The Open Gate

by Kate Seredy

  She was cut short by a benevolent pat on her knee. “Never you mind, dear,” Mrs. Van Keuran said, all her little jet snakes wriggling as she nodded in understanding. “Your Ma let slip a few hints. Bad luck you had. Got skunked outa your farm? No . . . no don’t talk about it now,” she hastened to add when Mother’s eyes rolled up toward the ceiling. “You are young enough to start over. Come spring, you’ll be thankin’ your Providence for bringin’ you here. Don’t know what your old place was like but I bet, just as a manner of speaking, you understand, that it never had black dirt on it like this!”

  “Oh, NEVER! We had all tile and chromium . . .” Mother cried, eager to get onto firm footing in the conversation, but instantly she was drowned in farm talk again.

  “You don’t say. Well, everybody to their taste. Jake and I never paid no heed to those new fangled fertilizers. Jake, he buys lime from the Gover’ment but mostly we depend on good rotted cow manure. Nothing like it to make things grow. And them new tractors! Give me a good team an’ I’ll plow my furrow against any tractor. Now, maybe I hadn’t ought to have said that . . . maybe you aim to buy one?”

  “A tractor? Oh most decidedly not. We wouldn’t dream of it. You see, Mrs. Van Keuran, we don’t want to . . .”

  “I thought not!” Mrs. Van Keuran was beaming at Mother. “You’re too sensible for that. Oh, no call for bein’ bashful about it,” she captured Mother’s protesting hands, “I can tell real folks when I see them. Them city fellers, pffth !” She disposed of the combined population of all cities with a short, horizontal slash of her arm. “I always say to Jake, I say, “I can smell ‘em a mile off. Now, dear . . . I didn’t right catch your name?”

  “Molly.”

  “Molly, is it? ‘Won’t think me forward if I just call you that? My name’s Em’ly. As I was sayin’, Molly, your Ma let drop a hint or two. But don’t you worry. Least, not ‘bout furniture ‘n things. This time of year there is an auction most every day of the week, you can buy enough for a few dollars to keep you snug over winter. Or you could order new, from the catalogue . . .”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that!” Mother shuddered at the thought of slick golden oak. “Anyway, we won’t need any . . .”

  “Real savin’, ain’t you! Well then . . . Jake and I will keep in mind to take you to a good auction. He can take the milktruck an’ tote your stuff home.”

  “That’s very nice of you, Mrs. Van Keuran,” said Mother. She braced herself to tell the truth. “But you see, we may not be here next week; we are not . . .”

  “There’s Jake now!” cried Mrs. Van Keuran, jumping to her feet. Heavy footsteps sounded on the porch and Gran’s twittering voice said: “Much obliged, Jake, but we can’t allow you to do this for nothing!”

  “Don’t aim to,” Mr. Van Keuran walked through the door, talking over his shoulder. “As I told the young feller, I’m short of hands for hayin’; he can work out what you owe me. Good hand with the pitchfork, are you?” He cast an appraising glance at Father’s broad shoulders. “Guess you are. That all right with you folks?”

  “That’s fine,” Gran said, glancing at Father with a challenge in her eyes. “John will be glad to get his hands on a pitchfork, won’t you, John?”

  Father glared at her. “Yes, oh yes. I wish I had one right now,” he said, half frowning, half laughing. He flexed his arms. “I could use it.”

  Mother plunged again. “Really, Gran, this has gone far enough. We simply must tell Mr. Van Keuran that John and I hadn’t any idea . . .”

  “Oh we know that . . . we know!” Em’ly sailed in, silencing Mother with a gesture. “But, give and take is what makes the world go ‘round I always say. Don’t I, Jake? Time will come . . . in winter now, when Jake and I are took with the rhumatiz . . . when we will be callin’ on you for help. You will be just like our own to us; helpin’ with the chores and all. Winter . . . that’s the time of year to say ‘much obliged,’ not now!”

  “Yes, yes,” nodded Mr. Van Keuran genially. “John and I understand each other. He don’t say much. We’ll get along first rate. Well, Woman, time to get back to your own kitchen; I could eat.” With a friendly nod, he went out. His wife followed as far as the door but there she stuck. “I left the plucked hen in the outhouse for you, Bess. Got staples enough in the house?”

  “Enough until tomorrow, thank you,” Gran reassured her. “We’ll go to the store tomorrow and stock up.”

  “Go to Tom McNeal; tell him I sent you or he’ll skin you. Got to watch the old buzzard. The way he can skin them city slickers, mm . . . mmmm. Never know what hit them. He’s a great one, he is. Jake? Oh my goodness, he’s gone. When Jake gets hungry, he . . . all right, all right, I’m a’comin’!” she waved to an impatient bleat of the car horn and sailed off.

  Father jammed his hands into his pockets. “Now! Look here, Mother, enough is enough. Hens! Pitchforks! Winter chores! Do you realize what position I am in now?”

  Gran didn’t even look up. She was banging oven doors and rattling grates. Over the clatter she said in a sharp voice: “If you want any dinner, John, go get me more wood. Molly, bring in the chicken. You have let my stove go out. On your way out, John, tell Janet to pick me some dandelion greens. The little pale green leaves only, for salad. Dick can pick me some strawberries; there’s a patch along the bank behind the barn. Here, take this bowl; he can pick enough for a shortcake.”

  Father gasped a few times like a fish on dry land, but Mother had quietly left the battlefield and now Gran was clamoring for something else. Hastily he removed himself.

  “Where on earth is the roasting pan Em’ly lent me?” Gran’s voice rose above the rattle of stove lids.

  “Here it is, Gran,” Mother called, coming in from the outhouse. “Look, the chicken is all stuffed, ready in the pan. Even parsley!”

  “Good soul, Em’ly. Got a head on her. Good worker, too, her kitchen is so clean you could eat off the floor. That reminds me . . . I want to buy some paint tomorrow . . .” she pulled pad and pencil out of her pocket and added a line to a long list. She cocked her head. “Calcimine will do for the time being. Brushes, window screening, material for curtains . . .” she mumbled as she wrote.

  “Mousetraps, insect spray, and some goo for burns,” Mother said quietly.

  “Burned yourself?” Gran glanced up. Mother was smiling at her. “No. Not yet. But I will, before Eureka and I get friendly. She has a wicked gleam in her eye and I am going to tame her.”

  She and Gran looked at each other for a few moments. Gran’s face grew softer and softer. She nodded with a satisfied smile. “I always thought there was more to you than just looks, Molly.” She glanced toward the door and whispered: “Is John really angry?”

  Mother whispered back, her eyes dancing: “You know what, Gran? Don’t tell him I said so, but . . . John is having the time of his life !”

  CHAPTER VI

  A NEW FRIEND AND AN OLD STORY

  IT WASN’T until after dinner that Father brought up the subject of misleading the Van Keurans. “We can’t just keep on lying to them, Mom,” he said seriously. “This joke has gone too far even now . . . I’ll feel like a fool when we tell them who we are. City slickers. come ‘n go birds,” he said with a wry chuckle, quoting their neighbors. Gran seemed unruffled. “Now look, John,” she said quietly, “if they had known that you were city people who had just stumbled into this farm, they would have kept as far away from us as if we had the . . . plague or something. Wait until they really get to like us! We aren’t lying; we simply don’t tell them everything. Now . . . now, I wasn’t lying either,” she protested when Father shook an accusing finger at her, “all I did was give them a hand with milking and show them that I know farm ways. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, Mom,” said Father. “But, who told Jake Van Keuran that we had lost our farm?”

  “Never said any such thing!” Gran was indignant. “All I said was the truth. I said: ‘My son had bad luck; he has to make a fresh start.’
Now . . . is that a lie?”

  Father sighed. “Just the same, Mom, we are NOT honest with them. Why, I couldn’t hold my head up . . .”

  “Neither can I. Not another minute,” Gran declared, stifling a yawn. “I did a good day’s work, I ate too much and now I am going to take a nap.” She rose and trotted toward the door. “What’s more, I don’t want to be disturbed for a couple of hours,” she said plaintively. Just before she closed the door after her, she sighed: “I am not as young as I used to be . . . just let me rest for a little while.”

  “It’s no use, John,” Mother said. “I gave up long ago; she’ll run circles around us every time. Tired! She’s positively . . . bouncing! Look, let’s go out for a long walk, it’s such a beautiful day!”

  Father brightened and the children jumped up, eager to go. “Where is that map that Mr. Van Keuran drew for you, Dad?” Dick asked. “The map of our farm . . . you know, from that there hickory stump, pace due west to the swail . . . what is a swail, Dad?”

  “Little swamp. I had to ask him myself,” chuckled Father. “He gave me a funny look, but he only said: ‘Recollect they call them muck holes upstate.’ ”

  He found the map in his pocket and they started out. Walking slowly from landmark to landmark, they made the rounds of the farm. It was a truly beautiful afternoon; the narrow valley between hills and mountains lay in sun-drenched stillness. Now and then a cow lowed softly, birds sang in the fields and woodlands, crickets chirped and once in a while an unseen rooster called imperiously to his many wives. Otherwise there was no sound. Having completed the round trip, they climbed back again to the hill behind their house. From there, the edge of their woodlot, they could see the whole valley and it was a glorious view. Mother leaned against a huge old maple and drew a deep breath. “John, it’s the most beautiful place . . . why, it’s unbelievable.”

  Dick, with Funnyface panting beside him, lay flat on his stomach, nibbling on a blade of grass. “A brook . . . no, two brooks and a pond and woods and . . . everything. Oh gosh, but I’m glad we bought it. It’s better than a . . . million camps. Can we have a horse, Dad?”

  Father gave him a strange look, “Don’t, Dicky,” he said almost pleadingly. “I’m beginning to be superstitious about your ideas. You bring home a silly catalogue, we start off on a vacation. You lose your heart to the first dog that crosses your path, we find ourselves buying not only the dog but the whole farm to go with it. Now . . . you want a whole big horse,” Father burst out laughing. “Have mercy on me, Dicky, or we’ll end up by owning this whole big valley!”

  “Wouldn’t that be swell, Dad?” Dick laughed up at him. “Then we wouldn’t have to go back to the city . . . ever!”

  Father glanced at him and his face sobered. Then he was looking at the valley spread out before them in all its June freshness and glory. His eyes grew soft and almost sad. Mother was looking at him. Now she sighed: “Me too, John . . . Completely crazy. Do you think we could . . . sort of hang on to it? I know—I know,” she laughed ruefully when he gave her a surprised frown. “Now that it’s out in words, it sounds . . . insane. I am still afraid of cows and mice and spiders and bugs and monstrous woodstoves and dirt and . . . oh, all the little and big unknowns that add up to farm life. Besides, confidentially, Mrs. Van Keuran has a way of reducing me to . . . nothing. BUT, when I look at Gran, a little old body almost half my size, wading in and having a marvelous time, I wonder. Are WE right? . . . depending more and more on . . . buttons,” she blubbered, almost crying but laughing at the same time, “or is SHE right, depending on nothing but her own wits and a little human kindness? And look, John,” she pointed to Dick and Janet who had started a game of rolling down-hill and racing up again, “have you ever seen them this way . . . all alive and . . . glowing!”

  Father covered her hand with his own. “Thanks, Molly. I have been fighting with myself all day. Thinking of the Molly of eleven years ago, to whom the Bronx River Park was the end of the civilization; the Molly for whom New York, the libraries, concerts, theaters, and museums were all there was of the world . . .”

  Mother smiled. “Silly, wasn’t she? Wonder why you ever married her.”

  He grinned at her. “I wonder! But I have and now she gangs up on me with the rest of my family, and wants . . . what do you want, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” Mother said. “Maybe it’s just cussedness. I want to see if I can . . . lick those things. Mouses and stoves and Mrs. Van Keurans. You know?”

  “Uhum. I know. Well . . . we could stay. We could keep the place for vacations. . . .” He let his eyes wander again over the valley. “Gosh but it’s beautiful!”

  “Hey, Dad,” Dick raced up. “Look, Dad, turn this way. See that big gray stone halfway from here to that little pond? Now watch. Is it moving or isn’t it?”

  “Dicky is telling stories, Dicky is telling stories . . .” Janet chanted, laughing at him. “It’s just an old dirty stone, how could it move?”

  “It was moving, I tell you!” Dick insisted. “Funnyface knows it moved. Listen to her!”

  Funnyface was indeed aroused over something. She was barking so hard that the very tip of her tail quivered. Father rubbed his eyes. “I’d swear I saw it move. It can’t be, though, Dicky. Maybe the heat-haze coming out of the ground is playing tricks on us. That’s a very large stone, it couldn’t . . .”

  “It is,” Mother stated. “That Stone is moving or I’ll eat my hat!”

  “Let’s see what makes it move, Dad,” cried Dick, pulling Father to his feet. They all walked down hill across the rock strewn pasture, passing many deeply embedded, moss-covered rocks on their way. None of these showed any undue ambition; they were just well-behaved rocks, although they looked exactly like the one that now plainly was making slow but steady progress toward the little patch of water.

  Funnyface had run ahead, her full throated if infantile battlecry shrill in the air. She reached the moving rock, gave one terrorized yelp and panted uphill with her tail between her legs. Dick reached the thing next. He, like Funnyface, beat a hasty retreat, his eyes roundly staring. “Oh gosh . . . it’s a . . . dragon!”

  Father was the next. He stopped short; staring. Dick squeaked behind his back: “Is it a dragon, Dad . . . a real dragon? Lookit . . . look at that zig-zag on its tail . . . just look at his neck.. . . scales and everything!”

  “What IS it?” Mother asked, arms around Janet who was uneasily peeking out from between her fingers. “Ugh, let’s get out of here, John, that’s a frightful thing!”

  “I want to go home!” Janet wailed, clinging to Mother. Father, without moving any closer to . . . whatever it was, said uncertainly: “It looks like a nightmare of a turtle but I can’t believe that turtles of this size still exist . . . not here, not anywhere outside of a Zoo and in the tropics. Gosh . . . look out, it’s coming for us!”

  The huge reptile evidently resented human interference. Slowly it swung around. Its serrated tail, as long and fully as thick as Dick’s whole arm, switched angrily; its powerful, short, clawed feet dug into the soft, mushy ground. An unbelievably ugly head turned slowly and baleful eyes glared over a repulsive, parrot-like beak. The beak opened and snapped viciously together again as the whole immense creature lurched around to face the intruders.

  There was no one to face. Four people and a panicky pup were beating a hasty retreat toward the nearest fence line. Father swung Janet over the top of the barbed wire, then helped Mother across. He and Dick scrambled over as well as they could, which was not very well. Father’s trousers were torn and Dick had a long rip in his shirt. Janet had landed in a clump of nettle; her bare legs were full of white blisters and she began to cry. Mother nursed a scratched arm, her stockings were full of runs and she had only one shoe on. She was burrowing for the one she had lost, “Dropped right here,” she mumbled, pushing vines and brambles out of the way, when: “That’s poison ivy,” said a calm young voice very close by. They stared. Not more than twenty feet away from where they
had so painfully scrambled over the wire, was an open gate. A boy about Dick’s age, dressed in faded blue jeans and nothing else, was leaning on it, his two bare arms hanging over the top rail. He was chewing the end of a long spike of grass, his calm blue eyes surveying the disheveled family. He lifted one eyebrow. “Gramp’s bull loose again?” he asked, spitting out the grass. “He don’t mean any harm.”

  “There is a dragon in there!” Dick announced, still panting. A cool smile flickered over the boy’s face. He gave Dick a superior glance and looked back to Father for an answer. Mother had found her shoe. Now she stood up and asked:

  “Has your father a telephone, Son?”

  “Got no father. Live with Gramp Van Keuran. He don’t hold with newfangled contraptions.”

  “Well,” Mother said, “somebody has got to notify the state police or something. That thing there looks dangerous.”

  “What you so almighty scared of?” asked young Van Keuran, swinging himself on the gate.

  Dick frowned at him. “I told you it was a dragon!”

  “Yeah? What’s it look like?” the boy asked with a derisive cock of one eyebrow, still addressing Father.

  “Well,” Father said, “it does look like a huge turtle but it’s about three feet long and . . .”

  “Where’d you find it?” The boy suddenly came to life. He swung free of the gate and bent to pick up a long pole from the grass.

  “By that little pond,” Father indicated. “But . . . look here, boy, don’t you go near it,” he cried as young Van Keuran moved in that direction. He stopped, grinning back at Father. “Been after that critter for a long time an’ aim to get it now. He ate all but two of Gramp’s young ducks, the old devil did. Ain’t nothin’ but an old snapping turtle.” He was off through the tall grass, whistling. Father cleared his throat. Mother looked at him. “Ain’t nothin’ but an old snapping turtle,” she repeated, imitating the boy’s mocking grin. “Little Saint George off to slay our dragon; John, do we let him do it alone?” But Father was already through the gate. In passing, he went through lightning pantomime, pointing at the gate, themselves, and the spot in the barbed wire fence so near by, they had climbed over. “Smart fellow,” he grinned, poking at his forehead.