Everyone was cross by this time, and they were all blaming each other for what had happened.
“Your manners are deplorable,” the swami told his followers. “I was appalled. One would think you had been brought up in the depths of a cave.”
“It wasn’t us,” the followers cried. “It was the goats. They would not stay underneath the tables and kept tripping us up.”
The goats, meanwhile, blamed the peacocks, whose
feathers tickled unbearably at close quarters, while the
peacocks blamed the goats for their sharp hooves.
“Onward!” roared the angry swami over
the hubbub. “Stop squawking. Keep
walking. We will go to the
Ritz. They always
have plenty
of room.”
All morning, the farmer sat alone on his living room couch with his legs propped up on the coffee table. It was Friday, the day before his eightieth birthday. He was listening to the wind whistle around his house. There was a harsh sound in it, a cold rattle, a dry chatter, that the farmer recognized. October was nearly over. Winter was coming. The farmer pulled his old sweater more closely to him and tried to remember younger birthdays in his life. Had the weather always been so depressing?
Early in the afternoon, someone knocked on his door.
“Come in!” called the farmer without getting up. He took his legs off the coffee table, moving each leg with his hands as if it were an object not connected to him. Then he looked up and squinted toward the door.
The visitor appeared to be a stranger. He was a small-sized boy wearing a wrinkled windbreaker and a crafty expression on his face. Who in blazes could it be? The farmer leaned forward and squinted harder.
“Dexter Drake!” he exclaimed at last. “I must be going blind. For a minute I couldn’t tell who you were. Glad to see you! Come and sit down. Bad wind we’re having. What’s on your mind?”
“I haven’t seen you out lately. I wondered if you were sick,” Dexter said, sliding into a chair. “We get out of school early on Fridays,” he added, then folded his hands and looked at the farmer in a most calculating way, as if he were counting the hairs on his head.
“Nothing much wrong with me,” the farmer replied with a shrug. “There’s nobody much out there so why should I go out?”
“There’s me,” said Dexter.
“So there is!” The farmer beamed with pleasure. “You and your friend, Howlie. I’ve been watching you both out under my tree. You’re up to something, aren’t you? I was just saying the other day: Those boys are up to something.”
The farmer was about to give Dexter a wink to let him know that he had been a boy once himself and knew what it was to be up to things. Just then he saw Dexter’s face take on a mean, secretive look that was more unpleasant than ever. “Watch out,” the look said. “Don’t tell the old idiot anything.”
The farmer sat back on the couch and gazed out the window.
“Winter’s coming,” he remarked, coldly. “Seems like it’s getting here quicker this year.”
“We weren’t doing anything under the tree,” Dexter said in his new, sly voice. “You don’t have to worry about us. Anyway, Howlie and I aren’t friends anymore.”
“That so?” The farmer glanced up.
“He’s a creep,” Dexter said.
“A what?”
“We split up,” Dexter said, louder, so the poor old farmer would understand. “We had a fight and …”
“You needn’t shout,” snapped the farmer, cutting him off. “I can hear you perfectly well.” He looked out the window again and a silence settled over the room. Dexter glanced around nervously. He cleared his throat and spoke again:
“You sure have a good view of the oak tree from here. And by the way, has anybody ever looked for the pirate’s treasure chest that’s supposedly buried out there? Was it ever found, I mean? I was just wondering,” said Dexter, in a voice that sounded false even to his own ears.
For a moment it appeared that the farmer might not have heard the question. He sat motionless on the couch. Then, slowly, he brought his eyes in from outside the window. He rested them on Dexter’s face.
“Diamonds,” he said. “So that’s what you’re after.”
“Oh, no,” protested Dexter. “I’m just doing some research on old stories.”
The farmer smiled. He shifted to a new position on the couch and rubbed his knees.
“People have looked for that chest,” he said. “In fact, they’ve spent a good amount of their time looking for it. But so far, they haven’t found it.”
“They haven’t?” said Dexter.
“This was a while back,” the farmer said, still rubbing. “Probably about seventy years ago.”
“Does that mean the story is true?” Dexter asked.
Maybe the farmer really had grown deaf in the last few months. He didn’t seem to hear this question either.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” he said suddenly. He leaned toward Dexter, who thought for a moment that he was going to reveal a clue to the treasure’s hiding place. But his subject was quite different.
“Something’s happened to my memory,” the old farmer whispered, with glowing eyes. “It’s getting sharper by the day. I can’t understand it, but I’ve been remembering everything lately, things that happened way back when I was a boy no bigger than you. I was just now remembering how I went digging for those diamonds myself. My friends laughed at me, told me I was crazy. But I went right ahead. Nobody could tell me anything back in those days.”
Dexter stared at him in surprise. “You went digging for the treasure?” he said.
“It’s strange, I know,” the farmer continued brightly. “An old fellow like me. You’d expect the opposite. You’d expect me to be losing my mind instead of sharpening it up. Sometimes I sit a whole afternoon on this couch remembering one thing after another. It’s a good way to travel for a man with bad knees.” The farmer chuckled. “A fine way to travel.
“There’s something I’m worried about, though,” he went on, fixing Dexter with his eye to make sure of his attention. “Who’s going to do the remembering around here after I’m gone. What do you think about that?”
“I don’t know,” said Dexter.
“Exactly,” replied the farmer. A queer look flashed over his face. “I don’t know either. It’s a question, all right. A big question.”
The farmer coughed—ahunk!—and spoke again.
“I don’t mind you digging if that’s what you want to do,” he told Dexter. “There are shovels in the barn.”
“There are?”
“Don’t dig up the oak’s roots, though,” he warned. “And don’t smash through them. That tree’s special to me and I don’t intend any harm to come to it. You can get on pretty well by digging in between, if I remember right.”
“Are you sure? Are you sure it’s all right?” Dexter had his regular voice back again.
“I think I used a pickax one time with good results,” the farmer said. “There’s one in the barn hanging up on the wall.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Hold on a minute. There’s another thing.” The farmer waved Dexter away from the door.
“It’s the rule around here and always has been that anybody who finds anything lying on the ground or in the ground, well, it’s the finder’s property. The owner of the land has no right to it.”
The farmer announced this exciting piece of information with his eyes looking outside the window again. “But I’d be happy if you’d let me know how the work progresses from time to time,” he added.
“Oh yes. I will.”
“And you might come by tomorrow, it’s Saturday, and give me a report then,” the farmer said without glancing around. “If it’s convenient, that is. If not, don’t bother.”
“Oh, it will be convenient,” Dexter assured him, with a sudden feeling of warmth toward the old man. “I’ll come tomorrow, for sure. And thank yo
u,” he added in a lower, embarrassed tone that sounded more like an apology.
“No need for thanks,” answered the farmer. “I know what buried treasure can do to a fellow.” He pointed at the door. “Go on. Get started. I need a rest.”
“Yes, sir!” cried Dexter, racing away. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on a shovel.
4
MY DEAR FRIENDS. AS I stand here beneath our great oak on this golden October day, I am reminded of happy days gone by which …
Mrs. Trawley stopped writing and nibbled the end of her pen. It was Friday, the day before the big rally, and she was seated in a pool of afternoon sunlight on her glassed-in porch trying to write her speech. She had written “golden” because, at the moment, the day was golden. But suppose tomorrow were rainy? It would be difficult to change the speech, she discovered:
My dear friends. As I stand here beneath our great oak on this chilly, wet and altogether gloomy October day … No. No. It would never do. Mrs. Trawley tore the page off her pad and began a new speech that was not dependent on the weather.
My dear friends. I stand before you today to speak simply and openly on behalf of our Dimpole Oak. For though time like an ever rolling stream bears all its sons away, this oak remains, as it has remained and will remain for many years to come. I hope, barring the unforeseen, life being at the mercy of variable winds, as a symbol of …
Mrs. Trawley stopped writing again and nibbled. The pen was not big enough to really bite into, she noticed with a frown. She took a stick of gum out of her pocket, unwrapped it and slipped it into her mouth.
But even chewing did not help this second beginning of the speech. Somehow it had gone astray. Far from coming out simply and openly in a long silken string of words like the Gettysburg Address, it had bumped and twisted and rolled itself up into a terrible knot.
“I must not let my sentences run away from me like this,” Mrs. Trawley told herself severely. “I must organize and control them. I am not sure either,” she muttered, “that ‘My dear friends’ is a good opening. After all, many of these people are not my dear friends and some of them are not my friends at all.”
Mrs. Trawley unwrapped another stick of gum and added it to the first in her mouth. She could not help thinking, now that she was on the subject of people, how very difficult they could be. Her experience of organizing the oak tree rally during the past week was a perfect example.
Everyone in Dimpole had agreed that the oak tree was in danger. Everyone had voted to do something about it. And then no one had ventured a single idea. It was interesting to see how people hung back timidly and waited to be served with a plan. But when Mrs. Trawley had presented them with the very plan they needed, when she had told them clearly what ought to be done, they had coughed and scratched and brought up niggling objections.
Further, when asked to volunteer for jobs, they had hidden, or they had gone out on their own and bungled the work, or they had fought among themselves and accomplished nothing.
Trying to organize people was like trying to herd goats, Mrs. Trawley decided, as she sat on her back porch squinting into the sun. It was a matter of staying constantly on patrol, nipping a hind foot here, heading a stray off there, until the whole bleating mass of animals was maneuvered down the mountain and into the barn. Mrs. Trawley sighed. Perhaps it was better not to bother with organizing, she thought, but just to go ahead and do everything oneself like Henny Penny. She picked up her pen and began to write again.
Ladies and Gentlemen: Let me assure you that I do not intend to bore you today with flowery language or extended metaphors on the nature of things. Let me go right to the point and say that the reason I have organized this excellent rally, the reason you are all here listening to me attentively, the reason I am standing up here giving this great speech is that the great Dimpole Oak is in danger. Yes, danger, I repeat.
When she had finished writing this opening, Mrs. Trawley sat back and smiled triumphantly. At last she was on the right track. It is wonderful how a good speech just naturally develops a rhythm of its own, she thought, blowing a small bubble to celebrate.
The gum had turned out to be a stringy kind of bubble gum. Most likely a cheap brand, always a mistake to buy. She unwrapped another piece and combined it with the wad in her mouth. Oh, yes. Much better. Her second bubble was quite a good size one.
“Now, where were we?” murmured Mrs. Trawley, looking down at her speech again. “It is so very pleasant to be in control of things,” she added, chewing vigorously on the gum.
The telephone rang. Mrs. Trawley rose from her chair and went inside the house to answer it.
“Hello (chomp, chomp)?”
There was a moment of silence, and then the sound of someone breathing heavily on the other end of the line.
“Hello? Hello?”
She heard the click of a receiver being carefully hung up.
“How annoying,” Mrs. Trawley said. “Who can it have been?” She glanced around the living room and then went to a front window to look outside. A stiff wind was blowing the bushes about. The day was not nearly as warm as it had seemed on the glassed-in porch, she realized.
“I am sure it was someone calling about the rally,” Mrs. Trawley told herself. “They were probably interrupted and will call again in a minute.”
She waited, with growing anxiety, by the window. No one called back.
“How silly,” murmured Mrs. Trawley. She began to chew faster and to imagine terrible things.
The caller was a burglar testing to see if she was home.
The caller was a murderer testing to see if she was home alone.
The caller was an escaped convict looking for a place to hide for the night.
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” Suddenly, Mrs. Trawley was terrified, although she knew it was absurd. The golden afternoon had taken on an evil shine.
“I will take my speech to the public library and finish it there,” she said, trying to control her wild feelings. “And I will call Mr. Trawley at his office and arrange to have dinner with him at a restaurant. I know I am being a complete coward, but …”
Mrs. Trawley gathered up her pad, pens, purse, coat
and another package of bubblegum and fled out
the front door. A minute later, she
was in her large, black car
speeding down the
road toward
Dimpole.
During all the time that Mrs. Trawley sat on her porch writing her speech (before the frightening phone call drove her away), Miss Shirley Hand was at her own home, across town. She was not sitting comfortably in a pool of sunlight, though. The young teacher was in trouble. From one end of her small apartment to the other she walked, patting her forehead with lime-green tissues.
There was a whole box of tissues on the dining room table, along with a bottle of lavender-scented cologne. Whenever she passed the table, Miss Hand drew a tissue from the box and doused it with cologne. Then she dabbed at her face and went off pacing again. The apartment reeked of lavender. The cat had taken refuge under the bed.
“Oh, why do I get myself into these horrid corners?” Miss Hand moaned to herself. “Why didn’t I think of a Special Entertainment for Great Dimpole Oak Day long ago? I put it off and put it off until time ran out. The rally is tomorrow! Now, there is nothing to do but call Mrs. Trawley and tell her I have failed. Failed!” wailed Miss Hand. “Oh, I do hate failing more than anything else.”
She sat on the living room couch beside the telephone and eyed it fearfully.
Failing Mrs. Trawley was bad enough, she thought. What was worse was to be failing right out in plain view of everyone in Dimpole. For Mrs. Trawley had been telling people about Miss Hand’s Special Entertainment. She had been whetting their appetites with enticing remarks, and even boasting about “Shirley’s Big Secret.”
“What on earth is going to happen? What wonderful thing do you have planned for us?” Miss Matterhorn had asked Miss Hand at school only yest
erday. And when Miss Hand had protested, “It’s really nothing! I wouldn’t expect anything,” Miss Matterhorn had given her a sly look and said:
“Shirley Hand, you are far too humble for your own good. You never give yourself enough credit.”
Too humble? Oh, dear! Miss Hand sprang up from the couch when she recalled Miss Matterhorn’s well-meaning words. She strode across to the dining room table where she snatched up a mass of lime tissues and drowned them in cologne. Miss Hand disliked disappointing well-meaning people even more than she minded failing.
“Loopy, I must take action,” she said to the cat, who had chosen this moment to tiptoe bravely through the fumes in search of his litter box.
“I must sit down and call Mrs. Trawley this minute! I will tell her,” she added, picking up the telephone receiver, “that I have not arranged a Special Entertainment due to unforeseen circumstances, and that she must announce it at the rally tomorrow so that people do not expect anything.”
Unforeseen circumstances? Miss Hand couldn’t help giggling under the tissues she was holding to her face. It sounded so mysterious, as if she had entered the pages of one of her mystery stories.
Miss Hand dialed Mrs. Trawley’s number.
The phone rang several times. Miss Hand remembered that Mrs. Trawley liked to sit on her porch on pleasant afternoons. Or was she out altogether?
Finally, Mrs. Trawley answered: “Hello?”
Miss Hand froze. The sound of Mrs. Trawley’s voice undid her completely. She could not utter a word, could not even begin to talk about “unforeseen circumstances.” Her heart beat wildly. Her breath came in short gasps.
After what seemed to be a long time, Miss Hand lowered the receiver and hung up. She stared at the floor. Mrs. Trawley had been chewing something, she recalled vaguely. What could she have been eating at four o’clock in the afternoon?
“Oh, dear. What shall I do?” cried Miss Hand in a muffled voice of agony. By now she had such a large mound of tissues pressed to her face that anyone catching sight of her would have thought she had a toothache.
Miss Hand was plunged into a deep pit of despair by her phone call to Mrs. Trawley. How could she have acted so cowardly? she asked herself. She was a worm, a mouse, a sparrow of a person. Not only had she failed to organize a Special Entertainment for Great Dimpole Oak Day, but she had failed to tell Mrs. Trawley that she had failed. There was no excuse for what she had done. None at all. When people act like worms and mice what can anyone do except … except …
Great Dimpole Oak Page 5