Rufus M.

by Eleanor Estes

  Rufus was not even thinking about going to Plum Beach now. But while he was sitting on his bike, swinging the pedal around, undecided as to what to do or where to go, he thought he heard the merry-go-round. Not very loud, just the faintest, softest sound of the music of the merry-go-round. “Sh-sh-sh, listen!” he said and he strained his ears. You couldn’t often hear the merry-go-round this far away. Just once in a great while on a day such as today was, misty, soft, and quiet. But even today you couldn’t hear it well. Now you heard it and now it seemed to disappear.

  The music, faint though it was, made Rufus think about Plum Beach. He remembered that every time he had ever been there it was always bright and gay and jolly. It was jolly even on days when a sudden thunderstorm scattered the crowds and made them dash, screaming and yelling, for the open trolleys, and it was exciting to watch the trolleys ride off, tipping precariously to one side as the throngs crowded the running boards and tried to get at least their heads inside.

  Where Rufus was it was gloomy and quiet. But the faint strains of the merry-go-round seemed to say to him, “Here, it’s fun.” And then they faded out and Rufus pedaled slowly down another block, listening hard to catch them again.

  “You hear the merry-go-round?” he asked his cardboard friend.

  Rufus was fond of the merry-go-round. Who wasn’t? But there was one horse in particular that he was very fond of. His name was Jimmy. He had his name, JIMMY, spelled out on his chest in red rubies. He was the only flying horse who had his name embroidered on him. A dappled-gray horse, he was.

  “Want to see Jimmy?” Rufus asked the biscuit boy.

  The cardboard boy had never been to Plum Beach. If Rufus took the boy down there and showed him Jimmy and came right back, there would be no harm in that. “And do you think that Plum Beach is a hard place to get to?” he asked the cardboard boy. “You do? Wrong. It’s easy. Straight down this same street all the way. No corners to turn. Nothin’. And just as easy to come back, too. Nobody could get lost, not even a two-year-old.” Besides, thought Rufus, we don’t need to go into the park at all. We can just stand at the edge, at the gate, and look and listen. No, there was no harm in that at all. Just to the edge, that’s what, and then home again.

  “Come on,” he said, putting a little steam into his pedaling. “Let’s go. Hang on tight!”

  Rufus rang his bell every few seconds. Since the top half of the bell was missing, it had a hollow rasping sound as though it had a cough. Rufus rode as fast as he could down Raven Avenue. Sometimes he stopped to listen for the merry-go-round, which sounded less and less faint the nearer he got to it. No, it wasn’t exactly like going alone to Plum Beach to go with this cardboard boy. He was really company.

  “You want to see Jimmy, don’t you?” he murmured.

  Rufus rode past the carbarn where all the yellow trolleys were lined up and he didn’t stop to look. The only trolley he stopped to look at was the Bridgeport Express, which went sailing by. Now he could see the water of the Sound. Through the mist it was a dull gray.

  Rufus had thought that the nearer he came to Plum Beach, the jollier the music would sound. The flying horses did sound louder, but they did not sound really jolly. In fact, they sounded disconsolate. Maybe he wasn’t near enough to hear the fun and to smell the popcorn and peanuts. So he pedaled right up to the very gate of the amusement park. Yes, the water was gray and the day was gray and somebody had forgotten to turn off the electric lights over the gate that formed a circular sign, THE GREAT WHITE WAY, the name of the liveliest part of the park. But the pale electric lights looked no jollier than sparklers on the Fourth of July when you burn them in broad daylight instead of waiting for nighttime.

  Still, it was probably lots of fun inside the Great White Way. Inside he could watch the people shoot-the-chute into the water with a scream and a splash; watch the roller-boiler-coaster swoop up and down and around, with people screaming and yelling happily as they careened around the curves and took the big drop. But most of all he could watch his favorite flying horse named Jimmy.

  Rufus had thought he would be able to see Jimmy from the gate. But he couldn’t. The big thermometer that was called the high-striker stood in the way. You hit a disk at the bottom of this thermometer with a sledgehammer and tried to make it ring the bell at the top. If you rang the bell you got a big cigar. Once Joey had made it go halfway up, to a line marked “Try a little harder.” But Rufus was not interested in this big thermometer. He was interested in Jimmy.

  “I s’pose you’re not satisfied,” said Rufus to the cardboard boy. “Now you want to go inside, I s’pose. Watch the people have fun.”

  The cardboard boy, of course, never answered Rufus. He just looked eagerly ahead, always with the same pleasant smile and his hand outstretched, offering a biscuit. But Rufus did not need an answer. He wanted to see the people have fun himself.

  So Rufus rode through the gate and into the Great White Way. Here he expected gaiety, noise, music, laughing, and screaming. What he found was exactly the opposite. At first he did not realize this. The shoot-the-chute was going. The boats shot down into the water but nobody was in them. The roller-boller-coasters were tearing around. But nobody was in them, either. The Ferris wheel did have one single passenger. This was an old lady who had brought her knitting and was working away with an amiable smile as the Ferris wheel wound aimlessly around and around.

  “See that lady?” said Rufus to the cardboard boy. “She can knit and ride at the same time.”

  Rufus rode on. He could hear the water swooshing in the Old Mill, but no shrieks of delight came from inside. And there was the merry-go-round! The music was playing and the horses were prancing but there was not one single rider. Even so Rufus’s heart beat faster when he saw Jimmy gallop into sight and then disappear around the other side. And he smiled and said, “See him?”

  Rufus sat there watching the different amusements going. The roller-boller-coaster rattled over the tracks and looked almost like his and Joey’s toy trains when they set them going and then sat back and watched. In fact, it seemed as though somebody had set all these things in motion just to see them go.

  Where was everybody who was supposed to be riding? That’s what Rufus wanted to know. Whenever Rufus thought about Plum Beach, he thought of crowds of people. Now there was almost nobody around except the men who ran the place. They were keeping open from day to day, hoping to do a little more business before nailing everything up for the winter.

  Rufus didn’t know that things got nailed up at Plum Beach for the winter. He thought it was always noisy and jolly here. But gradually he began to realize that it was just as gloomy at the amusement park today as back in Cranbury, if not more so. In fact, it was so gloomy that Rufus hoped he would not come across Jolly Olga. Usually he liked her. It was Joey who didn’t. But even Rufus did not care to see her today.

  Jolly Olga was a great big lady about as high as the second story of a house. She was a hollow lady, made out of painted plaster. She was a fake. A fellow stood inside of her on stilts and made her walk and shake hands. She had been made for a carnival once and the people who ran Plum Beach liked her so much, they said, “Let her stay. Let her wander around and shake hands with the children.”

  Jolly Olga! You’d be walking along with an ice-cream cone or a box of Cracker Jacks and you’d be looking from side to side at the duck-shooting places, the penny arcades, or the Old Mill, then you’d turn around and there she’d be! Coming right toward you, nodding her great big head! Or you’d be watching the shoot-the-chute to see if you could spot Sylvie as she swooshed down into the pond, because the shoot-the-chute was Sylvie’s favorite ride. And then you’d see Jolly Olga way across the pond and her shadow would ripple all the way back across the water at you.

  Children were supposed to like Jolly Olga. Some did and some didn’t. Joey was one of the ones who did not like her. He used to be scared of her. He used to try not to be scared because he knew she was a fake. But whenever she came aro
und trying to shake hands with Moffats, he kept his eyes on the bicycle acrobats on the tightrope over the shoot-the-chute pond, or on the high-striker; and he pretended not to see her. He must have come upon her too suddenly once. She was so big that she could give a person quite a start if he wasn’t expecting to see her. You could tell Joey she was nothing but a mask, an allover mask, but it made no difference. Still he shuddered at just the name of Jolly Olga.

  “Jolly!” he muttered. “What’s jolly about her!”

  As for Rufus, he neither liked nor disliked her. However, if he saw her today, he hoped she would stay over on the other side of the pond. He wasn’t scared of her, but it was too gloomy a day to meet Jolly Olga. Certainly since he was the only person down here in the Great White Way, if Jolly Olga saw him she’d probably want to shake hands. Who else could she shake hands with? Not the men who were running things. She was there just for the children. Besides, the men were busy outshouting one another with their cries.

  “Step right up, ladies and gen’lemen. Guess your weight!” said one.

  And the man at the high-striker cried, “Ring the bell and win a big cee-gar! Ring the bell and win a big cee-gar!”

  “Step right up, folks, and win a ba-bee doll!” chirped the man in the duck-shooting pavilion. They were not real ducks. They were made of clay.

  And the saltwater taffy man kept on making taffy, and the tall, thin man who was running the merry-go-round seized a dark red megaphone and bellowed through this every few seconds, “Step right up, folks. Five cents a ride!”

  They all shouted and yelled and tried to drown out one another. Just practicing, thought Rufus, since there weren’t any folks around. Just him. Do you suppose they were all shouting at him? He didn’t have any money. Rufus turned his pockets inside out except for the one he kept his important things in, like his postcard from Al and the empty Bull Durham tobacco pouch. One look at his empty pockets and they could tell that he didn’t have any money. Nevertheless, Rufus did feel a little embarrassed. People who came to the Great White Way were supposed to ride things or at least buy a box of Cracker Jacks. Well, he wouldn’t stay long. He’d just get a little nearer to the flying horses, get a good look at Jimmy with the red rubies, and then he’d go home.

  He rode closer to the merry-go-round. There was Jimmy! Rufus watched him gallop into view every time he came around those fake trees in the middle. What a horse! It seemed to Rufus Jimmy’s big, soft, purple eyes saw him every time he came into sight; and as though Jimmy were laughing, he was so pleased to see him. He was the only horse Rufus ever rode. When Mama said he could have a ride on the merry-go-round, he always waited for Jimmy. If someone else got on Jimmy first, Rufus wouldn’t ride that time. Not until he was free. Sometimes the Moffats had to wait for Rufus a long, long time until he was able to mount Jimmy. They didn’t mind, though. They liked to sit on the round bench at the edge of the merry-go-round and watch the horses and listen to the music.

  “See him?” said Rufus excitedly to the cardboard boy every time Jimmy broke into sight.

  “Step right up, folks!” yelled the man with the megaphone so loud Rufus couldn’t help jumping.

  “. . . And win a ba-bee doll!” yelled somebody else.

  “. . . And win a beeg cee-gar!” from somebody else.

  “. . . Ladies and gen’lemen . . .”

  They all yelled hard. Probably they figured that the louder they yelled the more likely they’d be to produce customers right out of space. Unless they were still yelling at Rufus. He pulled his pockets as inside out as he could make them, even the one with his important things. They might think he had money in that.

  “There,” he muttered. “I’m here just to look at Jimmy. Nothing else.”

  Jimmy was so beautiful that, gloomy day or not, he looked as though he were sailing right over clouds. He really was sailing through clouds of mist. Rufus had been watching the flying horses so closely, dreaming about Jimmy, he hadn’t noticed how thick the mist was getting. But all of a sudden he realized that he couldn’t see the top of the high-striker anymore. If Jolly Olga came along now, he imagined you couldn’t see her head.

  “Guess we better go,” he said to the cardboard boy. But just as he was about to leave, somebody shouted, “Hey, kid, do you want a ride?”

  It was a man with the megaphone. He was talking to Rufus.

  “I haven’t any money,” Rufus replied.

  “You can have a ride for nothing,” said the man. “Maybe it’ll bring some business, break our bad luck for the day.”

  “What about my bike?” asked Rufus.

  “The ticket lady will watch it,” said the man.

  So Rufus wheeled his bike over to the ticket booth, where the lady in a pink blouse said she’d mind it. Rufus picked up the cardboard boy and when the flying horses stopped he stepped on. He put the biscuit boy in one of the sit-down coaches drawn by two swans for, of course, the biscuit boy could not ride a horse. And he himself mounted Jimmy. The man strapped him on. Rufus did not like this as it interfered with his trying for the gold ring.

  Rufus never had had so many rides on the flying horses before in all his life. One or, at the most, two rides were all he ever got. Now he rode and rode, around and around, and on and on. Jimmy . . . Rufus thought of Jimmy fondly and he patted his mane. He had red rubies on his harness, too. Jimmy was the only horse in this merry-go-round that had his name right on him. He was truly a remarkable horse.

  All of a sudden Rufus realized that he had had enough rides on the merry-go-round.

  “Hey!” he yelled. “I want to get off.” He was getting so dizzy he could no longer see the gold ring, and the lady in the pink blouse was just a blur. But the music began again and the horses galloped on.

  The next time the music reached the end of its tune, Rufus hollered again. “Hey, mister, I have to go home now.”

  But the long thin man with the megaphone paid no attention to Rufus. Either he did not hear Rufus or he pretended not to, in order to keep his one customer. Rufus looked back at the cardboard boy. He had slid into a half-reclining position in his chariot, but he was still cheerfully offering a cracker.

  “Bet you’re tired, too,” said Rufus.

  Now the air looked very strange. Great clouds of vapor were puffing in from the water. Rufus yelled lustily and he tried to unfasten the heavy iron buckle of the strap himself. He began to bawl, in fact. Well, a boy who is bawling is not good for the trade, either. That is what the long man must have thought, for he came winding in and out of the flying horses until he reached Rufus, and he unstrapped him. As the music came to a stop the man lowered Rufus to the floor. Rufus gave Jimmy a last pat. “Good-bye,” he said. Then he grabbed his cardboard boy out of the swans’ chariot, and jumped off before the music could begin again and carry them around and around some more. He had had enough of going around. His knees felt wobbly and his eyes crossed.

  “Thanks for the rides,” he said to the man with the megaphone as he passed him on his way out of the pavilion. Rufus got his bicycle, and when his legs stopped shaking he pedaled slowly away with the cardboard boy once more perched safely on the back axle.

  This was a real fog blowing in off the water, and Rufus realized it was high time he started for home. But there was just one more thing he wanted to see before he left Plum Beach.

  “You want to see the boat that goes to Silver Sands?” he asked the cardboard boy. “And that’s all,” he warned him.

  Right next to the merry-go-round was a long wooden pier from the end of which little white boats put off every half hour for an island called Silver Sands. If Rufus were lucky he might see one come in, see the captain put down the gangplank with a thud; or watch one leave, churning up the water between it and the round posts that supported the pier. As he rode over the wooden planks they made a gulping sound. And between the wide boards, Rufus caught a glimpse of the dark green water lapping against the posts, all covered with barnacles and seaweed.

  These gli
mpses of the world beneath the pier sent shivers up and down Rufus’s spine. He pedaled very slowly and he stayed right in the very middle of the pier. Foghorns and boat whistles, some pitched high and some low, sounded their sudden warnings.

  “Don’t be scared,” he said to the biscuit boy.

  Rufus paused. He looked ahead. He did want to see the boat, but the fog was getting thicker and thicker. What was the use of going way out there to the end of the pier? You couldn’t even see the lighthouse on the breakwater. You couldn’t see anything. A nearby buoy tolled its melancholy bell and Rufus stopped short.

  “All right, fellow,” he said to his cardboard companion. “We’ll go home now, if you’d rather. This is getting gloomy.”

  Rufus turned around in the tiniest possible area. He started pedaling back to land. Even on land the fog was very dense now. The flying horses were still going around but Rufus could hardly see them anymore, and he could not distinguish Jimmy from any other horse. The Ferris wheel had stopped and Rufus could only see the bottom seats. He hoped the lady who was knitting had not been left up in the air. None of the men was shouting anymore. They had succumbed to the weather and had given up. It was quiet except for the forlorn music of the flying horses and for the steady blowing of the foghorns.

  “It’s just a fog,” explained Rufus to his companion. “Everything is just the same, only you can’t see it. That’s all. Hang on. Don’t be scared.”

  Rufus steered carefully straight ahead between the salt-water taffy stand and the Indian wampum stand and he rode on toward the gate that led out of the Great White Way.