Magic or Not?

by Edward Eager

  "Yeah, sure," said James. "I never thought, the way they've got it all one word on the signs. Silvermine."

  "Very slipshod," said the lady. "It would never have been allowed in my day."

  "Only I thought that old mine was all abandoned and fallen in," said Kip. "I thought it was played out."

  The lady tightened her lips. "It has certainly not been abandoned by me," she said. "It may not be working at the moment, and certain portions may have collapsed slightly, but I should never describe it as 'played out.' Though many a child has played in it, in his day, if you will forgive the pun," she added.

  "Do you own it?" said Lydia. "Could we play in it?"

  "Certainly I own it," said the lady. "Pa always said to me, 'Isabella, whatever happens, hang on to Kingdom Mine. Mark my words, it will come into its own again someday.' And so I truly believe. As to your playing in it, come any time. Come this afternoon for tea. I shall make my silver cake."

  "Isn't it dangerous?" said Laura. "Playing in the mine, I mean."

  "Tush!" said the lady. "Show me the thing worth doing that isn't!"

  A stripped-down convertible full of teenagers whizzed past down the road, taking the bend on two wheels. The old horse shied and rolled its eyes, but the lady spoke to it soothingly and it subsided.

  "Humph!" said the lady. "Don't speak to me of danger! We knew how to proceed with dignity." She sighed. "I believe I have seen quite enough of the world for this year. Besides, I must be getting home if I'm to make my silver cake. I shall expect you"—and she bowed formally—"at half-past three."

  "We'll be there," said Lydia.

  The lady turned her horse, using the reins expertly. Her eyes swept over the front garden. "I see you have a wishing well," she said.

  "Yes, but it doesn't work. We thought it did, but it doesn't," said Laura.

  "Don't be too sure," said the lady. "You never can tell with wells. Good day." She chirruped to the horse and it went trotting with surprising agility back the way it had come.

  "Well!" said Laura, when horse and lady were out of sight.

  "Was it magic?" said Lydia.

  "How could it be?" said Kip. "She wasn't supernatural or anything. She was just a person."

  "That doesn't signify," said Laura. "She's from another world, isn't she? She said so. The magic could have made her come, couldn't it? She said something made her."

  Everybody looked at James. Already he was the leader.

  "Magic or not," said James, "we've got an adventure, and that's what we wanted. A silver mine. Wow!"

  It was five minutes to three when James and Kip and Laura and Lydia started out from the red house. No one could bear to wait any longer. There had been some discussion earlier about what clothes they should wear on the adventure. Laura had wanted to dress up, as it was a tea party, but the others had been derisive.

  "Play clothes for playing in mines," said James, and Laura had seen the sense in this. But she carried a bouquet of blue larkspurs as a mark of esteem. Alice the dog did not accompany them, having an engagement elsewhere with a rabbit.

  "Which way's the river?" said James, as their feet hit the road. "I didn't even know there was one."

  "Follow Bonga Bonga the native guide," said Kip, leading the way with that other old settler, Lydia.

  The four children followed where the road wandered, going past houses and a riding stable and a general store and an old tavern that was now a tearoom. Beyond the tavern a road led over a bridge.

  They stopped on the bridge and looked down. Underneath were rocks mainly, with a thin stream winding among them.

  "Call that a river?" said James.

  "Wait till spring floods," said Kip. "It's a river."

  Three wild ducks flew over, just to prove it.

  After the bridge the road divided, the main trafficky part going on ahead, while a narrower way turned to the left and went twistingly uphill. A sign with a pointing arrow was neatly labeled, "To the Kingdom."

  "That must be it," said Laura. "She said 'Kingdom Mine.'"

  First the road was sort of paved, then it broke down to just a double wheel-track, with grass in between. The grade was steep and there was a general huffing and puffing, particularly from Kip who, while not fat, was pleasingly plump. At last came a level stretch, and at its end a small house, with a mailbox that said "Miss Isabella King" in the same neat lettering as the sign at the corner.

  James and Lydia and Kip collapsed breathlessly on the pocket-handkerchief lawn, while Laura stood and considered the house. Everything that took money to do was neglected, but everything that could be done by one pair of hands was spick and span. The paint on the house was peeling, but the walk was freshly swept. The big dooryard elm tree was dying, but the small lawn was neatly mowed and its edges clipped.

  Laura had rather thought that Miss Isabella King might be on the porch to greet them, but there was no sign of her. Probably she was getting tea.

  James rose from his prone position on the lawn, crossing his long legs and rising straight up the way he always did. "Enough of dalliance," he said. "I breathe again. Let's get with it." He mounted the steps to the porch, and since he was the leader, the others followed.

  Miss Isabella King was slow in answering their knock, and when she did appear, she seemed strangely altered from their visitor of that morning. She still wore the yellow-and-scarlet dress, though she had taken off the hat with the poppies. But her white pompadour was disarranged as though she had just been lying down, and her face was pale and her hands fidgeted nervously. ("And it's my opinion," said Kip later, "that she had been crying.'")

  "Oh dear," she said. "I do apologize. And Pa always said hospitality is the first duty of a gentlewoman, too! Nowadays I receive so few visitors, you would think I would be ready to greet you, and yet the time had quite slipped my mind! The fact is, I have had some very upsetting news by today's post."

  "I'm sorry," said Laura.

  "Not that I had forgotten you were coming," said Miss King quickly. "I have my silver cake all baked and frosted. That was before the letter came. But now I fear I hardly feel up to a tea party. I thought you could see the mine and then take the cake home with you when you go."

  "Couldn't you tell us what's the matter?" said James. "Maybe we could help."

  "Oh, I hardly think so," said Miss King, "though it is most kind of you. We must not burden others with our troubles."

  "But we'd like to know," said Lydia. "That's if we're not butting in."

  "Oh, not at all," said Miss King. "You are very thoughtful children. And here I am, keeping you on the doorstep. What would Pa say if he were here? Come in, come in!"

  She ushered them into a tiny parlor that was so crammed with antiques and bric-a-brac the five of them could hardly fit in.

  "You see," she went on when all were seated (James and Kip balanced precariously on the edges of their chairs lest they brush against some cherished heirloom), "you see, there is a thing called a mortgage."

  "Yes, we know," said Laura. "We just bought a house."

  "Then you know," said Miss King, "that it means paying a certain sum of money to the bank every month. And I have not been able to keep up the payments on mine. I have tried, but I had not a great deal of capital. There was a..." She paused and seemed reluctant to go on. "There was a misfortune many years ago. A large amount of money went out of the family ... was lost, you might say. And little by little what was left has drained away. And now they write that they are going to foreclose."

  "What does that mean?" said Kip.

  "It means," said Miss King, "that they will take my home away. And where will I go? And what will I do?"

  "Oh," said Kip.

  "Couldn't you go to the bank and talk to them?" said James.

  Miss King firmed her lips. "No," she said, "I could not. I have known Hiram Bundy since we were young together, though we have not spoken for many years. He is a just but hard man, and in this case justice is on his side."

  "It
would be!" burst out Lydia indignantly. "I hate cold, hard things like justice and banks and business and money!"

  "So did I, my dear," said Miss King, smiling, "always. And see to what a pass it has brought me. You should profit from my example. But how depressing this must be for you, when what you really want is to explore the dear old mine and have your adventure! You'll find it just beyond the barn and through the gate. Forgive me if I do not accompany you. It would bring back memories of happier days!" And she touched her handkerchief to her eyes.

  The four children filed solemnly out of the house and across the yard and past the barn and through the gate in the old stone wall. They stood looking down at the Kingdom Mine.

  You all know what an abandoned silver mine looks like, and this one was no different from any other, except perhaps a little smaller.

  "It's just a hole in the ground!" said Lydia, disappointed. "It's just a ratty old hole!"

  "It looks like any old gravel pit," said Kip.

  "Maybe there's a Psammead buried in the bot tom," said Laura, not very hopefully, "like in Five Children and It. And we could dig it out and make it wish the mortgage unforeclosed."

  "Ha!" said James. "Not very likely! You and your old magic! You were so sure this was going to be a wonderful adventure and what do we get? Doom and gloom!"

  Actually the Kingdom Mine was a perfectly good abandoned silver mine, and at any other time the four children might have found it an ideal spot for hiding in, and exploring, and getting thoroughly begrimed and blissful. But today they were too concerned about Miss King and her mortgage to think of anything else. And the sun went behind a cloud to sympathize with their mood.

  Laura, as usual, was the first to get over being depressed and start trying to do something about it.

  "I don't care," she said. "There is so magic! You know how in the stories there're always tasks to do and quests to go on! Well, nowadays there wouldn't be dragons and princesses and witches; it'd be in modern guise, more! The magic sent her to us and it sent us to her! I feel it in my bones! We're supposed to help her!"

  "What could we do?" said Kip.

  "I don't know," said Laura. "Maybe the mine isn't played out and we could all get shovels and start digging and find silver and make it pay."

  "I don't think silver pays very well anymore," said James.

  "Why not?" said Lydia. "People will always buy knives and forks!"

  "I think it got kind of debased," said James, "when we went on the gold standard."

  "What's that?" said Kip.

  "I'm not sure," said James, "but it was bad for silver. There was a lot of fuss about it. Something about not crucifying mankind on a cross of gold. I read it in a book. But we went on it, anyway. Then just lately, we went off it again."

  "Wasn't that good for silver?" said Kip.

  "I don't think so," said James. "I think maybe we went on something else. Paper, maybe. No, I think silver's a thing of the past. I think the thing to do is go see that man in the bank. That Hiram Bundy."

  And all agreed that that was the only proper course.

  "I can't wait," said Lydia grimly.

  But all agreed, too, that first they had better stay and play in the old silver mine awhile, just for the look of things and not to disappoint Miss Isabella.

  And, as so often happens, once they forced themselves to pretend they were having fun, they began to have it, and the sun came out from its cloud, and Kip slipped and slid halfway down the shaft on the seat of his trousers, and Lydia nearly broke her neck when the eighty-second step in an old rotting wooden staircase she was counting (and climbing) broke through under her, and Laura found a rock that had a piece of what she was sure was silver in it, only James said it was probably only mica. And all in all, utter pleasure and oblivion prevailed, and it was only the voice of hunger that spoke at last and reminded them of Miss Isabella.

  They trooped back to the house. On the porch an appetizing sight awaited them.

  A table was laid for four, with slices of cake on old Wedgwood plates and glasses of raspberry vinegar and a box tied with scarlet-and-yellow ribbons.

  On the box was an envelope addressed, "To My Four Friends." James opened it and read:

  "DEAR CHILDREN,

  Not wishing to be a 'wet blanket,' as the boys say, I have decided to 'absent me from felicity.' Eat heartily and enjoy yourselves. The other half of the cake is in the box.

  Yours faithfully,

  ISABELLA CONSTANTIA KING"

  There was a silence, except for fork-and-plate sounds. Then James spoke rather muffledly. "Any woman who makes cake like this, a bank should be proud to support."

  "She should be subdivided by the government," agreed Kip, only he was not sure he had quite the right word.

  When the last crumb was eaten and the last wonderful vinegary dregs drunk, the two girls tiptoed into the house and washed the dishes as quietly as possible in the kitchen. There was no sign of Miss Isabella.

  "Probably lying down," said Laura.

  "With eau de cologne on her forehead," agreed Lydia.

  Laura found a paper towel (a surprisingly modern note in that old-fashioned house) and with her trusty pencil wrote a note to leave on the kitchen table. The note said:

  "DEAR MISS KING,

  The cake was scrumptious. Do not despair.

  All is not yet lost.

  Yours faithfully,

  LAURA LAVINIA MARTIN"

  And then she and Lydia went outside where the boys were kicking pebbles along the grassy gravel of the road.

  By the time the four children reached the bridge, the sun was already sinking in the west, and everyone agreed it would be folly to try to see the wicked banker that day.

  "Oh-oh. And tomorrow's Saturday. Banks are closed," said Kip.

  "What of it?" said James. "We'll go see him in his house. He must live somewhere in town, mustn't he?"

  "That's right," said Lydia. "We'll beard him in his lair."

  "Hiram Bundy," said Kip. "He sounds like a miser in a movie."

  "Take that, Hiram Bundy!" said Lydia, making a pass with an imaginary sword.

  And then they went by the general store and four more houses, and the red house came in sight. James and Lydia and Kip went running to vault the picket fence and hurry inside to look up Hiram Bundy in the phone book. But Laura lingered.

  She went up to the wishing well. "I don't care if that other wish was fake," she told it. "I know there's magic. I can feel it working. And I'm not going to write out wishes from now on. You can hear me perfectly well. You could fix it all up about Miss Isabella's house if you just would. Why, I bet if you really tried, you could have that Mr. Hiram Bundy eating right out of her hand! So please, please help us help her."

  She leaned closer and listened, but the well did not respond. Laura thought at least it might have gurgled.

  "I'm counting on you," she told it sternly.

  Then she ran into the house.

  4. The Wicked Ogre

  It turned out that Mr. Hiram Bundy lived way over on the other side of town, too far for walking in comfort but a mere trifle for a demon cyclist.

  "Bikes it is, then!" said James. "Zero hour nine-thirty on the dot!"

  And then all separated for the night, to make plans and practice angry threats and (Laura) to say over all the magic spells that she knew. She had tried to interest Lydia in working some more witchcraft with the plants in her grandmother's garden, but Lydia would have none of it.

  "I don't want to talk about that," she said. Moreover, she wouldn't.

  And there may have been something wrong with the spells Laura said, because the next morning after breakfast her mother and father announced that they were spending the day at an auction and Laura and James were to stay home and baby-sit with Deborah.

  "We can't possibly! We've got an important mission!" said James. "Can't you take her along with you?"

  "No, we can't," said their mother. "She'll get up on her chair and call out things,
and the people'll think she's bidding, and the next thing we know we'll have bought something horrible!"

  "Want to go to the auction and bid," said Deborah.

  "You see?" said their mother.

  So that is the way it was, and ten minutes later their mother and father went off in a cloud of dust, and ten minutes after that Kip and Lydia came pedaling up to the house to find James and Laura sitting in the backyard glumly watching Deborah play something incomprehensible with acorns and Dutchman's-pipe flowers from the vine that screened the back porch.

  "What are you doing?" said Kip.

  "Minding baby," said James bitterly. And they told the tragic news.

  "Why not bring her along?" said Kip. "She might come in handy. She can soothe the wicked ogre with her baby hands."

  "Wicked ogre," said Deborah, smiling, as though she were looking forward to it.

  "It's too far for her to walk," said Laura, "and Mother won't let her ride handle bars."

  "I know!" said Lydia. "I'll take her on my horse and the rest of you can hitchhike. That'll be even quicker."

  "Horse," said Deborah enthusiastically.

  "We're not allowed to ride with strangers, either," said James, still sunk in gloom.

  "They won't be strangers." Kip was scornful. "I know everybody in town, just about. It'll be a good way for you to meet your neighbors. It'll be useful and instructive."

  So Lydia biked furiously home to change mounts.

  She was wearing a dress today instead of her usual old riding breeches, and Kip was in slacks and a sports shirt. So while she was gone, James and Laura changed into their best clothes in honor of the occasion. But they'd only been living in the country three days, and their best clothes were somewhat stiff and citified. Still, so much the better, thought James. Misers' houses were probably stiff and citified places.

  They were hardly finished changing when Lydia came galloping back.

  "Does your horse have a name?" said Laura, wanting to think of it as a friend and not a savage beast.

  Lydia shrugged. "Why bother? It's not like a person. I told you, it's just a means to an end. It's just a horse."