Tucker's Countryside

by George Selden

  Beyond the orchard there was an open space, and then two great oak trees loomed up before them. “This used to be the farm’s front yard,” said Henry. “Emily and I live just past those oak trees.”

  The animals walked between the trees—like passing through a huge, natural doorway—and came to a big hole in the ground. The sides had fallen in, especially the west side, opposite them, but they could see that the excavation must once have been square. “That’s a pretty big hole for a little chipmunk like you!” said Tucker.

  “Oh, that’s not our house!” Henry laughed. “That’s the cellar of the old farm house. Here’s where we live!”

  At one corner of the cellar grew a large clump of lilac bushes. Emily was sitting under them waiting for her guests. Good mornings were said all around, and then Emily led the way down a ledge where the dirt from one wall had collapsed. A few feet from the top a nice, dry little cave opened out on the left. And this was Henry and Emily’s home. The animals all went in—except Harry. He was too big to fit in comfortably, so he sat on the ledge outside.

  Emily had been expecting Tucker and Harry all summer long, and in order to give them something to eat she’d been saving fruit from the ruins on the farm’s back-yard kitchen garden. First she’d saved strawberries; then, when they went out of season, raspberries; then blueberries; and now she was all the way up to peaches. It wasn’t easy for the little chipmunk to wrestle a peach all the way around the cellar, down the ledge, and into her house—but she’d managed somehow. Very politely, and proudly too, she offered everyone some fruit. And naturally they all accepted.

  “I wish you’d been able to come and visit us in the early spring, Mr. Mouse,” she said to Tucker. “The lilacs are beautiful when they’re in bloom! The biggest bush up there is the deepest purple—you just can’t imagine!” Emily was silent a moment, thinking about her favorite lilac. “When the meadow’s—I mean, when we’re not living here any more, it’s going to be the lilacs that I miss most.”

  An awkward pause fell. To break it Harry Cat switched his tail and said, “Tucker, you should see what’s down in that cellar. It’s almost as cluttered as the Hadleys’ attic.”

  Tucker crept out to the edge of the ledge. At first all he could see was the jumble of thickets and bushes that had taken root on the floor of the cellar. Then his eyes picked out what looked like fragments of furniture and the glint of broken glass. “Say, that’s very interesting!” he said. “Emily, would you mind if I went down and scrounged awhile? It’s been so long!”

  “Go right ahead,” said the chipmunk.

  “I’m going, too!” said Henry.

  “You be careful, Henry,” his sister warned.

  Chester stayed in the cave to talk to Emily, but Tucker, Harry, and Henry walked around the rim of the cellar to the west side where it was easier to descend. They scrambled and stumbled and tumbled their way until they were down on the cellar floor. Then began the delightful business of exploring in a ruin.

  “That farm house must have been very old,” said Harry. “See this piece of glass? Those wavy lines in it are flaws. In the old days they didn’t know how to make glass as well as they do now.” In his travels in New York, Harry had browsed through several antique shops, and he knew a lot about things like old glass.

  “I think the whole place must have burned down,” said Henry. He had discovered the wreckage of an ancient wooden rocking chair. What was left of one arm was blackened and charred.

  But Tucker made the most interesting discovery. He was burrowing under a wild rose bush that had taken root amid the rubble, and he came on the remains of a huge book of some kind. “Hey, come here!” he called to the others. Henry and Harry came over, and together all three hauled and pulled and managed to lift the book’s cover. The page underneath was browned and half eaten away, as if it, too, had been burned by fire. And of course it had been soaked by the rains and snows of many years. But there was writing on that page, and it still was barely legible.

  Harry Cat read the words: Family Bible of Joseph Henry.

  “He must have been the man who owned the farm!” exclaimed Henry.

  “And he went off and left his family Bible,” said Tucker. “Can you beat that!”

  “He probably thought it got burned in the fire,” said Harry.

  They rummaged through the cellar for an hour or so. With the bushes and wild flowers growing amid the remains of things that had once been inside the farm house, it was like being indoors and outdoors at the same time—a funny feeling. Then Emily called down and said that Chester thought it was time to be going. The west bank was steeper than the three explorers had realized, however, and climbing up was much harder than coming down. Harry had to boost Tucker and Henry over the rim. But at last they were on level ground again.

  Chester and Emily were waiting under the lilacs. “Did you have a nice time, Mr. Mouse?” asked the chipmunk.

  “A very fine time,” said Tucker. “It’s excellent scrounging ground down there!” He looked back into the cellar, at the jumble of old, lost human things that nature had reclaimed. “Fascinating, in fact!”

  The others began to say goodbye, but Tucker continued gazing downward. His whiskers started to twitch, and he muttered something to himself.

  “What did you say?” said Harry Cat.

  “I didn’t say anything,” said the mouse.

  “Yes, you did,” said Harry.

  “Oh, I was just thinking out loud,” said Tucker. “Joseph Henry, Joseph Hedley, Ellen Hadley. Hmm.” His whiskers were wiggling furiously—always a good sign. “Chester, that important man, Hedley, his first name was Joseph, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Chester. “Why?”

  “No reason,” said Tucker. “And no one knows where he lived. Hmm.”

  No one spoke. Then Harry said softly, “Tucker—what are you thinking?”

  “I don’t know what I’m thinking,” said Tucker Mouse. “But I’m thinking something. I’ve got to find out what it is.” He walked off by himself and began pacing back and forth.

  “Do you think—” Chester started to speak.

  But Harry lifted one paw. “Shh.”

  The two chipmunks, the cat, and the cricket sat silent. Tucker Mouse had stopped his pacing and was pointing before him at something which wasn’t there. Then he pointed at something else, which also wasn’t there. And then, with a shout—“I got it!”—he jumped three feet straight up.

  “I got it! I got it!” He came running back to the others.

  In one voice Emily, Henry, Chester, and Harry all exclaimed, “What?”

  “No time to tell you now!” said Tucker Mouse. “Call all the animals! Everybody in the meadow! Pheasants, squirrels! The various and sundries, too! Get them all together down by Simon’s Pool! As fast as you can! I’ll explain it to everyone then! We’ve only got a single day! But the Old Meadow is saved!” He looked down into the cellar, eyes wide with excitement but shadowed by a bit of doubt. “At least maybe it’s saved—I hope!”

  ELEVEN

  How to Build a Discovery

  Like a wind, word spread through the meadow that the mouse from New York had another plan. From all quarters, animals streamed toward Simon’s Pool. By noon a great crowd had collected around the log where the old turtle sunned himself. He was lying there now, waiting like the others to hear what Tucker had to say. The mouse jumped up on the log beside him and looked out over the upturned, expectant faces before him.

  “Friends and meadow dwellers!” he began. “As you know, the ripping up of your home has already begun.” A groan went up from the assembly. “Those humans should only have known better!” said Tucker. “But just this morning I came down with an idea that still might work!”

  “Hooray!” came a cry from the section where the sundry fieldmice were sitting.

  “Save the ‘hoorays’ till we’re safe!” said Tucker. He went on to explain what had happened. “Just a little while ago we discovered that the farm house
where Henry and Emily live had been the home of a man named Joseph Henry, and I got the idea that—”

  “Joseph Henry!” exclaimed Simon Turtle. “Why, I haven’t heard that name for—for—goodness, I can’t even recollect how many years!”

  “Very interesting, Mr. Turtle,” said Tucker, who was anxious to get on with his plan, “however, right now—”

  But Simon had begun one of his reminiscences—an especially interesting one, to him, because it brought back a scene he hadn’t remembered for ages. “I recollect my grandfather—Amos Turtle was his name—and I recollect him telling me when I was just out of the egg that his grandfather—that would be my great-great-grandfather—”

  “Mr. Turtle—!” Tucker began tapping his foot.

  “—his grandfather,” Simon went right on, “had told my grandfather that he remembered the days when the Henry family was still living in that farm house. He told him about the night of the fire. I recollect my grandfather saying that the Henrys used to have an old dog, and the dog knocked over a kerosene lamp—way back in those times, before electricity, they used kerosene—and—”

  “Mr. Turtle!” Tucker Mouse burst out impatiently. “If you’ll let me tell you about my plan, and if my plan does work, maybe your grandchildren will have something to recollect, too!”

  Tucker’s indignation shocked Simon out of his reveries back into the present. “Oh, by all means,” he said, “do go on.”

  “To be brief,” said Tucker, with a stern look at the turtle, “what we have to do is convince the human beings that that farm house originally belonged to Joseph Hedley, not Joseph Henry. You said that the human beings didn’t know exactly where Joseph Hedley lived, didn’t you, Chester?”

  “Yes, I did,” said the cricket, “but—”

  “Wait.” The mouse held up one claw. “If we can get the human beings believing that the Old Meadow was the location of the Joseph Hedley homestead and farm, my guess is that they won’t dare wreck a place of such—” His squeaky voice became very grand and important. “—such historical significance! So we’ve just got to fool the stupid human beings. How about it? What do you think?”

  The animals all looked at one another, testing the idea in their minds. Then a few began to smile, and a few more began to laugh. A wave of excitement and enthusiasm broke over them. To fool the human beings would be a game, as well as a means of saving the Old Meadow.

  “Here’s how I think we can do it,” said Tucker. “First we—”

  “Uh—Tucker,” said Chester Cricket, “excuse me for interrupting you. But even if we can do it, wouldn’t it be sort of—well, I mean, like a lie?”

  “Oh, Chester!” Tucker shouted. “You’re so honorable! It’s disgusting! Here the human beings are about to ruin your home! Everybody’s home! And you’re worrying about telling a little lie! The only other thing I can think of to do is wait until Monday morning, and then have all of us who have teeth big enough go out there and attack those workmen! We might get the town believing the meadow was full of rabid rodents. But they’d probably just come out here and exterminate us anyway!”

  “Chester,” said Harry Cat, “just keep telling yourself it’s not a lie—it’s a benign deception. For everybody’s good.”

  “That’s right!” said Tucker. “A ‘benign deception.’ For everybody’s good! The human beings’ good, too—if they don’t have brains enough to leave nice meadows alone!” Another idea struck him. “And imagine the noble sentiments, Chester! How proud they’ll all be—to have discovered the Joseph Hedley homestead. I could weep to think of the patriotism!”

  “Well—” began Chester.

  “Fine! That’s settled!” said Tucker Mouse. “Here’s what we do: first of all, the various and the sundries have to ransack that cellar hunting for things that don’t look old—very old! If you have any doubts—about dishes, say, or furniture—ask either Harry or Chester or me. But anything that doesn’t look at least a couple of hundred years old—drag it out of the cellar and hide it somewhere! Hop to it now, you rabbits and mousiekins!” Tucker was really getting in the spirit of things; he clapped his paws and rubbed them together like the foreman of a crew. The various rabbits and sundry fieldmice dashed off toward the ruins of the farm house.

  “We’d like to help, too,” said a cultured voice from one side. Beatrice and Jerome Pheasant had been sitting a little apart from the others.

  “Great!” said Tucker. “You two go with the various and the sundries. And scrounge, Beatrice! Scrounge like you never scrounged before!”

  Beatrice Pheasant looked a little shocked on receiving these instructions. Needless to say, she had never “scrounged” before in her life. And she didn’t relish the idea of spending the day in the company of a crowd of ordinary fieldmice. But she realized that this was an emergency, so she swallowed her pride—and told Jerome to swallow his, too—and off they fluttered. As a matter of fact, by late afternoon she found that she rather enjoyed this “scrounging”—or “antiquing,” as she preferred to call it. It was she who uncovered a solid silver spoon. Everyone thought that a solid silver spoon was exactly right for the Joseph Hedley homestead. But then Beatrice, with her sharp pheasant eyes, noticed that down at the end of the handle there was printed in tiny figures the date when the spoon had been made: 1834. It was decided that 1834 was far too recent a year for Joseph Hedley to have owned the spoon. Beatrice said that in that case she would like to have it herself, and she took it back to her nest. The other things that were too new—a Campbell’s soup can, for instance—were carted off and buried in the orchard.

  While work went on in the cellar, Tucker Mouse was still issuing commands beside Simon’s Pool. “Now the most important thing—and this is a job for you, Harry—is to get that sign we saw in the Hadleys’ attic. Remember that sign we saw, that had HADLEY stamped on it in iron letters? I have to have it! It’s the key to everything!”

  “I can help you there,” said Bill Squirrel. “There’s a hole under the eaves of the Hadleys’ roof big enough for two squirrels to march in abreast. And we have, too! There’s more that goes on in those attics than the human beings know about.”

  “Wonderful!” said Tucker. “Then you help Harry. But wait till the Hadleys have gone to sleep—it’ll be easier then.”

  “Hadley’s not the same as Hedley,” said Harry Cat.

  “Never you mind,” Tucker silenced him. “Just you watch what I’m going to do! And don’t let me forget that I’ve got to chew off part of the first page of Joseph Henry’s family Bible.”

  “What are you going to do that for?” said Harry. “That ought to be lugged away, too. It’s a sure giveaway.”

  “Not when I get through with it, it won’t be!” said Tucker. “I’m going to doctor it up so it reads Family Bible of Joseph He—and then the page ends. The human beings’ll think the He—stands for Hedley. And what could be more precious to the town of Hedley than the family Bible of Joseph Hedley himself? Hic! hic! hic!” He couldn’t contain himself and burst into a series of squeaky laughs. “You shouldn’t be upset, Chester—it’s just another little benign deception.”

  Chester couldn’t help but laugh himself. He shook his head. “You’ve got to admit it—when Tucker works at something, he really works at it!”

  Tucker Mouse gave a superior little sniff. “You said it!” he agreed. “This is one mousiekins with imagination!”

  * * *

  Ellen and the little kids continued to picket almost all the afternoon. They didn’t know it, but on this particular Saturday they weren’t the only ones who were working to save the Old Meadow. In the ruined orchard, through the portal oaks, and down inside the farm-house cellar there was a bustling of activity such as the meadow had not seen for years. Fieldmice were chewing up an old canvas suitcase. Chester said it could stay in the cellar, but only if it looked more torn and shredded. Rabbits were scratching up a set of wooden bowls. They had aged very nicely and been partly burned in the fire, too—exactly the
kind of clues Tucker wanted. Beatrice and Jerome Pheasant, having appropriated the silver spoon, were now sifting through a pile of broken glass, picking out the most weathered pieces and flying the rest over to a hole Henry Chipmunk had dug on the far side of the orchard.

  And Tucker Mouse was running around everywhere, shouting encouragement. “Remember! It has to be all finished by picnic time tomorrow! Hedley Day is the only time when lots of human beings come to the meadow, isn’t it, Chester?”

  “Yes,” said the cricket. “And besides, if this doesn’t work tomorrow, by next week it’ll be too late anyway.”

  Tucker kept looking into the west and wishing the sun would go down. “I’ve got to get that sign!” he said. When night finally did come, he and Bill Squirrel and Chester went back to the hill and waited for the lights in the Hadleys’ house to go out. Work didn’t stop in the cellar, however. There was a full moon for the animals to see by, and the sifting and searching went on all night.

  It was a habit of Mrs. and Mr. Hadley to sit up late on Saturday nights and watch a movie on television. On this night the movie was one of their favorites. They had seen it years ago, even before Ellen was born, and it was like being young again to see it once more together. They enjoyed it very much.

  Tucker Mouse did not enjoy it, though. By midnight he was bouncing around like a rubber ball. “What are those people?” he demanded impatiently. “Human beings or night owls?”

  “Harry must be getting awfully nervous, too,” said Chester.

  “Mmm,” grumbled Tucker. “He’s been living over there like a king all summer—now let him do his duty for once!”

  “There it goes!” said Bill Squirrel. The light in the master bedroom had just winked out. “Now is that sign all you want? What if I find something else that looks really old?”