“But not one that sounded like that.”
“When did he get here?” The cricket’s curiosity tingled all along his antennae. “Where does he come from?”
“He flew in yesterday.” Dubber Dog scratched, very casually, his long right ear. “And landed on our weather vane. Made J. J. Bluejay furious, too. He likes to perch up there and squawk. Mr. Budd threw a squash at him, though, when he tried to push the mockingbird off.”
“Just skip all that J.J. Ouch!” Walter Water Snake had forgotten where he was, and whacked Chester’s log by mistake.
“Mr. Budd thinks the mockingbird is the greatest thing since maple syrup.”
“So do I!” said Chester Cricket.
Dubber hung his head—then forced a chuckle. “It even makes me a little jealous, how fond of him he is.”
“I’ve got to meet him!” Chester jumped from his log to the bank. “A musician like that—with such a voice—!”
“Hey, wait! Me, too!” Walter started to slither upstream.
“And me! But you people will have to go at my pace.”
Simon Turtle’s pace, which was measured by hours, not minutes, only added to Walter’s and Chester’s impatience. To quiet their fidgeting—one sloshing around in the brook, one hopping up and down on the bank—Dubber said, “You guys know how much Mr. Budd likes birds. Sometimes in winter he puts me on half rations so he can buy birdseed with what he earns from those odd jobs of his.”
“Every little bit helps,” huffed Simon, as he waddled along.
“How would you know?” Walter zigzagged and circled and did figure eights in the water. “Come winter and you’re underground.”
“Oh, I hear things,” the turtle wheezed. “Either sooner or later—in spring mostly—a turtle learns the truth.”
“Shh!” warned Chester. “We don’t want to scare him.”
As the four animals approached the cabin, the mockingbird’s song grew gradually louder. There were shreds of the melodies of all the meadow birds in that song, but also—suddenly—wonderful musical phrases that poured from the bird’s own imagination.
“Look! There he is!” Walter Water Snake saw him first, with his bright black eyes.
Mr. Budd’s weather vane and Luke Pett’s handmade stool were his most prized possessions. In ways, the weather vane meant the most: he’d bought it himself, thirty years ago, in an antique shop that was going out of business, with money he’d earned. It was a graceful iron bird, with wings extended, that always flew into the heart of the wind, as a weather vane always must.
Just now, on the left wing, there was perched a living bird made of flesh and feathers and thrilling voice. He was somewhat larger than John Robin, but not nearly as big as J. J. Bluejay. His back was gray, but the down of his underside was white, and he had white markings on his wings. An elegant yet not flashy tail seemed to complete him with a flourish. To Chester’s eye, despite his size, he was even more lordly than the great metal bird he was sitting on. No iron or steel could ever release a voice like that. Mockingbirds, indeed, had appeared in the meadow before, but—but—the sound from this throat went up and down, as if it were only testing itself, just playing, for fun. In quick and liquid drops it trilled, striking two notes close together. And sometimes it held on to one pure tone—for a long and then a longer time—so long it could make a cricket’s heart break.
“I’ve got to meet him!” sighed Chester almost fearfully.
“He’s shy,” said Dubber. “Very shy. Mr. Budd was trying to coax him down all morning.”
“Where is the old geezer?” asked Walt.
“He’s not an old geezer! And he’s asleep. Inside. Because of our worry, he hasn’t been sleeping too well this summer. But that mockingbird lulls him right off. And even in the afternoon—like today.
“I’ve got to meet him.” Chester Cricket, in a faraway voice, seemed now to be talking almost to himself. His mind was saturated with music.
But then a thought interrupted his reverie. The mockingbird had just spun out a tone of five notes. Using his legs—they made the famous chicket’s chirp—just as carefully as he could, Chester imitated the bird. He mocked a mockingbird, although there was nothing but awe and admiration in the sounds he made; no mocking at all. But then there was never any mockery in the sounds the bird made himself, no making fun of anyone. There was only a joy in the world he heard, and a wish to repeat its sounds again.
On the weather vane, the birdsong ceased. The mockingbird seemed more than surprised: he was shocked to hear someone play his private song. He looked down, and his eyes swept the bank where the chirps came from.
“Well, I never—!”
And then, to Dubber’s astonishment, he flew down—hovered above the animals—and alighted in front of Chester Cricket. “You did it, didn’t you?”
“Now just a minute, Mr. Mockingbird!” Walter wriggled up swiftly from the brook. “You’ve got to promise not to eat up our cricket. We have the Truce in this Old Meadow. And Chester’s special.”
The mockingbird bowed slightly to the snake. “Don’t worry, mah scaly friend—I never had a taste for good people.” He turned back to Chester. “It was you, though—”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Mockingbird—” Chester Cricket was flustered. “But I wanted to meet you. And I couldn’t think of anything else.”
“Best chirpin’ I’ve ever heard!” The mockingbird shook his head. Then laughed. Then whistled—“Eee-ooo!”—just like an astonished man. His laugh, too, was music, the kind a brook makes when it’s rushing over stones, with someplace to go. “I’ve met mah match—an’ no doubt about it!”
“Can I—can we—” began Chester. “Can all of us know your name?”
“It’s Ashley. Ashley Mockin’bird. I’m proud to meet y’all.”
Chester introduced himself and his friends.
Ashley sang his private melody, the one that Chester had imitated. Without a word being spoken, everyone knew he was greeting them all as a friend: a mockingbird’s way of saying hello.
The afternoon was growing old. Sun shone through torn clouds like fragments of floating cloth. Yet a sudden excitement filled the day, seemed to sparkle on the brook. It was as if the Old Meadow woke up: who is this new person?—and, something’s different now! The excitement got difficult.
Chester Cricket spoke into the silence. “Do you come from far, Mr. Ashley?”
“From West Virginia,” said Ashley Mockingbird. “I’ve spent mah whole life, so far, in the hollers of West Virginia.”
“A holler?” said Walt. “I thought a holler was when someone yelled at you.”
“Why, no,” said Ashley. “In West Virginia we have these wonderful up-and-down mountains. Big trees and bushes, and ten-times-ten kinds of flowers—like what y’all enjoy hereabouts, but wilder, maybe. And in between two green mountains, with a creek flowin’ through it, most likely—why, that’s a holler. There’s often a secret openin’, an’ once you get through it, a sweet valley stretches ahead of you—for animals, birds, human bein’s too, to live in an’ make their home.”
“I think he means ‘hollows,’” whispered Chester politely. “Folks live in hollows, in West Virginia.”
“That’s what I said”—the mockingbird let loose a daring song—“‘hollers’!”
At the questioning of his new friends, Ashley Mockingbird explained how he happened to be in Connecticut: “I was happy there, in West Virginia, but I got an itch to see some more world—”
“Connecticut?” asked Walt, amazed.
“That’s just where I’ve ended up. But anyway, I flew out. First over a beautiful horse country, nested round about by white fences—then farms, an’ still more farms. Cities, too. But I’m not too partial to cities. There was one horrenjous big one, thought—never seen so many buildin’s, such smoke—”
“New York!” interrupted Chester Cricket, remembering his summer down there, his adventures and his friends. “Oh, isn’t it wonderful.”
“Maybe you think so, friend cricket—but it scared the tail feathers off of me! Couldn’t wait to get past.”
“But, Mr. Mockingbird—” began Walter.
“Ashley,” said Ashley. “Otherwise I’ll be obliged to call you Mr. Snake, friend Walt. Fact is, in West Virginia I’m most respectful of snakes. We keep our distance, though.”
“Ashley, then—why did you land here? In a meadow that’s surrounded by a little town that wants to grow up and be a city.”
“Just this is the reason. I saw a little bitty thread of smoke. An’ follered it. Then, nearer, this cabin hove into view. It all just reminded me of our people back home. You’re very like to see a cabin, in one of the hollers. And there was that mountain, too.” Ashley swept his wing toward the west, where Avon Mountain loomed. Deep rays of the sun made the trees on the summit stand out like living men. “You’re like to see a mountain like that—”
“Avon Mountain.”
“—back home. And our people do love to watch the sun set over somethin’ that grand. A mountain like that provides us with protected places. Mountains shelter us. So what with the mountain an’ this ramshackle shack—I thought I’d better settle here. The old man, too—”
“Mr. Budd.”
“He has been so hospitable! Pumpkin seeds—corn. An’ so complimentary!—about mah little ordinary country songs.”
“They’re not so—”
But Ashley was too shy for compliments. He rushed right on, through Chester’s praise. “Also, he evicted that grumbly big blue jay, so’s I could sit on his strong iron bird. Jays are always so ready to take offense.”
“Being hit in the head with a squash doesn’t help their temper, either,” said Simon.
“But anyway,” Ashley went on, “I thought I’d stay a day or two. Before startin’ back.”
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Chester.
“Don’t you dare!” threatened Walt, with no venom in his voice.
“Please don’t go,” mumbled Dubber. “You mean so much to Mr. Budd.” He lowered his eyes, and crossed his forepaws, and let his head hang down on them. The hound in him had come out. “And you mean—to me, too.”
“Well—well—we’ll see.” Ashley cleared his throat with another song. “An’ I’m gettin’ homesick for Hank an’ Eller. Also, I’ve seen the world, now. As much as I need.”
“Are Hank and Ella human beings?” asked Chester.
“As human as a human can get!”
“Do they own you?”
Ashley laughed. His mirth, too, was a melody. “No one owns a mockin’bird. But I love them. An’ they love me. Want to hear how we three met up? An’ their kids?”
“Yes!”—“Yes!”—“Oh, yes!” Snake, cricket, dog, turtle—they made up a curious audience, for a mockingbird. But they all had to hear.
“’Bout two years ago I was still pretty young, an’ still lookin’ for mah own tree. Well, one Sunday, flyin’ over a holler I hadn’t inspected before, I seen this formidable oak. It was growin’ real proud right in front of a house that looked like four cabins nailed together, with a porch out front. An’ there was a hammock strung up on the porch, huge hammock strung from the two house beams. On the hammock was dozin’ this big ol’ coal miner. I knew, ’cause try as they do a miner can’t get all the black out from under his nails. This one wasn’t ol’, though—but, boy, was he big!—just vergin’ thirty, I guess. An’ tired, I could see that, from minin’ the coal all week. Clean crispy clothes, though, since it was Sunday, with a crease in his shirt you could cut cake with. I started to sing—that’s the way a mockin’bird tries out a tree—an’ this bruiser woke up. He listened a minute, then went into the house and came back out with a hunk of corn bread. He crumpled it up an’ held out his hand. I knew what he wanted, but I was scared. Six six at least—an’ almost as big as the oak! Could’ve crumpled me, too, with his little finger, along with corn cake in the palm of his hand. We’ve got a few bad ones in West Virginia, too. But he did look so tired—and wistful in his eyes. I thought—I’ll risk it! What’s one mockin’bird more or less? So I flew down an’ lighted on the giant’s thumb. So many calluses on that thumb I hardly could get a grip. Giant didn’t budge a notch, however, an’ out of the corner of mah eye I could see him smilin’. So I munched up the corn crumbs in that big hard hand. Delicious! But even more fulfillin’ was the smile on that coal miner’s face.”
Ashley hesitated—then sang a song that the others hadn’t heard before.
“When I had a full tummy, I gave him a song—right there on his thumb. Big fella shivered, like a tree in a storm. But I don’t think he shivered from worry or fear. I would have given a second song, too—except, right then, his six kids came screamin’, tearin’, out of the house. They’d heard me singin’, an’ they scared me half to death, they did. I dashed up to mah oak. But I’m here to tell y’all”—Ashley laughed, like a small waterfall—“their big ol’ Daddy chewed them kids out some-thin’ wonderful, for frightenin’ me that way. They’re good kids, though: Richard, Wally, Hank junior, and Tom, and Sally and Sue are the girls. They hushed up Sunday-nice that day. Then Eller came out, when she’d finished the dishes, an’ said, ‘Hank, what’s wrong?’ That’s Mommy an’ Daddy’s names—Hank and Eller. ‘Nothin’,’ said Hank. ‘Just sit still an’ listen.’ An’ that they both did. Kids, too. Mah Eller has pale blue eyes, kind of watery and exhausted—I would be too, with six kids an’ no help!—but beautiful yellow hair. Hank’s a redhead with dark brown eyes, like a deer I once met in a holler.”
The mockingbird began to unfold his song again. Then he cut it off, to finish his story. “I sang to them all afternoon. First sad—then getting happier—with a perk-up tune at the end. I knew that day that the big oak tree would be mah tree—an’ Hank an’ Eller, kids too, were going to be mah family.”
Ashley finished his song. With no word spoken, the other animals knew that this was the music he’d sung on a Sunday afternoon for the human beings he’d made his own.
He glanced off, embarrassed at having said so much. “I guess they’d never have listened to me if they could’ve afforded a radio.”
“I think they would!” said Walter Water Snake seriously. “I sure would have.”
“Well—maybe.” Ashley glanced at the weather vane. “Big ol’ iron birds can’t sing to our people. But sometimes I think I can!” Then he laughed, and added philosophically, “The good Lord willin’—an’ the creek don’t rise.”
“What’s that?” croaked Simon, who’d been listening attentively. Even his shell seemed to pay attention.
“It’s just a sayin’,” Ashley explained. “Our people say it a lot, back home. Spring especially, a family can get washed out. Not even get across a holler to holler for neighbors to come and help.”
Simon coughed out the best laugh he’d had in ten years. “I’m glad you’re here, youngster—” For Simon Turtle anyone under thirty-five was a youngster. “You can help.”
“I can help with what?”
“With what’s asleep in that cabin right now,” said Chester. “I’ll explain—”
Very often the fun of an explanation depends on how many participate: in this case a cricket, a turtle, a water snake, and a brown-and-white dog with a stomach that hung like a hammock.
“An’ I thought we had troubles in mah beautiful blue-ridged mountains!”
The explanations might well have turned into a shouting match, if not a downright brawl. But before the voices could overlap, the problem himself appeared. The cabin door swung wide, and Mr. Budd emerged. His stomach, like Dubber’s, was lordly. And when he stood straight up, on the steps made of good flat stones that he’d built to his house, full beard, with his thumbs hitched into his belt, he did appear lordly. The Old Meadow opened before him like the property of a diminished king. He’d been woken up by the sound of a turtle’s laughter—a rasp that he’d never heard before. He liked it, the same way he liked a new flower he’d never yet seen in the meadow grass.
He scratched his beard, white streaked with gray, put two fingers in his mouth, and whistled. “Where are you, my friend?”
“That’s me!” whispered Dubber proudly.
He bounded off, barking joyously, through the vegetable patch and was just about to lick Mr. Budd’s hand when the old man pushed his head away. “Not you, Dub. You’ll scare him. Where is my songbird, anyway?”
Dubber scootched down and hid inside himself.
“Come on now, my singer,” called Mr. Budd, with a plea in his voice both sad and sweet. “Don’t leave me alone.”
“Mm-mm!” muttered Ashley, and shook his head. There was no music in his great throat now. “Old man’s not alone. Dubber’s dyin’ to keep him company. An’ I don’t like to see a good dog’s feelin’s get hurt.”
“Me, neither,” said Walt, who was wavering up, to get a better view. There lay Dubber, downhearted among the tomato vines. “Not even a dumb mutt like—”
“Hush up now, snake!” the mockingbird ordered. “There’s love in that mutt. Somewhere.”
The mutt swallowed his humiliation, which tasted worse than an uncooked turnip, and made his way through the beans. When he could see Ashley, he jerked his head toward the cabin roof, and his sad eyes begged. His droopy ears seemed to plead as well. He lay flat, to listen.
“Dog wants me to go,” said Ashley, “an’ sing. The ol’ man likes a song at sundown. But this one’s for Dubber. Y’all wait here.”
“We all will,” said Walt. When Ashley had leaped through the air to the weather vane, he quietly asked Chester Cricket, “Do you understand that mockingbird?”
“No. I don’t need to understand.”
Ashley perched on the iron bird’s neck and began a sunset song. It was all about colors. They were woven together, in the mockingbird’s voice. Blue sky, still shining in the bright sunlight—but orange and red were preparing themselves in the west, behind Avon Mountain—and over all, a burning gold.
The animals clustered on the bank lost themselves in Ashley’s song. So did Mr. Budd. He sat on his three-legged stool, which was always placed on the lowest stone step, as if it were a throne and he were an unacknowledged lord being welcomed home by night at last.
The Old Meadow Page 3