Part 9

"So I agree with you now," Julian admitted handsomely. "It was idiotic and it was stupid and it was asinine. There. That satisfy you?"

"Sure. I guess so. Anyway, we've still got something to eat. That's one good thing."

They had another snack in the pitch dark, and Uncle Sam was glad to share it with them, but it caused Julian to remember about being thirsty.

The thunder had rolled itself away; the lightning was gone; but luckily the rain was heavy. It poured in a stream from the broken gutter above the window.

"Hold me by the belt, Tom, will you, and don't let me fall out? If I don't get a drink, I'll die."

So Tom gripped the back of Julian's belt, and Julian, by leaning far out of the window and practically dislocating his neck, was able to get his mouth into position under the spout and gulp down rainwater. It tasted of rust and wood and creosote and dead leaves and sparrows, but the main thing was that it was _wet_.

After he had drunk all he could, he held onto Tom's belt and performed the same service for him. Then they ate the last of the peanuts to take the taste of the rainwater out of their mouths, and after that they rolled themselves up in their blankets--it was cooler now--and lay down in the darkness.

"I'll never forget this night, man," Tom said. "Wait till we tell the kids: a real live ghost story."

"A real live goat story, you mean, and Uncle Sam's not the only goat," said Julian with a weary yawn. "I don't think anything makes you so tired as being good and scared and then getting over it."

Soon, in spite of their hard bed, they were sound asleep. The rain poured steadily all night. Uncle Sam settled down beside them for a while, but toward morning he wandered into the hall and began nibbling at the tatters of wallpaper that hung loose from the wall. He nibbled thoughtfully and rather daintily like someone eating celery at a dinner party.

14

_Advice to Librans_

"Well, I think it's disgusting, perfectly _disgusting_, of them to have gone off without us that way, without telling us or anything," Portia said to Lucy, and Lucy agreed.

"Boys think they're the only ones who are entitled to adventure," she said. "I bet we would have been just as brave as they were."

"Braver!" declared Portia, and she stayed mad at Julian for two whole days.

Because of course the story of the boys' escapade had come out almost immediately.

In the first place they had overslept that morning. When they woke up, it was broad daylight; the rain was gone and the sun was out; Uncle Sam was clicking restlessly about the room.

"Jumping cats, it's almost nine o'clock!" Tom yelped. "I'll be late to the store and Mr. Bilmeyer will bawl me out!"

"I'll be late with my newspapers, and _everyone_ will bawl me out!" said Julian. Hastily they bundled their belongings together and made for the back stairs, Uncle Sam following.

The only trouble was that there were no back stairs. They apparently had collapsed or been hacked away by vandals years ago.

"There might be a tree by a window, or something," Tom offered hopefully. "We could get down that way."

But there was no tree that grew near enough; and to jump was out of the question.

"All we can do is yell," Julian said; so they leaned out of a window on the north side of the house and bellowed till they were hoarse.

"Uncle Pi-in! Oh, Uncle _Pi-in_!"

But there was no sign of him, and it was getting later by the minute, so they went to a window on the south side of the house and bellowed there.

"Aunt Minneha-ha! Aunt Minneha-_haaa_!" they bawled.

And she, luckily, did hear them. She came out of her house, Tarrigo barking beside her, and glanced to and fro, searching for the source of the yells.

"Up here, Aunt Minnehaha, up here in Judge Chater's house!"

Mrs. Cheever settled her spectacles on her nose and peered up at them.

"So _that's_ where you are! Well, I declare! Your parents are worried to death, boys, and my brother has gone off in the Machine to search for you. You had better come down at once!"

"But we _can't_, Aunt Minnehaha!" And they explained the matter to her.

"Ma-a-a-a!" contributed Uncle Sam, as he joined them at the window and looked out, with his beard draped over the sill.

"Meet our roommate," Tom said, and Mrs. Cheever laughed and laughed.

"So that's where _he_ is. My brother will be relieved to know--and here he comes right now, thank fortune!"

But then, as luck would have it, Mr. Payton had no ladder tall enough--Judge Chater's taste had run to lofty ceilings--so Mr. Caduggan had to be fetched with his. And even after the boys were safely on the ground, poor Uncle Sam remained aloft, bleating wistfully, for though goats are very good at climbing cliffs, they are very poor at climbing ladders, particularly _down_.

In the end, Mr. Caduggan had to improvise a sort of hammock and, with the aid of a couple of friends, got Uncle Sam into the thing and lowered him from a window. One of the friends, who had thoughtfully brought a camera along, took a picture of the majestic descent and turned it over to the _Pork Ferry Sentinel_, which printed it, subsequently, with a complete account of the situation.

So that any element of secrecy for which the boys had hoped lay shattered in a thousand pieces.

"You can't get away with anything in this life," Julian remarked gloomily. "At least _I_ can't."

He and Tom had been roundly scolded: by their parents, by their employers, by the girls. The little boys, however, showed the proper perspective and regarded them as heroes. And Joe was deeply envious.

"Here I just simply went to bed, just for a little cat-nap, all dressed and everything," he told them. "I even took the alarm clock with me to make certain. I stuffed it in between two pillows, right under my ear (because I didn't want my folks to know, _you_ know), and then what did I do! When the doggone clock went off, I just reached in and shut it off! In my _sleep_ I mean! How about that! To think you can double-cross yourself like that, in your own sleep!"

* * * * *

"I think I'll stay mad at them another day," Portia said. "It's getting hard to do it; I keep forgetting, but I'm going to try."

"All right, then I will, too," Lucy said cheerfully. "Madame Vavasour says Librans are apt to be too kind-hearted for their own good."

She and Portia had been consulting, as they often did, _Mme. Vavasour's Gypsy-Witch Fortune Teller_; a useful volume they had found in Mrs. Brace-Gideon's library. The only parts they really read were those concerning people born under the sign of Libra, as Portia and Lucy both had been, within a week of one another, early in October.

"You are inordinately fond of luxury," Madame Vavasour had informed them. "All the appointments and appurtenances of the _haut monde_--Lucy had some trouble reading _haut monde_ out loud, but it didn't matter--are to you as the glowing candle-flame is to the fluttering moth. Visits to elegant spas and watering places, luxurious railroad travel, fine horses, fine wines and impeccable _cuisine_, are hardly less than necessities to one of your elegant and pleasure-loving tastes. If you are a member of the fair sex, you will concern yourself with naught but the most exquisite gems, the finest furs, the handsomest members of the opposite sex--"

"The heck with the handsomest members of the opposite sex," Portia had interrupted. "What I like is the part about fine horses and luxurious railroad travel."

"Well, I don't mind about the exquisite gems and finest furs," Lucy confessed, giving herself a sideways glance in the mirror. She was fairly sure she was going to be pretty when she grew up; in fact, she thought she might be starting to be already.

However, they knew that section of the _Gypsy-Witch Fortune Teller_ by heart, so they skipped it today and went on to the section called: "The Inner Sanctum: Mme. Vavasour's Incomparable and Invaluable Compendium of Mystic Insights. Supernaturally-Directed Counsels on Matters of Health, Money, and the Heart; also a Definitive Listing of the True Meaning and Prophecies of Dreams."

"Wow!" Lucy said the first time she read it. "And look; she's got twelve pages, a page for each month, for every single sign of the Zodiac. They tell you what to expect and what to do about it and all."

"Now how could she know, though," Portia had objected. "I mean how could she know about _now_? The book came out in 1889, for goodness' sake!"

"I don't know. She probably had some sort of secret power or something: after all she was right about our characters, wasn't she? Luxury-loving and generous and kind-hearted, and all. You know that's the way we are, Portia, even if some people don't realize it."

"Well, I guess so. I hope so," Portia said a little dubiously. She was the one who had the book today--they were very strict about taking turns--and as she riffled through the pages, she was stopped for a moment by the Dream section. She usually was.

"Listen; did you know that if you dream about darning socks, it means you're going to find money in the street?"

"No. And I don't think that's very useful information; how can you make yourself dream about darning socks? I never dreamed about that in my whole life."

"I don't think I ever did, either. Well, here we are: 'Advice to Librans for the Month of August.'"

Portia began to read aloud. August, in Madame Vavasour's point of view, was rather a poor month for Librans. Caution was the keynote. They would have to be careful all month long; careful of their health, careful of their possessions, careful about accidents, suspicious of Good Offices proffered by any but their Nearest and Dearest, and constantly on the lookout for Traducers--"Whatever they are," Lucy said.

"Traitors, probably, like Julian and Tom and Joe," was Portia's opinion.

Above all, Librans were to be careful about money and valuables. They could not be too careful, and were to Lie Low. "This month will not be profitable or eventful to those of you born under the Sign of the Scales," Madame Vavasour concluded. "Expect little in the way of pleasure or enrichment. It will be vexing, nay, onerous to you who so highly value the Good Things of Life; but attempt to accept this period of retrenchment with Patience and Humility. Wait and Hope, and guard with care those valuables already in your possession."

Portia threw the book down.

"What valuables; my tooth braces?" she demanded sarcastically. "Lucy, I wish we'd never read it. Now we have nothing to look forward to but being bored!"

"Oh, pooh, I don't believe a word of it. I don't _really_ believe she had any secret power. Neither do you. I think she was just writing about some dead old boring August in eighteen-eighty-whatever-it-was."

"Do you really?"

"I really do. But I still think she was very good about character," Lucy said....

The girls were sitting on the window seat in Portia's room with the door closed. It was a dull, gray day, and Foster and Davey had thunderously invaded the house, bringing with them a fresh supply of boys their own age. They seemed to be doing an extraordinary amount of shouting and pounding up and downstairs.

"Boys just have to be noisy," Lucy observed critically. "They just naturally have to be noisy, the way a chicken has to have feathers. I don't know why."

"Daddy always says what Mark Twain said about them--you know, the Tom Sawyer man--_he_ said that what a small boy is, is a 'loud noise with dirt on it'.... Listen to Gulliver, too, but of course he can't help it; he's a boy himself."

"They should take lessons from Mousenick," Lucy said, stroking the tiny cat, asleep beside her. "Wouldn't it be nice if we could keep him a kitten forever?"

"I wish we could." Portia stood up, stretching and yawning. "And I wish there was something to _do_."

There seemed to be nothing whatever to do. It was that sort of day. The big boys had gone off somewhere; but of course it didn't matter to her because she and Lucy were mad at _them_; and the little boys were busily unraveling peace inside the house.... Portia wandered over to the mirror and looked at herself.

"And I wish I didn't have these _freckles_," she complained.

"It is too bad." Lucy agreed wholeheartedly. "Isn't there a cure for them? Some kind of cold cream or something? Listen; what about that stuff of Mrs. Brace-Gideon's: that Princess Something-or-other's Elixir of whatcha-macallit that was supposed to give you a 'pearly complexion'? Has your mother thrown it away?"

"Why no, I don't think so, yet. But she will any minute because Mr. Horton's about ready to paint the bathroom, finally. Why, that's a good idea, Lucy, and if the stuff is all dried up, we'll just add water to it. Maybe after all these years it will be stronger, too...."

At this moment the door of Portia's room burst open, and small boys came flooding in, wearing Indian war bonnets and whooping like yahoos.

"I'm Big Chief Fang!" Foster shouted happily. "We've come to scalp you! We've come to _tomahawk_ you and _scalp_ you!"

"No, you have not! You get right out of my room!" commanded Portia, giving him a whack with the _Gypsy-Witch Fortune Teller_. She and Lucy, being older, larger, and more impressive, were able to sweep them out of the room and close the door.

"They won't stay out, though," Portia said, as she and Lucy leaned against the door and heard the scuffles and giggles going on outside. "We'll just have to make a break for the bathroom. It has a real lock on it, thank goodness."

They held the door fast a moment longer, then released it suddenly, leaping away as it flew open and the little tribe of aborigines came spilling in, in a tangle.

The girls sprinted down the hall, laughing and lively now, leaped into the bathroom, and closed and locked the door, just in time.

"Heck, no fair," objected Big Chief Fang in the hall. "You're not supposed to use locks. Come on out!"

"Never!" sang Portia.

"Never, never, never!" sang Lucy.

"Oh, well, who cares! _Stay_ in there then; stay all year. All you'll have to eat is withered-up old pills," said Big Chief Fang.

"Oig," said another Indian who sounded like Davey.

"Come on, you guys; let's go and ask my mother for a cooky," invited the Chief, and away they all thundered, down the hall and down the stairs.

"Peace at last," said Lucy. Then she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the basin. "Heavens, is my skin really that color? _Green?_"

"Oh, no, it makes everybody look like that. But that's not where she kept her medicines. They're over here in this wall thing."

Portia tugged at the handle of the little cabinet door.

"You should have seen Jule searching for Mrs. Brace-Gideon's safe in here. In a _bath_room, im_a_gine! _Honest_ly!"

"Honestly," echoed Lucy.

"Now, what's the matter with _this_ door? The rainstorm's made everything stick all over again."

She gave the handle a mighty yank, and to her infinite amazement the whole cabinet swung forward; swung outward toward her from the wall like a heavy little door, which is exactly what it was.

And there behind it was the safe.

15

_The Safe_

Portia made one of those peculiar sounds that signify sudden and total astonishment: something between a gasp and a squeal.

"It's it!"

"Mrs. Brace-Gideon's real live safe!" Lucy whispered in awe.

"I don't believe it, though. I just simply can't believe it," Portia said.

"But it's real! My goodness, Portia, look at all those numbers and little metal doorknobs. Why, it's the realest-looking thing I ever saw!"

Portia gave a leap. "Come _on_, then, we must tell Mother.... _Mother_, oh, MOTHER!" shouted Portia, flinging the door open, storming along the hall and down the stairs.

"Mo--_ther_!!"

"Portia, for heaven's sake!" exclaimed Mrs. Blake, emerging from the kitchen. "You sound like a trumpeting elephant! What in the world is the matter!"

"We've found the safe, Mother! We've finally found it!"

"You've found the what?" said Mrs. Blake, utterly confused.

"Oh _Mother_, the _safe_! Mrs. Brace-Gideon's wall safe! The thing she kept her money in; _you_ know."

"Her safe? Really? Are you sure?" said Mrs. Blake.

"Oh, _Mo_ther," Portia repeated impatiently. "Come and see for your own self!" She took her mother's hand and pulled her, hurried her, to the stairs.

"It's really true, Mrs. Blake, it really is, it's really true," Lucy kept babbling, right at their heels as they ran up the steps. And right at her heels came the members of the Indian band, with their mouths full of cooky.

"In the _bath_room?" expostulated Mrs. Blake. "How could it possibly be in the b--" But by then they had ushered her in, and she saw what they had seen: the medicine cabinet swung out from the wall, and in the wall the little metal door with its nickel knobs and dials, the little door that had been hidden all these years!

"Why, I never--I absolutely never--" murmured Mrs. Blake, almost at a loss for words. Then she said: "How do you suppose we'll get it open?"

Portia gave another of her leaps.

"Julian!" she exclaimed. "Jule has the combination, Mother; he found it in the helmet!"

"He found it _where_?" begged poor Mrs. Blake, but nobody was there to tell her; already they were tumbling and galumphing down the stairs.

The big front door flew open and stayed open. The children, led by Portia, streamed across the lawn.

"Jul--i--an! Oh, _Jule_!" roared Portia, marveling even as she did so at her own lung power.

But the big boys were nowhere to be seen; nowhere within earshot, either, obviously.

"They must have gone to Gone-Away; where else _would_ they go?" suggested Lucy.

So off they all went, jog-trotting along the wooded drive; Portia first, her tooth braces blinking and her bangs standing straight up in the wind; Lucy next, with her curls bouncing; and chugging along behind them came the Indian braves, still eating as they ran.

* * * * *

As it happened, Julian and Tom and Joe had spent the afternoon at Gone-Away, helping Mr. Payton build a stronger goatpen for the vagrant Uncle Sam.

It was always interesting to build things at Gone-Away, because no new material was ever used; it was necessary to improvise, and this in itself was a challenge.

The goatpen in the first place had been an ingenious barricade contrived of chicken wire, old doors, old bedsprings. And today the boys and Mr. Payton had reinforced it with more doors, more bedsprings, and a length of railing from the Delaneys' fallen porch. They had also added a wrought-iron gate from somebody's forgotten driveway; and that gave it a touch of elegance.

"Ma-a-a-a," said Uncle Sam, sounding perfectly disgusted. He stood on his hind legs and stared at them balefully through the wrought-iron gate.

"Yes indeed, sir, yes indeed," Mr. Payton replied to him. "This will keep you in your place for a while. Until the next time. For there will be a next time, I'll be bound," he added to the boys. "Uncle Sam has the soul of a vagabond and the ingenuity of a born thief."

He removed his hat and blotted his forehead with a handkerchief.

"Let us go to my house and have a drink of water. Later my sister may have something better to offer."

For some reason Mr. Payton's kitchen pump seemed to produce the coldest, clearest water in the region, like the water of a mountain spring. Perhaps, Julian thought, it was because they usually drank it after they had been working hard or playing hard.

When the boys had had all they wanted, they drifted into Mr. Payton's living room. It was very different from his sister's: barer. There were many books piled up in piers, but very little furniture. There were no pictures on the walls; only a piece of tacked-up wrapping paper with words printed on it, and none of them could read the words because they were written in Latin.

Joe and Tom sat on the horsehair sofa, looking blank and comfortably worn-out. Julian, on the floor, had propped his back against the bed, and Mr. Payton, bolt-upright on one of his bolt-upright little chairs, was lighting his pipe, coaxing it and coaxing it along.

Julian sighed contentedly. It's good to work hard, then to rest, he thought. His aimless eye caught sight again of the black letters painted on the wrapping paper.

"Uncle Pin, what is that Latin thing?" he asked. "What does it say? I've wondered for a long time, but I keep forgetting to ask."

Mr. Payton puff-puffed his pipe; it had come to life now, and he turned his head to look at the paper on the wall.

"The words are very old, Julian. They were written hundreds of years ago by a man who loved nature and who became a saint: Saint Francis of Assisi. It's sort of a hymn of praise. They call it a canticle: the canticle of the sun....

"'Praised be my Lord with all his creatures,' it says, 'and especially our brother the sun who brings us the day and who brings us the light; fair is he, and shining with very great splendor: O Lord he signifies to us thee!

"'Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon, and for the stars, which he has set clear and lovely in heaven.

"'Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind, and for air and cloud, calms and all weathers, by which thou upholdest in life all creatures.

"'Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is very serviceable unto us, and humble and precious and clean.

"'Praised be my Lord for our brother fire, through whom thou givest his light in the darkness; and he is bright and pleasant, and very mighty and strong....'"

Mr. Payton read on in his calm quiet voice till he came to the end of the canticle.

"I like that part about brothers and sisters," Tom said. "The sun _would_ be a brother, and the moon _would_ be a sister...."

Nobody else said anything. Fatly had come to settle by Julian's leg. He had turned on his purr at middle register; not his loudest purr. Still, they could hear it.

And then they heard something else.

"Julian! Oh, _Ju_--ule!"

Julian sighed and stood up.

"Girls," he remarked, and went to the door. He opened it wide and leaned out. "Here we are, Porsh," he called, "here at Uncle Pin's."

Portia and Lucy and the Indians blew breathless into the house.

"We've found it, Jule." Portia panted. "We've found the safe!"

"The safe? You mean the _safe_?"

"Mrs. Brace-Gideon's!" contributed Lucy.

"Oh, _brother_!" Julian shouted. "But I have to go home to get the paper with the combination on it. I'll hurry back--I've got my bike--and I'll meet you at your house--" Halfway through the door he turned back. "_Where_ did you find it, though?"

When Portia told him he said, "See? What did I say?" Then he vanished.

"You come with us, Uncle Pin," Portia said. "And let's get Aunt Minnehaha, too. We should all be there together when he opens it."

Julian, on reaching home, leaped from his bike, allowing it to fall, leaped into the house, shouting the news to his mother, and attained his room without having touched the stairs; or so it seemed.

There followed a few minutes of panic because he could not remember what he had done with the slip. Collections of birds' nests and sea shells were toppled about, drawers were pulled out and their contents clawed into a muddle, the pockets of his coats and trousers were searched; and then, of course, he found the slip exactly where he had put it: in plain sight, on his worktable, with a fossil stone to hold it down.

"I'll drive you back, Julian," his mother said. "It will save time, and besides I wouldn't miss this event for anything!"

* * * * *