The boys laughed at her confusion. “We caught something right away,” said Billy, “so we brought it back. Hold it up James.”

It was a small green turtle. His curved green legs pawed the air as James held him up, and his under shell was red, green, and yellow in a most interesting pattern.

“I’m going to bring him back to town and give him to Robin,” said James. “He can keep him in his bathtub.”

“I guess his Grandmother will have something to say about that,” said Jane primly.

“Well,” James argued, “why should she care if the turtle stays in the bathtub? Turtles are clean. They’re almost the cleanest creatures in the whole world, and she could lift him up if someone wanted to take a bath, couldn’t she?”

“Maybe it’s a snapper,” said Jane. “You wouldn’t like it if Robin’s Grandmother had her finger snapped off by a turtle, would you?”

“Aw,” said James in disgust. “You’re always thinking of something like that,” and gathering his turtle and his fishing tackle up in his arms, he started away. Just as he left the pier he turned and narrowed his eyes. With just one word he summed up what he thought of Jane, her arguments, her ideas, and her contemporaries.

“Dames ...” he said, witheringly.

Janie turned and hid her face in her arms, and laughed until she shook. Then she gathered up Butchie and ran for the cottage.

Grandma was peeling green apples for pie. “Grandma,” she said. “Have you noticed that this summer has been much too short?”