Chapter 9

Our Uncle Peter came instead in an automobile and took Tiger Lily and Carol and me to the city.

"Of course he isn't exactly a 'little dog,'" we admitted. "But at least he's a dog! And at least he 'can't sleep'!"

"Well--I wonder," said our Uncle Peter. He seemed very pleased to wonder about it. He twisted his head on one side and looked at Tiger Lily. "What do you mean,--'doesn't sleep'?" he said.

Because my brother Carol is dumb and never talks I always have to do the explaining. It was easy to explain about Tiger Lily.

"Why when you're in bed and fast asleep," I explained, "he comes and puts his nose in your neck! It feels wet! It's full of sighs and a cool breeze! It makes you jump and want your Mother!--All the rest of the time at night he's roaming! And prowling! And s'ploring!--Up the front stairs and down the back--and up the front and down the back!--Every window he comes to he stops and listens! And listens!--His toe-nails have never been cut!--It sounds lonely!"

"What does he seem to be listening for?" said our Uncle Peter.

"Listening for gun-bangs," I explained.

"O--h," said our Uncle Peter.

The city was full of noises like gun-bangs. It made Tiger Lily very nervous. He tried to get under everything. It took us most all the afternoon to get him out.

The little boy's name was Dicky. He wasn't at home. "Come again," said the man at the door. We came again about eight o'clock at night. It seemed as late as Christmas Eve and sort of lonely without our Parents or any other presents. We had to climb a lot of stairs. It made Tiger Lily puff a little and look very glad. It made our Uncle Peter puff some too. It made the little boy's Mother puff a good deal. There wasn't any Father. The Mother was all in black about it. Her clothes looked very sorrowful. But her face was just sort of surprised. She had white hands. She carried them all curved up like pond-lilies. She was pretty. Even if you'd never seen her but once in a train window you'd always have remembered.

The little boy's room was very large and full of lights. There were tinkly glass things hanging everywhere. There was a music-box playing. There was a tin railroad train running round and round the room all by itself making a bangy noise. There was a wound-up bird in a toy cage crying "Hi! Hi!" There was a crackling fire. Everything was tinkling or playing or singing or banging or crackling. It sounded busy. You had to talk very loud to make any one hear you.

The little boy sat on top of a table in a big bay window looking out at the night. His knees were all cuddled up into the curve of his arms. He had on a little red wrapper and bare legs and fur slippers. He was lots littler than us. He looked cunning.

We stamped our feet on the rug.

"Here's your dog!" I said.

When the little boy saw Tiger Lilly he jumped right down from the table and screamed. It was with joy that he screamed. He threw his arms right around Tiger Lily's neck and screamed all over again. Tiger Lily liked it very much.

"What makes his paws so fluffy?" he screamed. "How soft his face is! He's got sweet eyes! He's got a sad tail! What's his name? Where did you get him? Is he for me? Do I have to pay money for him? What does he eat? Will he drink coffee?" Just as though he was mad about something he began suddenly to jump up and down and cry tears. "Why doesn't somebody answer me?" he screamed. "Why doesn't somebody tell me?"

He got so excited about it that he hit Carol on the nose and blooded him quite a good deal.

The little boy's mother came running.

"Oh hush--hush, Dicky!" she cried. "Don't be in such a hurry! The boy will tell you all about it in time! Give him time I say! Give him time!"

"No he won't," I explained. "My brother Carol never tells anything. He can't."

"He's--dumb," said our Uncle Peter.

The Lady looked sort of queer.

"Oh dear--Oh dear--Oh dear," she said. "What a misfortune!"

Our Uncle Peter sort of sniffed his expression.

"Misfortune?" he said. "I call it the greatest blessing in the world!" He glared at little Dicky. "Yes the greatest blessing in the world!" he said. "A child who doesn't babble or fuss!--Or SCREAM!"

The Lady looked more and more surprised. She turned to the little boy.

"'Dumb,' Dicky," she said. "You understand? Doesn't speak?"

Dicky looked at his Mother. He looked at Carol. A little pucker came and blacked itself between his eyebrows. As though to toss the pucker away he tossed back his whole head and ran to Tiger Lily and threw his arms around Tiger Lily's neck.

"Doesn't----EVER?" he said.

"Doesn't ever--what?" said our Uncle Peter.

"Sleep?" said Dicky.

"It was the boy we were talking about," laughed his Mother. "Not the doggie." She tried to put her arms around him.

He wiggled right out of them and ran back to Tiger Lily.

"Is it his adenoids?" he cried. "Have you had his eyes tested? How do you know but what it's his teeth?"

"Whose teeth?" frowned our Uncle Peter.

"Tiger Lily's!" cried Dicky.

His Mother made a sorry sound in her throat.

"Poor Dicky," she said. "He's had most everything done to him!--Tonsils,--spine,--eyes,--ears,--teeth!--Why the last Doctor I saw was almost positive that the Insomnia was due entirely to--" In the very middle of what it was due to she turned to our Uncle Peter. Her voice got very private. Our Uncle Peter had to stoop his head to hear it. He had a proud head. It didn't stoop very easily.

"He isn't my own little boy," she whispered.

As though his ears were magic the little boy looked up and grinned. His eyes looked naughty.

"Nobody's own little boy," he said. "Nobody's own little boy!" As though it was a song without any tune he began to sing it. "Nobody's--Nobody's own little boy!"

The Lady tried to stop him. He struck at her with his feet. It made a hurt on her arm. He snatched Tiger Lily by the collar and started for the door.

"Going to find Cook and get a bone!" he said. He said it like a boast. He slammed the door behind him. It made a rude noise. He came running back and looked a little sorry, but mostly bashful. He pointed at Tiger Lily. "What--What's HE afraid of?" he said.

"Noises," I explained.

"Noises?" cried the little boy. He cried it with a sort of a hoot. It sounded scornful.

"Oh pshaw!" he said. "There isn't a noise in the world that I'm afraid of! Not thunder! Not guns! Not ANYTHING! Noises are my friends! In the night I take torpedoes and crack 'em on the hearth just to hear them sputter! I've got three tin pans tied on a string! I've got a pop-gun!"

He ran back to the table to get the gun. It was a nice gun. It was painted bright blue. It looked loud.

When Tiger Lily saw it he dove under the bed. It was hard to get him out. The little boy looked very astonished.

"It's gun-bangs--specially--that Tiger Lily is afraid of," I explained.

"Gun-bangs?" said the little boy.

"That's why he can't ever hunt," I explained.

"Hunt?" said the little boy. "Not--ever you mean?" He looked at Tiger Lily. He looked at the blue pop-gun. "Not ever? Ever? Ever?" Way down in his little fur slippers it was as though a little sigh started and shivered itself up-up-up--up till it reached his smile. It made his smile sort of wobbly. "Oh all right!" he said and ran away as fast as he could to hide the blue pop-gun in the bottom of the closet. A velocipede he piled on top of it and two pillows and a Noah's Ark and a stuffed squirrel. When the piling was all done he looked back at our Uncle Peter. It was across one shoulder that he looked back. It made his little smile look twisty as well as wobbly. One of his eyebrows had crooked itself. "It's--It's SILENCES that I'm afraid of," he said.

He grabbed Tiger Lily by the collar again and started for the door. As though he was playing a Game he reached out one finger and tagged everybody as he passed them. Everybody except Carol. When he started to tag Carol he snatched back his finger and screamed instead. "He's a Silence!" he screamed. "He's a Silence!" Still holding tight to Tiger Lily's collar he ran for the stairs.

Flop-Flop-Flop his little fur slippers thudded on the hard wood floor. Tick-Tick-Tick Lily's toe-nails clicked along beside him. It sounded cool. And slippery.

His Mother wrung her hands. It seemed to be with despair that she wrung them.

"Yes that's just it," she despaired. "It's 'Silences' that he's afraid of! That's what keeps him awake all night banging at things! That's what worries him so!"

"But he gave up the noisy pop-gun," said our Uncle Peter. "Gave it up of his own accord when he saw that it frightened the dog."

"Why so he did!" said the Mother. She seemed very much surprised. "Why so he did!--Why I don't know that I ever knew him to give up anything before. He's been so delicate--and--and the only child and everything--I'm afraid we've spoiled him."

"U--m--m," said our Uncle Peter.

"And all the circumstances of the case are so bewildering," despaired the lady.

Like white pond-lilies floating in a black gloom her sad hands curled in her lap. It seemed to be at our Uncle Peter that they curled.

"Are they indeed?" said our Uncle Peter. It was the "circumstances" that he meant.

"Very bewildering," said the Lady. Her cheeks got a little pink. She jumped up and went to the door and listened a minute at the head of the stairs. When she came back to her chair she shut the door behind her.

"As I told you," she whispered, "the little boy isn't my own little boy."

"So I understood," said our Uncle Peter.

"His Mother died when he was born," said the Lady.

"Very sad indeed," said our Uncle Peter.

"Dicky is six years old," said the Lady. "I married his Father a year and a half ago. His Father was killed in an accident a year ago--"

"Oh dear--Oh dear," said our Uncle Peter.

The Lady began all over again as though it was a lesson.

"Dicky is six years old," she said. "I married his Father a year and a half ago. He was killed in an accident a year ago. It was all so sudden,--the marriage,--the accident,--everything--!" She began to cry a little. It made her clothes look sorrowfuller and sorrowfuller and her face more and more surprised. Once again she curled up her white pond-lily hands at our Uncle Peter. It was as though she thought that our Uncle Peter could help her perhaps with some of her surprises. "I--I didn't know his Father very long," she cried. "I never knew his Mother at all!----It's--It's pretty bewildering," she said, "to be left all alone--for life--with a perfectly, strange little boy--who isn't any relation at all!--All his funny little suits to worry about--and his mumps and his measles--and--and whether he ought to play marbles 'for keeps'--and shall I send him to college or not? And suppose he turns out a burglar or something dreadful like that?--And how in the world am I going to tackle his first love affair? Or his choice of a profession?--Merciful Heavens!--Perhaps he'll want to fly!"

"Why--you're just like a Hen," said our Uncle Peter.

The Lady didn't like to be called a Hen.

It ruffled her all up.

Our Uncle Peter had to talk about Base Ball to soothe her.

The Lady didn't know anything about Base Ball but it seemed to soothe her considerably to hear about it.

When our Uncle Peter was all through soothing her she looked up as pleasant as pleasant could be.

"WHY?" she said.

"Why--what?" said our Uncle Peter. He seemed a little perplexed.

"Why--am I like a Hen?" said the Lady.

"O--h," said our Uncle Peter. He acted very much relieved. "O--h," he said. "I was afraid it was something you were going to ask me about Base Ball. But a Hen----?" He looked with smiles at the Lady. "Oh but a Hen--?--Why even a Hen, my dear Madam," he smiled, "a real professional true-enough hen doesn't take any too easily to the actual chick itself until she's served a certain sit-tightly, go-lightly, egg-shell sort of apprenticeship as it were to the IDEA.--Thrust a bunch of chicks under her before she's served this apprenticeship and----"

I jumped up and down and clapped my hands. I just couldn't help it.

"Oh, I know what happens!" I cried. "She sits too heavy! And squashes 'em perfectly flat!--There was a hen," I cried. "Her name was Lizzie! She was a good hen! But childless! The Grocer gave us some day-old chicks to put under her! But when we went out to the nest the next morning to see 'em--they couldn't have been flatter if they'd been pressed in the Bible!--My Brother Carol cried,--I cried,--my Mother----"

"I don't care at all who cried," said the Lady. It was true. She didn't. All she cared was to look at our Uncle Peter. The look was a stern look.

"And are you trying to imply, Mr.--Mr.--?"

"Merredith," said our Uncle Peter. "Percival Merredith.--'Uncle Peter' for short."

"Mr. Merredith," repeated the Lady coldly. "Are you trying to imply that my----step-son looks as though he had been pressed in a--a--Bible?"

I shook in my boots. Carol shook in his boots. You could hear us.

Our Uncle Peter never shook a bit. He just twinkled.

"Well--hardly," he said.

The Lady looked pretty surprised. When she wasn't looking surprised she looked thoughtful.

Her voice sounded little when she got it started again.

"Maybe--Maybe I DO take my responsibilities too heavily," she said. "But it's this--this sleeping business that worries me so."

"I should think it would," said our Uncle Peter.

"No Nurse Maid will stay with me," said the Lady. "They say it gives them the creeps.--It's enough to give anyone the creeps.--A grown person of course expects a certain amount of wakefulness, but a child,--a little care-free--heedless child--? Just when you think you've got him safely to sleep--all cuddled up in your own bed or even in his own bed--and are just drowsing off into the first real sleep you've had for a week--?--Patter--Patter--Patter in the hall! Creak--Creak--Creak on the stairs! A chair bumped over in the Library!--Bumped over on purpose you understand! Just to make a noise! 'Noises are his friends,' he says. Why once--once--" The Lady's mouth smiled a little. "Once when I woke and missed him and hunted everywhere--I found him at last in the Pantry--on the floor--with his ear cuddled close up to a mouse-hole! Mouse-Nibble Noises he says are his special friends in the middle of the night when there isn't anything else.--ANYTHING to break the silence it seems to be!--Why in the world should he be afraid of a Silence? Nobody can account for it!"

"Possibly not," said our Uncle Peter. "Yet the fact remains that either within or just outside the borders of his consciousness the only two people responsible for his Being have disappeared unaccountably into a Silence----from which they have not returned."

"Oh dear," said the Lady. "I never thought of that! You mean--You mean--that perhaps he thinks that a Silence is a Hole that you might fall into if you don't fill it up with a Noise? Why the poor little fellow!--How in the world is one ever to tell?--Oh dear--Oh dear----" She sank back in her chair and floated her hands in her lap. Her eyes looked as though she was going to cry again. But she didn't cry. That is, not much. Mostly she just sighed. "It isn't as though he was an easy child to understand," she sighed. "He catches cold so easily, and mumps and everything.--And he's so irritable.--He kicks,--he bites,--he scratches!"

"So I have seen demonstrated," said our Uncle Peter.

"Oh, it's quite evident," cried the Lady, "that you think I'm harsh with him!--But whatever in the world would YOU do?" She threw out her hands toward the pretty room,--the rugs,--the pictures,--the fire,--the toys. "Perhaps you can tell me what he NEEDS?" she said.

"A good spanking," said our Uncle Peter.

The Lady gave a little gasp.

"Oh, not for punishment," said our Uncle Peter. "But just for exercise.--It's the only exercise that a lot of pampered, sedentary children ever get!"

"P--Pampered?" gasped the Lady. "S--Sed--entary?" As though her head was bursting with the noises all around the room she clapped her hands over her ears.

Our Uncle Peter jumped up from his chair and began to chase the little tin railroad train. It looked funny to see so large a man running after so small a train. When he caught it it was having a railroad accident in the tunnel under the table where a book had fallen on the track. Like a beetle with no paint on its stomach he left it lying on its back with its little wheels kicking in the air.

"If only all the racket was as easily disposed of!" said the Lady.

"It IS!" said our Uncle Peter.

Like turning off faucets of water he turned off the noises one by one,--the window-breeze that made the glass dangles tinkle,--the funny jiggly spring that kept the toy bird screaming "Hi-Hi" in its wicker cake,--the music box that tooted horns and beat drums right in the middle of its best tunes! He looked like a giant stalking through the Noah's Ark animals! His foot was longer than the village store!

"If only I figured as largely in a less miniature world!" he said.

He looked at the Lady very hard when he said it as though he was saying something very important.

The Lady didn't seem to consider it important at all. She looked at her skirts instead and smoothed them very tidily.

"It's a--It's a pleasant day--isn't it?" said our Uncle Peter.

"V--very," said the Lady. Quite suddenly she looked up at him. Her cheeks were pink. She seemed to want to speak but didn't know quite how. She looked more surprised than ever. She bent forward very suddenly and stared and stared at him.

"Why--Why you're the gentleman," she said, "who was in the Fruit Store the day I bought the Alligator pears and dropped my pocket-book down behind the trash-barrel?"

"Also the day you bought the Red Mackintosh Apples," said our Uncle Peter. "The Grocer cheated you outrageously on them.--Also the day you wore the bunch of white violets and pricked your finger so brutally,--also the day on the ferry when there was a slight collision with a tug-boat and I had the privilege of--of----."

The Lady looked very haughty.

"It was the day of the Alligator Pears--that I referred to," she said. "The only day in my recollection!" Very positively she said it,--"the only day in my recollection." But all the time that she said it her cheeks got pinker and pinker. It was when she looked in the glass and saw how mistaken her positiveness looked that her cheeks got so pink. Tap--Tap--Tap her foot stamped on the rug. "Did--Did you know who it was going to be----when you brought the dog?" she said. "That is,--did you know when you first saw the advertisement in the paper." Her white forehead got all black and frowny. "How in the world did you know--my name?" she said.

Our Uncle Peter made an expression on his face. It was the expression that our Mother calls his "Third-Helping-of-Apple-Pie Expression,"--bold and unashamed.

"I asked the Grocer," he said.

"It was a--a great liberty," said the Lady.

"Was it?" said our Uncle Peter. He didn't seem as sorry as you'd have expected.

The Lady looked at Carol. The Lady looked at me.

"How many children have you?" she said.

"None of my own," said our Uncle Peter. "But three of my brother Philip's,--Carol and Ruthy as here observed, and Rosalee aet. eighteen who is at present in Cuba engaging herself to be married."

"O--h," said the Lady.

"I am in short," said our Uncle Peter, "that object of Romance and Pity popularly known as a 'Bachelor Uncle.'"

"O--h," said the Lady. She seemed more relieved than you'd have supposed.

"But in my own case, of course--" said our Uncle Peter.

In the very midst of his own case he stopped right off short to look all around the room again as though he was counting how heavy the toys were and how heavy the money was that had bought the toys. All the twinkle came back to his eyes.

"But in my own case," he said, "I've always known ahead--of course--for a very long time--that I was going to have 'em.--Learned to sit lightly on the idea,--re-balance my prejudices,--re-adjust my--"

"Have--what?" gasped the Lady.

"Nephews and nieces," said our Uncle Peter.

"O--h," said the Lady.

"Had their names all selected I mean," explained our Uncle Peter. "Their virtues, their vices, their avocations, all decided upon.----Ruthy of course might have done with less freckles, and Carol here doesn't quite come up to specifications yet concerning muscle and brawn--and it was never my original intention of course that any young whipper-snapper niece of mine should engage herself to the first boy she fell in love with.--But taken all in all,--all in all I say--"

"I think," frowned the Lady, "you are perfectly----absurd."

The word "absurd" didn't seem to be at all the word she meant to say. She tried to bite it back but got it all mixed up with a little giggle. She bit the giggle instead. It twisted her mouth like a bitter taste.

Our Uncle Peter looked very sympathetic.

"You ought to get away somewhere on a journey," he said. "There's nothing like it as a tonic for the mind. Even if it's a place you don't like very much it clarifies the vision so,--dissipates all one's minor worries."

"--Minor worries?" said the Lady.

"Travel! Yes that's the thing!" said our Uncle Peter quite positively. All in a minute he seemed to rustle with time tables and maps and smell of cinders and railroad tickets. "Now there's Bermuda for instance!" he suggested. "Just a month of blue waters and white sand would put the roses back in your cheeks.--And Dicky--"

"Impossible," said the Lady.

"Or if Bermuda's too far," insisted our Uncle Peter. "What about Atlantic City? Think how Dicky would enjoy romping on the board walk--while you followed more sedately of course in a luxurious wheel chair!--The most diverting place in the world!--Yes quite surely you must go to Atlantic City!"

The Lady made a little gasp as though her Patience was bursted.

"You don't seem to understand," she said. "I tell you it's quite impossible!"

"W-H-Y?" said our Uncle Peter. He said it sharply like a Teacher. It HAD to be answered.

The Lady looked up. She looked down. She looked sideways. She wrung her hands in her lap. Her face got sort of white.

"It isn't very kind of you," she said, "to force me so to a confession of poverty."

"'Poverty'?" laughed our Uncle Peter. He looked around at the furniture,--at the toys,--at the pictures. It was at most everything that he looked around. He seemed to be very cheerful about it.

The Lady didn't like his cheerfulness.

"Oh I've always had a little for myself," she explained. "Enough for one person to live very simply on. But NOW----? With this strange little boy on my hands,--I--I intend to go to work!"

"Go to----work?" said our Uncle Peter. "WORK?" He said it with a sort of a hoot. "Work? Work? Why, what in the world could YOU do?"

"I can crochet," said the Lady proudly. "And embroider. I can mend. I can play the piano. And really you know I can make the most beautiful pies."

"Apple pies," said our Uncle Peter.

"Apple pies," said the Lady. Like a handful of black tissue paper she crumpled up suddenly in her chair. Her shoulders shook and shook. The sound she made was like a sob going down and a laugh coming up. "I'm not crying," she said, "because it's so hard--but b--because the idea is so f--funny."

"F--F--Funny?" said our Uncle Peter. "It's preposterous! It's gro--tesque! It's--it's fantastic!"

He began to walk very fast from the book-case to the window and from the window back to the book-case again. It wasn't till he'd stubbed his toe twice on a toy Ferris Wheel that the twinkle came back to his eyes.

"Carol!" he said. "Ruthy!--In consideration of the reduced circumstances in which this very pleasant Lady finds herself don't you think that you could afford to offer her a reduced price on the dog,--your original profit on the deal being as noted $49.50?"

The Lady jumped to her feet.