Tucker's Countryside

by George Selden

  “I’ll say!” Tucker answered. The first thing they did was to examine Chester’s stump, which still was dampish, but drying out nicely, and the second was—“Harry Cat!” said Tucker. “Let’s go!”

  They found him waiting for them at the sun-porch door. “I knew you’d be coming over,” said Harry. “I’ve been watching the flood from Mrs. Hadley’s bedroom window, and I saw you could make it today.”

  “Hmm!” sniffed Tucker. “From a safe bedroom window he watches the scene of our peril! Is there anything to eat?”

  “Yes,” said Harry. “I saved something for you.” He unlatched the door. “Come on in. It’s safe—Mrs. Hadley and Ellen have gone over to Jaspar’s house for lunch.”

  Chester and Tucker crept in, and Harry ushered the mouse over to a saucer placed in one corner of the sun porch. “Cat food!” exclaimed Tucker when he saw what was in the dish. “That’s not what I want!”

  “I’m sorry, Tucker,” said Harry. “I wish it was sirloin steak—but they put me on cat food the day after I saw you last. Try it. It’s tuna fish. You’ll like it.”

  Tucker took a suspicious sniff at the tuna, then a less suspicious bite, and in a minute he was munching happily. “Not bad,” he said. “Tastes sort of like the tuna-fish salad sandwiches they make at the lunch counters back home.” He took an appraising glance at Harry and then said to Chester, “The kitty here has put on weight.”

  “You would have too, if you’d been eating the way I have,” said Harry.

  Tucker drew himself up proudly. “I, on the other hand, have lost weight. Did you notice what good shape I’m in, Harry? That comes from leading the outdoor life. See this muscle here? I got that from swimming. And this one here I got from climbing trees.”

  “And that muscle in your jaw you got from talking too much,” said Harry. “Why don’t you use it to eat for a while?”

  Tucker took one more look at his friend and shook his head sadly. “Pity to see a vigorous alley cat go flabby.” Then he resumed his gobbling.

  “I’m glad the Hadleys are treating you so well, Harry,” said Chester.

  “Oh, they treat me beautifully!” said the cat. “They’re crazy about me—even Mr. Hadley. The only trouble is, they don’t know my name is Harry, and they can’t decide what to call me.”

  “I could think of a couple of names,” said Tucker through a mouthful of tuna fish.

  “Have you heard anything more about the meadow?” asked the cricket.

  “No new plans yet,” said Harry. “But Ellen told her mother that the flood did a lot of damage down where the brook flows out of the meadow—where we met you the first night. It almost washed away the bridge that the road goes over.”

  Chester shook his head. “That’s bad. The human beings hate it worst of all when something interferes with their cars. I wish they liked meadows as much as they do roads.”

  “What’s for dessert?” said Tucker, licking the last of the tuna fish off his whiskers.

  “Nice to see that you still know what’s important!” said Harry.

  “I know it’s important to save the meadow,” said Tucker. “But to someone who has just spent two weeks in a stump and in a willow tree, surrounded by raging flood waters, dessert is also important!”

  Harry sighed helplessly. “Come on,” he said, and led the mouse and the cricket out of the sun porch, through the living room, and into the Hadleys’ kitchen. The only sweet thing he could find, in one bottom cupboard, was a jar of preserves with its top screwed on loosely. So for dessert Tucker had two mouthfuls of strawberry jam.

  When Tucker was full, and feeling much better, he took a long look around the kitchen. “You know, this is the first time I’ve ever been in a human being’s house,” he said. “I could do some very lovely scrounging here. Could we have a tour, Harry?”

  Harry said he guessed it would be all right and took them both on an excursion through the Hadleys’ home. First they crept down the cellar stairs, Chester Cricket hopping along behind the other two. And Tucker liked the basement very much. There were boxes piled everywhere, most of them empty, wood was stacked against the wall, Mrs. Hadley’s freezer was purring in one corner, and in another there was a battered, old suitcase lying open. In it was a collection of the toys that Ellen had had when she was a little kid. Tucker pulled out a clawful of stuffing from a ripped Teddy bear, examined it closely, and pronounced, “Excellent for nesting!”

  After the cellar, the first and second floor were a disappointment. “Too neat,” said Tucker. When Harry offered him a Kleenex from a box in Mrs. Hadley’s bedroom, he declined, and told the cat that he didn’t need to blow his nose any more. His hay fever had completely vanished when he became an athlete.

  The climax of the trip was the attic. Tucker’s eyes sparkled at what he saw: a welter of everything—books, bottles, old boxes—all lying around haphazard and helter-skelter. “Wow!” he exclaimed with admiration. “And I thought my house was a mess!” He began to pick his way lovingly through the debris. “This place is a rodent’s paradise! I could spend the rest of my life here! What’s this?” He stopped before a piece of wood that had iron letters nailed to it. They spelled H-A-D-L-E-Y.

  Chester Cricket jumped over. “That’s a sign the Hadleys used to have in their front yard, before the post it was on got broken. Lots of families in Connecticut have them—so people will know who lives where.”

  “Maybe I could have one outside the drain pipe in the subway station,” said Tucker. “In beautiful gold letters: M-O-U-S-E!” He continued browsing happily among all the things that the Hadleys didn’t need any more but couldn’t bear to throw away: the treasure of attics everywhere.

  Chester and Harry did some exploring too. Harry came across two old-fashioned pewter pots that he thought were very pretty and deserved a better fate than to be discarded and forgotten, and Chester found a box full of baby clothes. He guessed that they had once been worn by Ellen, or perhaps even her mother—they were so old that the colors had begun to fade and change.

  It was a very happy time for the three of them. In fact, it was so happy that they forgot how long they’d been there.

  Suddenly Harry Cat lifted his head. He’d been rummaging through Mr. Hadley’s sports equipment—a tennis racket with loose strings, a broken golf club, things like that—and was about to suggest that Tucker Mouse, the great athlete, might find a use for some of them, but now he whispered urgently, “Shh!” A murmur of voices came from the floor below. “It’s Ellen and her mother,” said Harry. “They’re back from lunch.” He listened again. “They’re in Mrs. Hadley’s bedroom. Come on—I’ll sneak you through the hall and downstairs.”

  Very quietly the animals tiptoed down the attic stairs. Harry peeked out: the hall was clear. They were just about to begin creeping down beside the banister of the staircase to the first floor when Mrs. Hadley said, “Oh dear—there it is!”

  “There’s what?” said Ellen.

  The afternoon newspaper had been delivered while Ellen and her mother were out to lunch, and Mrs. Hadley was glancing over the front page. “It says here that the Town Council has decided to build apartment houses on the site of the Old Meadow.”

  “Oh, no!” said Ellen. She didn’t know it, but out in the hall a cricket echoed her forlorn groan.

  “It says that the recent flooding has proved that the area is ‘a hazard to the community.’”

  “Isn’t there any other way they could stop the flooding?” said Ellen.

  “I don’t know, dear,” her mother answered. She went on reading. “‘Plans are being made to level the entire meadow and construct a conduit for the brook passing through it. Work is expected to begin later on this summer.’” The animals were shocked by the news. They stood motionless at the top of the staircase. “Now try not to be too upset, dear,” said Mrs. Hadley, her voice coming nearer the bedroom door. “I know how you feel, but—a mouse!”

  Harry and Tucker plunged downstairs. Chester hopped after them, fo
ur steps at a time. But Mrs. Hadley wasn’t concerned with the cat or the cricket—in fact, she didn’t even notice Chester. Although her attic was a mess, and her cellar none too tidy either, she prided herself on keeping a clean house, and for her, mice spelled trouble. She ran to the hall closet, took out a broom, and chased Tucker, whacking at him as she went. Halfway downstairs she caught him and gave him such a whop that he tumbled, head over heels, the rest of the way. But he landed right side up and kept on running—through the living room, through the sun porch, and out the unlatched screen door. Mrs. Hadley charged after him and just caught a glimpse of his tail as Tucker vanished into the privet hedge.

  “The very idea!” said Mrs. Hadley. “A mouse! Sitting right out plain in the hall! Just as bold as you please.” At that very moment, although she didn’t see it, a tiny black shape, Chester Cricket, jumped over Mrs. Hadley’s foot and into the hedge.

  Ellen came out into the yard carrying Harry. He looked around, saw that Tucker had escaped, and heaved a sigh of relief.

  “And Ellen,” Mrs. Hadley went on, “there’s something very peculiar about that cat of yours. He was standing right next to the mouse, not doing a thing! Just as if they were the best friends in the world!”

  “He may be peculiar, but he’s nice!” said Ellen, and kissed Harry on the head.

  In the Hadleys’ front yard the mouse, next to whom that peculiar cat had been standing, was limping toward the road. He stopped to massage one hind leg. “That lady sure packs a wallop!” he said to the cricket hopping along beside him. “Wow! One Connecticut housewife—and she’s worse than a whole herd of commuters! At evening rush hour, too!”

  EIGHT

  Bertha

  News of its coming fate—apartment houses—spread quickly through the meadow. All the animals agreed that next to gas stations it was the worst thing that could happen. Individual houses would have been bad enough, but at least some of the smaller folk could have found homes in the shrubs and hedges around them. But with apartment houses—great, tall structures of brick and concrete—there wasn’t much hope for anyone.

  Secretly, although no one said so out loud, everyone was still hoping that Tucker Mouse could come up with a plan to save them. And Tucker knew it. When he went out walking and met Henry Chipmunk, he could tell from the hopeful way Henry said “Hello, Mr. Mouse!” that the chipmunk still had confidence in him. Henry was always asking him to come and visit him and his sister Emily in their home on the other side of the brook. But Tucker didn’t go. It was too painful to be in the company of friends who trusted you to help them, when you didn’t know how you could. Poor Tucker! He took long walks, and racked his brains—and became almost as fond of the Old Meadow as the animals who had lived their whole lives there—but still, he could think of nothing.

  The summer gradually passed, July turned into August, and nothing happened. No bulldozers came to begin the leveling, no huge pipes were brought for the conduit. And little by little the animals came to believe that if they just refused to think about it, the destruction of the meadow could not take place. That was what Ellen did, too: she simply would not consider it. When she brought the little kids over, she wouldn’t even let them talk about it. It is not a very good way to deal with a problem, but when all else fails, people often will not admit to themselves that something truly bad can happen.

  So the days went by. Leaves thickened in the light and heat, flowers opened and blossomed beside the brook, the grass in Pasture Land grew smooth—the summer, as always, blessed everything. But hidden somewhere in the sunshine, in the happy chatter of the stream as it ran, there hung a dreadful threat. Ellen and the little kids, and all the animals too, might try to hide their minds from it and pretend it wasn’t there—but it was, and it emptied August of all its joy.

  * * *

  There came a morning when a great clanking and clattering was heard on the road. People lined up on both sides to see what was happening—the kids, both big and little, on the side with the houses and the animals from the meadow on the other. Down the street drove a long, flat truck, and on its back a steam shovel was riding. The steam shovel’s name—BERTHA—was printed in large letters on one side. The truck stopped at the corner of the meadow, and the two men who ran the steam shovel—their names were Sam and Lou—began driving her down a ramp, off the truck’s back, and straight toward the hill above Simon’s Pool.

  Now, as a rule, steam shovels are very nice. They are wonderful fun to watch while they’re working, and they’re even more fun to get inside, if the man who is operating one should let you come into the cab. But only the big kids enjoyed watching Bertha work that morning. For she had come to begin the destruction of the meadow.

  “Well, it’s started,” said Chester Cricket.

  Tucker Mouse, who was sitting beside him, said nothing at all. He felt as if he had turned to stone. There was nothing he could do but sit there and stare at Bertha Steam Shovel.

  When she’d been unloaded, the truck that brought her drove away. And after a while the big kids got tired of watching, and they went off too. The only ones left—on the human side of the road, that is—were the little kids and Ellen. She made them all take hands and led them, with Ruff, across the road. On top of the hill, well out of reach of Bertha’s shovel, they stood and silently watched.

  The men in the cab saw them standing, motionless, just looking and nothing more, and began to grow uneasy. Sam, who was working the shovel just then, pulled the lever that lowered it to the ground. “Hey, you kids!” he shouted. “What do you want?”

  The little kids bunched around Ellen. Jaspar pulled her hand. “Go on!” he pleaded. “You promised, Ellen!”

  Ellen detached herself from the hands that were holding on to her and walked to the edge of the gouge the steam shovel had made in the side of the hill. “Mister,” she called, “will you do us a favor?”

  She was wearing a pair of blue short pants and a blouse with insects pictured on it—butterflies, beetles, and a couple of crickets, too—and she looked very pretty as she asked for her favor. The men in the cab smiled at each other. “Sure, kid!” said Sam. “What is it?”

  “Well—um—would you please stop digging up the meadow?” said Ellen. “I mean, as a favor—would you?”

  The men looked at each other again, and they were not smiling now. “We have to, kid,” said Lou. “The company we work for’s been hired to put up apartment buildings here. If it wasn’t us that worked ol’ Bertha, somebody else would.”

  “Oh,” said Ellen. “Oh. I see.” She turned away—then turned back again. “Thanks anyway.” And she returned to the little kids on the hill. As before, they stood silent, watching.

  The men in the steam shovel talked quietly together. When they spoke out loud, their voices sounded embarrassed and unhappy. “Hey—you kids better get across the street!” said Sam.

  “Yeah—we don’t want you to get hurt,” said Lou.

  Ellen made the little kids take hands and took them across to the Hadleys’ front lawn. But there they stopped and continued their vigil, staring, without a word, at the steam shovel and the men who ran her. Sam worked the levers, and Bertha took a few more bites out of the hill. Then, since it was almost noon, and since Sam didn’t seem to be enjoying his work as much as he usually did, Lou suggested they stop for lunch. They walked over the hill and found a comfortable patch of grass—out of sight of the children. From brown paper bags they took sandwiches and soda pop, and began to eat. Chester and Tucker crept close enough to hear what they were saying.

  “I don’t blame those kids,” said Sam. “When I was that age I used to live next to a swamp. I had this ol’ dog—he just wandered into the yard one day an’ took a likin’ to me an’ stayed. Him and me used to go hunt’n’ an’ fishin’ in that swamp.”

  “What happened to it?” said Lou.

  “They filled it all in an’ made a shoppin’ center. An’ that dog got one look of that shoppin’ center, an’ he took off. He was
n’t stickin’ around for any shoppin’ center!” Sam put down his sandwich—a meat-loaf sandwich, which his wife knew was his favorite—and looked out over the meadow. Its living green sparkled and glowed below them. “Best time I ever had as a kid was trampin’ around that swamp with that dog.”

  Lou lay back. Usually he and Sam worked more toward the center of Hedley; all they had to sit down on was a hard, stone curb. But now there was soft, warm grass beneath them. “I don’t see why they have to build apartment houses right here anyway,” he said. “There’s lots of places downtown they could find.” He lifted himself up and looked over the hill. “Those kids are gone. They must be havin’ lunch too.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Sam, “they’ll be back!”

  And he was right. As soon as lunch was over, Ellen and the little kids assembled from their various homes and stood at the edge of the Hadleys’ yard—and just looked.

  “Listen—let’s let them sit in the cab,” said Sam.

  “The boss doesn’t like us doin’ that,” said Lou.

  “I don’t care what the boss likes!” Sam said angrily. “Here we are, rippin’ up the place where those kids play—I know how they feel! Hey, you kids!” he called across the street. “You want to sit in the cab of the steam shovel?”

  The children came across the road. Lou lifted them up, one by one, and each sat a minute in the driver’s seat, with all the levers in front of them. When Jaspar’s turn came, Ruff insisted on climbing up in the cab with him. Lou let him, too. “Turn on the motor!” commanded Jaspar. “I want to work the shovel!”

  “Wait a couple of years.” Lou laughed. “Maybe then you can.”

  While the little kids were having their fun in the cab, Sam was talking with Ellen. He asked her what her name was. “Ellen,” she answered.

  “I’m Sam,” he said. “I’m sorry about—about havin’ to dig the place up, Ellen. But you can’t fight City Hall. The only thing those men on the Town Council pay any mind to is a picket line.”