Rufus M.

by Eleanor Estes

  “Watch me!” he’d say to anyone who would look, and he’d plunge the rubber knife into the palm of his hand.

  13

  Better Times Are Coming Now

  “Yes,” said Mama to the children, “better times are coming now for all people.”

  Why? Because the war was over. Peace had come. This was the way it happened. A few days ago, in the middle of Rufus’s reading lesson, all of a sudden the whistles blew! Whistles and sirens and fire alarms! Church bells of all the four churches rang, peal after peal! All the children looked at the teacher. What was the matter?

  The teacher’s face broke into a half-believing look of joy. “The war is over,” she exclaimed. And her eyes filled up with tears as she looked at the flag behind her over the blackboard, a flag with four blue stars in it, one for each of her four soldier brothers.

  Then the class went wild with joy and just as the big boys in the back of the room were about to throw erasers back and forth, in walked Mr. Pennypepper himself, smiling and clinking the keys in his pocket. Rocking from heel to toe and looking at the ceiling the way he always did when he gave a speech, he said, “The war is over! We have won the war! Everybody go home.”

  So everybody went home. And all the bells rang for a long, long time. But then it seemed that something was wrong. And a little later it was found that the war was not over. A mistake had been made. The armistice had not been signed. The bells should stop ringing. Peace had not come. Everybody must live as they had been living before they thought there was peace.

  “Should we go back to school?” asked Rufus, thinking this must be like a fire drill.

  But no. Since the children were all home now, they might just as well stay home, the teachers and the mothers decided. And they all tried to forget how happy they had felt for those few hours while they had been thinking there was peace.

  The next day everybody went back to school and there was reading and writing as usual, and the people bought victory stamps, and in the Moffats’ house they were still dividing the butter evenly to make it go round, and the men returned to work and did all their usual jobs. And then a few days later Rufus was standing in the front of the room about to sing his slip. He had just discovered to his relief that it was not in six-eight time. He raised his arm to beat time and he opened his mouth to sing. Then all of a sudden there they were again! All the whistles, church bells, sirens, school gongs, going like sixty. The war was over again.

  “The war is over,” the teacher said hopefully, “and this time it must be true.”

  Again the whole school was let out. At first everybody was very careful not to become too excited in case this might be another false alarm. But soon it became evident it really was so. The war was over. A real armistice had been signed, and this was November the eleventh and would become a famous day.

  “I guess they had that first armistice day,” said Rufus to Hughie Pudge, “to see if people would like peace or not. Like a rehearsal. If they liked it, they’d do it for real.”

  When Rufus reached home he stomped up on the porch noisily, stepped over Mr. Abbot’s rubbers, flung the door open, and clattered through the house to the kitchen, avoiding the dining room, where the sewing was going on.

  Jane was in the kitchen, squeezing the orange coloring out of the tiny little gelatin football that was supposed to make the oleomargarine look just like butter. Then she took a fork and tried to mash the coloring into the margarine evenly. Soon the white margarine became streaked with orange, but it didn’t look like smooth butter yet.

  “It’s because it’s so hard,” Jane murmured to herself. Jane didn’t pay any attention to Rufus, who always entered the house in this noisy fashion, giving one the impression that all doors and windows had suddenly been flung wide open and great gusts of air let loose in the house. Jane was thinking about what Mama had said when she came home from school.

  “Better times are coming now for all people,” Mama had said. It sounded good to hear Mama say that.

  Jane didn’t pay any attention to Rufus and Rufus didn’t pay any attention to Jane. He seemed to have something on his mind. He really did have something on his mind. He was pleased the war was over. Not only because they had had two afternoons off from school—the mistake last Thursday and the real thing today—but also he had a certain plan in his head. A couple of years ago Rufus had gotten a letter from Santa Claus telling him, “Sorry, all the ponies are at the war.” Well, the war was over now, wasn’t it? That meant they didn’t need all the ponies anymore.

  Rufus was thinking of a soldier friend, the fellow he gave his washcloth to at the station. He took the card this soldier had sent him out of his pocket and examined it for the millionth time. It had come all the way from France, and all it had on it was Rufus M., Room Three, School, Cranbury, Conn., U.S.A.! Naturally the fellow didn’t know Rufus’s last name because all Rufus had printed on the paper was Rufus M. But he got the card all the same. It was old and bent but you could still read it.

  Now all Rufus knew about this soldier was his name, Al. Al what? Just Al. Rufus didn’t even know as much about Al as Al knew about him. He tossed his red mackinaw on a chair and sat down in the wicker rocker in front of the stove. Catherine-the-cat was sitting on the little door over the grate, and she blinked rather amiably, for her, at Rufus.

  Rufus rocked hard.

  It would be a good idea to write that soldier in France, that’s what Rufus was thinking; see if he could bring a pony back with him, now that the war was over. If it wasn’t any trouble, that is. But Rufus knew better than to send a letter to just “Al in France.” Still, the important thing was to get the letter written; then he might think of some way of getting it to him.

  Rufus felt around in his pocket. He found an old stub of a pencil and one of his arithmetic papers. On the back of it he wrote:

  “Dear sojer. If they don’t need the ponies anymore over there, could you bring one back with you? Thanks for the postcard. It got to me.”

  Then he printed “Rufus M.” He could have written the offat part of Moffat as easy as pie but the soldier knew him only as Rufus M. That’s the way the soldier wrote to him. So that’s the way Rufus signed it. He looked at his letter and he thought how could he send it? He rocked and thought, but in the end he was bound to admit he knew of no way to get this letter to Al.

  So he lifted the lid of the stove and dropped the letter in. The fire had burned low and there were dull red coals only in the middle. With a puff Rufus’s letter caught on fire and burned up. Even after it burned you could still see the lead writing on the charred paper. Then a sudden draft whisked the letter over to the side where the dead ashes were. Rufus left it there, knowing eventually it would float up the chimney. And who knows? Maybe the soldier in France would somehow get the message, or maybe Rufus would learn some way of addressing a real letter to him. He clapped the lid back on with a clank and went over to the kitchen table to watch Jane struggle with the oleomargarine.

  After Jane had mixed the margarine properly, Mama would divide it evenly into seven parts, one for each day of the week, because it had to last a week. Then she would divide each of the seven parts into five portions, one for each of the Moffats, and that small piece was supposed to be his share of butter for the day. It was always hard to decide whether to eat one slice of bread with plenty of butter on it and enjoy it or spread it very thin and make it last all day. Sometimes the children decided one way and sometimes the other.

  Sylvie rushed in from the little green-and-white parlor. Her cheeks were bright and her eyes were sparkling.

  “Thought you were in the sitting room,” said Jane.

  “No,” said Sylvie.

  “Where’s Mr. Abbot?” asked Jane.

  “Oh,” said Sylvie carelessly, “I don’t know. Talking to Mama in the sitting room, I suppose.”

  She danced over to the stove and sat down in the wicker rocker. She looked at a piece of paper she held in her hand and she smiled to herself. T
hen she jumped up. She crumpled the paper, lifted the lid of the stove, and dropped it in. It lay there a moment without burning and grew brown around the edges. Then it burst into a bright flame. Sylvie’s eyes shone as she watched it. The lead writing was still visible even after her paper had all burned up into a delicate black wisp. And what she’d written on her paper was Sylvie Abbot. That’s all. Sylvie Abbot all the way down the page as though she were learning to write a new name. Her lips formed the words as she read them on the charred paper. Sylvie Abbot. It was pretty. She watched the words for a long time with a faint smile. Then she slowly placed the lid back on the stove and she danced over to the kitchen table.

  “I’ll help you,” she said to Janey. She took the fork out of Jane’s hand and gave the margarine a few pats herself. But she was too excited to work long. She jabbed the fork into the bowl and danced off around the room singing, “Tit Willow, Tit Willow.”

  Thank goodness she doesn’t sing screetchy like most ladies, thought Rufus.

  Jane picked up the fork again and she watched Silvie curiously. She jabbed the fork viciously into the margarine. She felt uneasy. She had a feeling there was going to be a change in the Moffats’ house. She felt this was going to be a bigger change than any they had had since they had moved away from the yellow house on New Dollar Street to this house. She became lost in her thoughts and scarcely heard Joey come in the back entry.

  Joey was the last one home. He had been out, all over town, selling Extras and delivering papers to his regular customers. He slung his canvas paper-bag on top of Rufus’s coat and sank into the wicker rocker. Creak. Creak. It crackled and creaked as he rocked. He felt tired. It was good to be sitting down in front of the fire. He watched a tiny red coal drop now and then into the grate. He looked at the coals and he fell to dreaming. The war was over. PEACE in big letters all over the front of the paper. Just PEACE. No other words at all. Better times were coming for all people. He remembered what Mama had said. The words sent a warm glow through him.

  Soon he could start raising his silver foxes and he planned to buy a motorboat someday. Put-put-put-put-put. They’d put-put all over the Sound. He’d only just gotten this idea about a motorboat; saw a picture of a beauty in Popular Mechanics the other day—one big enough for all the Moffats. A cabin in it, even. Could sleep in it and eat. There was a little stove with two burners. He’d keep the engine shining. Whew! He was tired. He rested his head back on the wicker chair, his eyes half closed. Through his lashes he watched the bright coals but he wasn’t really seeing them. He was seeing the silver foxes he’d have, and the motorboat going all over the harbor and out in the Sound, too. They’d go farther than Stony Creek—go up the Quinnipiac or the Housatonic. He’d always wanted to go up rivers. . . .

  Joey took a smudgy piece of paper and a pencil out of his pocket. He figured and figured about his boat and his foxes. Then when he heard someone coming, he quickly crumpled up his paper, for the foxes and the boat were his own secret plans, lifted the lid of the stove, and dropped it in. The paper began to smoke and then puff! It caught on fire. Joey watched it burn, while the flame threw lights and shadows all over his face. The fire was so bright the red coals seemed dusty and old in contrast. Even after Joey’s paper had burned he could see the figures he’d been making about foxes, and he could see the pencil sketch of the motorboat he’d made. Joey smiled out of the corner of his mouth. Good things—motorboats and silver foxes. He replaced the stove lid almost lovingly and stepped to the kitchen table, made Janey move over, spread out one of his papers, and started to read.

  Jane’s arm ached and her hands ached. This margarine was so hard! She just couldn’t get the orange coloring to mix in properly so it looked like real butter. It looked streaky and mottled. Some places there was a lot of color. Some places there was none. She took the bowl and placed it on the stove. Perhaps if the margarine melted a little it would be easier to mix. She sat down in the wicker rocker and waited for it to soften.

  She put her hand in the little groove in the right hand side of the little rocker. This was Mama’s sewing chair and there were spools of thread, a thimble, scissors, a tape measure, and even a pencil here. Jane’s fingers absent-mindedly closed on the pencil. It was a good one with a sharp point. It must be one of Joey’s, for his pencils always had good points on them. She moved around in her chair, getting really comfortable and putting her feet on the edge of the stove. She was sitting on a piece of paper and it crackled along with the chair every time she moved. She drew it out from under her and looked at it aimlessly. It was a part of one of Rufus’s arithmetic papers. Jane drew some pictures on the paper and then she began writing some words. The words she wrote, the first ones that came into her head, were the words Mama said when they came home from school that day, “Better times are coming now for all people.”

  Those were good words to write, thought Jane. And when they came true maybe she wouldn’t have to mix that little football of coloring into the oleomargarine anymore. Maybe they’d have real butter and they wouldn’t have to divide each pound into all that many pieces, either. They wouldn’t have to think whether to spread it thick once and eat it pleasurably or spread it thin so it’d last all day. And sugar! There’d be real sugar, not this brown stuff. And good, real, hard black coal. No more of this by-two-minutes kind. Better times . . .

  Well, her margarine looked as though it were softer now. Jane stood up. She lifted the lid of the stove and she dropped her paper in it.

  “Look at the way it’s burning,” she told herself. “You can see the words still, even though the paper’s all burnt up.”

  Then she noticed the other burnt papers, so thin they looked like black tissue paper now. On one she could see a picture of a boat. She looked at it curiously. Joey was always drawing pictures of boats. And this other piece of paper had Rufus’s name on it. Rufus M. His paper had curled all up. Janey took the poker and gently turned it over to see what was on the other side. But as she did so it fell to pieces and she would never know what else he had written.

  Anyway she lost interest in Rufus’s paper, for her eye had caught sight of still another bit of writing. In a corner of the stove she saw Sylvie’s round handwriting. Just her name. Her name? Not her name—Sylvie Abbot over and over. Sylvie was Sylvie Moffat, not Sylvie Abbot. Oh! She was trying it out to see how it sounded. That proved it. What she’d been worrying about was true. If Sylvie liked the sound of the name, Sylvie Abbot, she was going to keep it. Jane scowled back the tears. She didn’t want Sylvie to get married; not to anybody; not to Mr. Abbot, who left his overshoes on the porch every day; and not to the redheaded sailor at sea, either, who still sent Sylvie letters even though Mr. Abbot tap-tapped with his toe every time one came.

  It would be dreadful if Sylvie got married and moved away and went somewhere else. For one thing, who would take care of Janey’s chilblains? She remembered how many times Sylvie had come up to bed while she was still awake because her toes itched so. And Sylvie would take first one foot and then the other in her cool hand and hold it. Then for a while they would feel better. But now Jane did not have time to stay sad for long. She heard the front door open and close. Mr. Abbot! Going now. And Mama came briskly into the kitchen.

  “Well!” she exclaimed. “Is this where everybody is? But isn’t it getting cold in here?”

  She took the poker from Janey and dug at the fire from below. “What’s the matter with everybody?” she asked. “Four able-bodied children practically sitting right on the fire and it’s going out. Just because Sylvie is planning to marry Ray Abbot and, mind you, even that’s not going to happen for a year or so at least, that’s no reason,” said Mama, “to let the fire go out.”

  Silence greeted Mama’s statement while all the children were taking it in and sorting it out in their minds but outwardly going on with what they were doing before Mama spoke, as though she had said nothing. Jane felt relieved. After all, a year or so is a long time. Life could go on just the same for a
long, long while until everybody got so used to the idea of Sylvie Abbot that it wouldn’t seem bad anymore.

  Mama took all the lids off the stove. She picked up a piece of Joey’s newspaper that had fallen to the floor. She crumpled it up a little and laid it on the cooling coals to start the fire up again. The paper rested on the dull ashes a moment and then it burst into a blazing flame. As it began to die down, Joey came over to the stove with an armful of shavings. Rufus followed him because he liked to watch the fire start up again.

  “Look!” he exclaimed in excitement. And all the Moffats drew around the stove and looked in. They looked at the word that stood out of the burnt sheet of newspaper. In tremulous, rippling letters lit by a last glow from the burning paper, as though it were seen through the water of the ocean, was the one word PEACE, the headline of Joey’s newspaper.

  Mama looked at the word and all the children looked too, silently. Then Mama said again, “Yes, you know what that means, don’t you? It means better times are coming now, for all people.”

  And she took the poker and gently scattered the charred fragments of the newspaper and of the papers on which the children had written, so that all the dreams and wishes and plans of the Moffats were gathered in a little pile in the middle of the stove where they soon were wafted up the chimney and became part of the air.

  1

  A Special Museum

  The Moffats should have a museum! Suddenly this idea popped into Jane’s head as she was sitting alone on the back stoop of the little gray house at 12 Ashbellows Place in Cranbury, where the Moffats lived.

  It was a very hot day in June. Jane cupped her chin in her hands. She hadn’t been thinking of anything in particular, just dreaming, just listening to the buzzing of the bees in the honeysuckle that spread along the fence of the house next door. This part of the fence was very close to a barn in the Moffats’ backyard, and some honeysuckle had climbed up onto the roof of the barn.