Mr. Wicker's Window

When Chris came to himself he woke from sleep and lay for a moment without opening his eyes. He waited with his usual sense of irritation for Aunt Rachel's step at the door, and...

It was perhaps as well that Chris had more than enough to think of. Otherwise the wrench at leaving home might have been even more distressing than it was. His last day passed l...

A mouse streaked out the door of the Captain's cabin and did not stop until it reached the farther end of the _Vulture_, where it hid quaking behind someone's old shoe. The litt...

Chris had always known, tucked away somewhere out of sight at the back of his heart and his mind, that he loved his country and his city. But he had never given it much thought;...

The smoke of the guns of both ships so hung upon the air that Chris counted on its heavy curtain to screen him from his enemies. He swam to the far side of the attacking vessel...

Exhausted as he was by his long vigil and the effort needed to change his shape, it was another hour or more before Chris could sleep that night. The sound of that heavy but hel...

Chris stood for a moment before the closed door of Mr. Wicker's study. His head was full of the story of Becky Boozer's hat or he might have glimpsed the room beside him--for th...

"Say--you know sumthin'?" Mike wiggled himself across part of the Pep Boys' window to gain Chris's attention. "Old Wicker's got a sign in his window--he needs a boy. For after s...

When Chris awoke he saw that Amos had already stolen out of the cabin, for his hammock was rolled up and put away. By the strength of the sun and the heat that seeped even throu...

"Well now," began Cilley, "that's a tale that not everyone knows, don't you see. And Mistress Becky would not care to be reminded of it, mark you, for reasons I shall shortly te...

As soon as the night was dark enough, Chris loudly complained of not feeling well--of being hot and dizzy, and in no time Captain Blizzard had, as loudly, told him he was to go...

The last reverberations of sound hung in the air and jangled in Chris's head. Of the many times he had examined Mr. Wicker's window and pored over the rope, the ship and the Nub...

Barely were the last spadefuls of sand packed down into Zachary Heigh's grave when Amos, who had wandered to the beach facing the sea and long outer shoreline, sang out: "Ship a...

"I'm supposed to take something from her," Chris said with his eyes sparkling, "but I know now what I'm going to give her back in return. I feel sort of sorry for that girl," he...

The time had come when Chris could go out beyond the confines of Mr. Wicker's gardens. It was a bright fall day when Amos and he stepped out the kitchen door. Becky Boozer's hug...

The captain, turning quickly, bellowed for all hands to come on deck. When they were assembled below him he spoke. "Men, you have followed me for many a voyage and I have always...

Chris and Amos lay belly down in a low clump of pine scrub at the top of a precipitous rocky pinnacle. Below them in the blistering noon lay the palace walls of the Lord of the...

It was not until Chris, relieved, proud and happy at the success of his mission, opened his sea chest and took out the shell that he had the faintest vibration of trouble or dan...

Chris returned happily to his chair and curled up in it as if he were at home. Even Mr. Wicker's expression seemed to have changed, and as a matter of fact it had, for the relie...

Chris was so startled at his usually gentle master's tone that without further thought or effort on his part, he began intoning to himself the words and sounds of Incantation 73...

From that time on Chris and Amos were inseparable, with the exception of those times when Chris studied alone with Mr. Wicker. Amos, during these hours, soon endeared himself to...

As the Mirabelle sailed farther into tropical seas, Chris and Amos worked out a pattern for their days. Before sunup, while the air was still cool from the night, the two boys w...

The night was too clear to suit Chris for the dangerous work that lay ahead. The eagle bore him up again from the garden, and turning back, lifted high in the air as it neared t...

Barely were Claggett Chew and Osterbridge Hawsey out of sight, when Chris simultaneously became aware of two things. One was the deep throbbing ache of the whip cut, so painful...

The two boys came out toward the mouth of Rock Creek and as the woods thinned, they saw ahead of them a sandy sloping bank on which a small boat was drawn up. Around the coals o...

The tropic coolness of the night intensified as the hours advanced. An added freshness swept out from the shore carrying its scent of flowers and earth. The feasting pirates had...

The shop was dark but headlights flashed by out on Wisconsin Avenue, glaring over the meager display of objects in Mr. Wicker's window. There seemed even fewer objects than befo...

Amos and Christopher were kept out of sight until Mr. Wicker's ship was several days out to sea, for the crew, not knowing that the success of their voyage depended on Chris, wo...

"Come along, Amos! We must get a closer look at that ship!" Chris cried, putting his glass away. Scrambling down, the two boys ran along the stream until it was shallow enough t...

"Show them in, Becky," Mr. Wicker told her. To Chris he said, "I wonder what brings them here so early? It must be a matter of some importance. Stay with me, Christopher. I shal...

Chris's thoughts were so taken up with the pleasure of the little Chinese Princess at her first rose that he had miscalculated. As a matter of fact he had forgotten about the gu...

"I know that all this--" he waved a hand to take in not only the room but, Chris thought, the different time as well, "--all this seems impossible to understand." He paused, pon...

Claggett Chew possessed a face and bearing not easily forgotten. A giant of a man, standing well over six feet three, he stood bareheaded in the morning sun. Contrary to the cus...

What fun this was! Chris gave a chuckle out loud. What a chance--to see what once had been! He was enjoying himself increasingly as he glanced down at the activity along the riv...

Safe on the _Mirabelle_, Chris, exhausted and increasingly conscious of the pain of the whiplash, took his own shape with sighs of thankfulness and looked about him. A wind was...

The learning of magic was by no means easy. The days went by with Chris's mornings and afternoons spent in Mr. Wicker's study, reading books too heavy for him to lift, learning...

In the kitchen, Chris leaned against the corner of the passage and kitchen wall to watch Becky at her tasks. How different from the compact white kitchen they had at home! And y...

Christopher Mason felt numb. It seemed to him that he was as good as an orphan already, for his father, a Commander in the Navy, was far away at sea, and Chris's mother was in a...