by Edward Eager
"Deary me, pray that no harm befall you! Preserved, do not forget your muffler. Girls, your mittens and tippets!" cried the woman, fussing around the three children and buttoning them up, as mothers always will, whatever the century.
They went out into the stable yard, all but the bandaged gentleman, who remained watching from a window, out of regard for his quinsy.
Ann and Roger were relieved when the steeds turned out to be an elderly roan for the gentleman and a trio of dapple-gray ponies for the three younger ones, but Eliza was scornful. She had hoped for a wild Arabian stallion, at least.
Good-byes were said, and the mother of Preserved and Prudence and Deborah kissed Roger and Eliza and Ann (and didn't seem to sense any difference, though Ann had always heard a mother could tell!) and the four riders took the road.
Ann was pleased to discover, after a few minutes, that she could ride quite well. She even began to enjoy it. It must be the Deborah in her, she decided. Then she thought of the Natterjack, and wondered if he were smothering under the fur-lined cloak the mother of Deborah had buttoned round her, or if the motion were making him seasick. But she couldn't get at her pocket to see.
It was twelve by Roger's new wristwatch as they came out of the woods onto the main road, because he looked, and decided his watch must be a really good one, to keep pace with the sudden way time had been changing.
"Paul Revere's just crossing the bridge into Medford town now," he remarked.
The man in the greatcoat threw him a surprised look. "You seem to know all about it!" he said. "Our counterespionage system must be doing well in these parts."
"I was just quoting Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," said Roger.
"I don't know the gentleman," said the man. "But if he is a Son of Liberty, more power to him!"
A mile or so beyond the turning, the road forked, and a huddle of dark houses could be seen up ahead in either direction. The gentleman in the greatcoat slowed his horse.
"You take the high road," he said, "and I'll take the other. Knock at every door. Tell all brave men we meet by the rude bridge that arched the flood. Don't let Lexington and Concord do it all!"
He galloped away to the left, and the three children pressed forward, on the right-hand road. At the first house they reined in.
"Well?" said Ann.
"Come on!" said Eliza. "Not that it makes any difference. The minutemen won, anyway."
"You never can tell," said Roger. "Maybe the real Deborah and Prudence and Preserved did ride that night. Maybe if they hadn't, not as many minutemen would have been ready and the whole war might have ended differently. At least we're doing our bit!" And he jumped from his pony and ran to give a loud knock on the door.
The man who appeared at a window (after the third knock) had his nightcap on, and was not pleased at being disturbed. But when he heard the news, he ran to load his musket, and dress, and head north to join the patriot troops.
It was the same at the second house. And at the third, the man had three strong grown-up sons who would march with him.
"That makes six extra minutemen so far that might not have got there if it weren't for us," said Roger, in satisfied tones.
"Why don't we run into any Tories or traitors?" said Eliza. "This is getting monotonous."
They were riding along a stretch of highway with no houses now, but in the distance another building showed, this one with lights at the windows, in spite of the late hour. As the three children rode up to it, they saw that it was a wayside inn. But it did not look like one that would have been recommended by Mr. Duncan Hines, if he had been alive in those days. Its aspect was ramshackle and its garden overgrown. Its windows were dirty. Over its doorway a sign clanked on rusty chains. The sign read, "The Hanged Man." From within came a sound of raucous voices raised in ribald song.
"We don't have to go in there, do we?" said Ann.
"Of course. This is the best part yet!" cried Eliza, jumping down from her pony. "Follow me."
So of course they had to.
The ribald song broke off as Eliza made her dramatic entrance into the taproom of the inn, followed, less dramatically, by Ann and Roger. A dozen evil-looking fellows sat hunched over mugs of grog, served by a bold-faced lady who stood behind the bar.
"To arms!" announced Eliza, in thrilling tones. "The British are attacking!"
"What? Where?" cried most of the men, running to the windows to peer out into the darkness.
"They're not here yet," said Roger. "They're stopping at Lexington first."
"Oh. Why didn't you say so? Let them take care of it, then," said nearly everybody, sitting down again and calling for more grog.
Eliza's dander rose.
"Shame on you," she cried. "What does it matter where they attack first? Aren't > we all in this together? Aren't we the United States of America?"
A burly, dark-browed man put down his mug with a scowl (and a thump). "No!" he said. "No, we ain't! And if you ask me, we're not going to be! Once we're free of the pesky British, it's every man for himself, I say!"
"Why," cried Eliza, in tones of outrage, "that's anarchy!"
"None of your big words!" growled the man, peering at her suspiciously. "Who be you, anyway?"
"'Tis Master Whiton's children, from the great house on the cliff," put in the bold-faced woman, from behind the bar.
"Ay, that Master Whiton," cried another of the men. "He be ever stirrin' up trouble with his radical talk o' unions!"
"Sooner should he keep his brats safe home abed o' nights, 'stead o' wanderin' the highway preachin' seditious talk!" muttered a third man.
The black-browed man lurched to his feet. "To the devil with your Master Whiton!" he cried. "To the devil with your United States of America! What's Connecticut to me or me to Connecticut? Nay, or New York, neither? To the devil with all thrones, dominations an' princely powers! To the devil with the Continental Congress!"
And all the men drank to this and pounded their mugs on the tables.
Even the mild-natured Ann was provoked to wrath. "Why, you nasty things!" she cried. "What are you, pro-British?"
"No," said the black-browed one, "we ain't. We ain't pro-anything. To the devil with King George, too!" And he and all the men drank again.
Ann had put back her cloak, in the warm air of the inn (and the warm glow of anger), and the noise of the pounding mugs had waked the Natterjack, which had been lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the ride. Now it sat up and began to take notice. It peered out of Ann's pocket just in time to hear these last words, and its British blood boiled.
"Rule, Britannia!" it shrilled suddenly. "Merrie England forever! Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!"
There was a silence.
"Who said that?" said the scowling, black-browed man.
Everybody looked at Roger and Eliza and Ann. One or two rude ones pointed.
The black-browed man moved menacingly over to the three children and stood glaring down at them. "Aha!" he said. "I see it all now. These brats are spies, ay, and their fine-talking pa, too, always pratin' o' liberty an' union! And all the while the deepest-dyed traitor of them all! Sendin' these young limbs
to distract us with false reports an' lead us astray while the Redcoats attack an' burn our houses an' our wives and children!"
"No, we're not! Honest!" said Roger.
"He confesses it!" cried the man, mishearing Roger's words on purpose. "'No, we are not honest' he cries, and there was never a truer word spoke! Away with them to their own house and burn it to the ground for a nest of Tory turncoats!"
"No, don't do that!" cried Ann, thinking of the kind mother and the nice man with the bandage.
"Don't worry," muttered Roger. "The house didn't really burn. It's still standing."
"That doesn't signify. Maybe somebody built it up again, afterwards," muttered Eliza.
A ring of hostile faces surrounded the three children. But Roger squared up to them spunkily.
"You make me sick," he crie
d. "You wouldn't fight when you could be a help, oh no. But when it's a question of picking on innocent people, you're all patriotic all of a sudden!"
"Stow your gab!" cried the black-browed man. "And speak the truth. Are the Redcoats attacking? And if they are, where?"
"We told you," said Roger, stoutly. "We did speak the truth."
"We're not spies. We're American patriots," said Eliza.
The Natterjack chose this moment to sing "The British Grenadiers."
"You hear?" said the black-browed man. "The bigger ones brazen it out, but the small one gives them away!"
"I didn't!" said Ann, indignantly.
"That wasn't her, that was him!" cried Eliza, desperation taking the place of grammar. She pointed.
"Oh, to be in h'England," remarked the Natterjack, "now that April's 'ere."
The people looked where Eliza was pointing. They saw the toadlike creature teetering on the edge of Ann's pocket, and fell back in horror. The black-browed man was the first to recover.
"'Tis witchcraft!" he cried. "See the small witch with her familiar by her side? This be worse than ever! To the ducking-pond with them!"
"Nay!" said another. "Roasting be the best cure for witches! To their house, and roast the whole witch family!"
"Why not both?" said the black-browed man. "Duck first and roast afterwards!" And this suggestion proved popular with the crowd.
A dozen hands seized Roger and Eliza and Ann and hustled them through the door. Outside the April wind blew chill.
"You can swim, can't you?" called Eliza to Ann, as they were borne along.
"Just dog paddle," admitted Ann, trying to sound brave.
The pond was beyond the stable yard, lying cold and dank and dark under the steely stars. Ann's teeth chattered to look at it.
"Now then," said the black-browed one. "Up with them and swing them out over it, with a one, two, and three. On the third swing let go. If they be witches, the devil will help them swim and they can be dried off and roasted. If they are not witches but just spies, they may sink and good riddance!"
"One!" And Eliza and Roger and Ann swung out on the chilly air.
"Two!" Again they went swinging over the murky depths.
And it was then, as all breath failed, that the next thing happened.
A war whoop sounded from the wooded hills all around, and a hundred savage painted Indians ran howling down upon the inn yard. Those who were holding Roger and Ann and Eliza dropped them, fortunately upon dry land.
The three children huddled in each other's arms and watched the scene of carnage that followed.
Tomahawks sliced and arrows whirred. Scalps were lost. Blood flowed. From the first, the white men were hopelessly outnumbered.
"Good. There goes that mean one," said Eliza, as the black-browed man toppled to the ground.
Roger and Ann were not so pleased.
"This is awful," said Ann, covering her eyes.
"Don't worry. It didn't happen," Roger comforted her. "Not really. History would have mentioned it."
"Then we must have done it," said Ann. "We came back through time and made history worse!"
Eliza was more practical. A horrid thought had suddenly occurred to her. "What happens when they kill all the rest?" she said. "Then do they tomahawk us?" She turned to the Natterjack, where it still crouched on the edge of Ann's pocket. "Can't you do something? How do we get out of here?"
"The same way you got h'in," said the Natterjack calmly. "I trust you still 'ave plenty of thyme?"
Eliza scrabbled among her clothes. At first she couldn't find the lilac-flowered plant. Then, just as the last whiteskin bit the dust and the Indians circled howling around the three children, she located it, where she'd thrust it down in the bottom of her jumper pocket.
"Quick. Take a big whiff," said the Natterjack. And the three children did.
A second later the tumult and the shouting died, and they found themselves once more sitting on a flowery bank by the sea, on a sunny June morning in modern times.
"Whew!" said Ann.
"That," said Eliza, "is putting it mildly."
"It was all going fine for a while," said Roger. "Then it got crazy."
Eliza glared at the Natterjack. "Really!" she said. "Some creatures!"
The Natterjack gave an embarrassed cough. "Ahem," it said. "I'm afraid I forgot myself there for a moment. But their talk was more than flesh and blood could stand. After all..." and it puffed itself out proudly, "h'I'm a Briton! Besides," it added, with a severe look at Eliza, "I warned you not to be greedy. Wasting thyme never pays. Better put that plant back while you still can."
The tuft that was clutched in Eliza's hand looked pretty grubby by now, what with all it had been through, but when she poked it back into the earth, it seemed to perk up and grow again, and looked as good as new.
"That's better," said the Natterjack. "Dangerous thing to leave lying about, thyme is. Specially that sort there. That there is wild thyme."
"No wonder," said Roger.
"It was wild all right," said Eliza.
"How many kinds of time are there?" said Ann.
"As many as you'll find in the garden catalog," said the Natterjack. "And now," it added with a yawn, "it's nap time." And it shut its eyes and would say no more, no matter how hard Eliza poked it.
Ann got up and started away purposefully. The others followed. She went right around the house to Old Henry's potting shed.
Old Henry looked up from a tray of Canterbury bell seedlings and eyed the three children coldly.
"Please," said Ann, "may we borrow your garden catalog?"
"And what put that idea into your head?" said Old Henry, suspiciously. "No messing about with my borders, mind!"
"Oh no," Ann assured him. "I just want to look up about the different kinds of thyme."
All three children thought they saw a change come over Old Henry's grim countenance, almost as though he were pleased at something, though that could hardly be.
"Oho," he said. "So that's the way it is, is it? Look your fill, then. But no mucking about the garden with it and leaving it out in the rain, now!"
"We won't," said Ann. "We'll look at it right here." And sitting down on the doorstep, she opened the book and found the place among the T's.
"For heaven's sake! There's a whole page of them!" said Eliza, bending to read over Ann's shoulder and breathing down her neck.
"Thymus serpyllum," Ann read slowly from the list, stumbling over the big word. "Creeping thyme."
"What's that supposed to do, turn us back into mere creeping babes?" said Eliza. "No, thanks."
"There's lots more kinds," said Ann, her eyes traveling down the page. "Silver thyme and golden thyme and lemon thyme and woolly thyme and..."
There was an interruption. Old Mrs. Whiton appeared on the path. She was wearing her old-fashioned bathing dress again. Following her was Jack, wearing his bathing suit.
"Come along, children," said old Mrs. Whiton. "It's swimming time."
3. Time Will Tell
"I keep worrying," said Ann.
"What about?" said Eliza.
The four children were lying on the beach, after their swim. Old Mrs. Whiton had gone back to the house, leaving strict instructions that the others weren't to lounge about in their wet bathing suits for a minute more than half an hour.
"I keep worrying about those poor people at that inn," said Ann, "after those Indians got them."
"Serves them right, if you ask me," said Eliza.
"But it was our fault," said Ann. "And they may have been mean, but they didn't deserve to be massacred."
"Maybe they weren't," said Roger. "Maybe after we disappeared the time jumped back, and everything was just as though it had never happened. Sometimes magic works like that."
"Sometimes it doesn't," said Ann. "Remember last summer? Every single thing we did counted. Think back."
Everybody thought back except Jack, who didn't seem to want to.
; "Honestly!" he said. "Can't you talk about anything else? Anyway, it didn't happen. You just dreamed it. All that stuffing-y smell put you to sleep."
"We wouldn't all dream the same dream, silly," said Eliza.
"Sure you would. It happens all the time. Look at flying saucers! Mass hypnosis, it's called."
Roger shook his head. "This was real, all right."
"Rave on!" said Jack. He got up. "I just thought. There was this girl that came to visit, back home. Gretsie Kroll, her name was. She came from up around here somewhere. Maybe if I look in the phone book I can find her number." And he started climbing the rock stair to the house.
"What did I tell you?" said Eliza. "It's the end of a noble mind. He's lost to us."
There was a pause.
"I still keep worrying," said Ann. She got to her feet. "I'm going to ask the Natterjack. He'd know."
She started up the steps and the others followed. They went past the house and into the garden. The Natterjack lay dormant upon the sundial. But when the three children came near, it woke up and jumped down and started hopping away as fast as it could.
It was Eliza who caught it, with a flying tackle.
"Oh no you don't," it said. "No more tricks today. The garden wouldn't stand it. It'd wilt."
"Oh, I know," said Ann. "So would we!"
"We don't want any more magic for ages," said Roger.
"Not till tomorrow, at least!" said Eliza.
"We have to think," said Roger, "and plan, first."
"We've been thinking now," said Ann. "And I've been wondering. About those people."
And she told the Natterjack her worries about the Indian massacre.
The Natterjack was silent in thought. Then it spoke. "I 'ave 'eard," it said, "that the h'evil that men do lives after them..."
"'The good is oft interred with their bones,'" Ann finished the quotation. Then a look of horror came over her face. "Do you mean the bad things we do last, and the good ones don't?"
"That wouldn't be fair," said Roger.
"It would be just like that magic, though," said Eliza, "always thwarting us!"
"I was thinking," said the Natterjack, "more the other way round."
"You mean...?" Roger puzzled it out. "You mean the mistakes we make come out of the adventure with us, and don't do any harm, but the good things we do stay buried in the past, and turn real?"