He poured some in a small saucer and gave it to Pauline. She dipped her head down and back several times.
“She likes it!” cried Arthur.
Pauline did like it. She flapped her wings and drank again.
“You know, it is good,” said Moira. She drank some more, thoughtfully chewing her cucumber between drinks.
The two of them drank for a few minutes, then they filled Pauline’s dish again. Pauline flapped her wings, flying to the table and back to the kitchen counter again.
“She’s better!” said Arthur, delighted. He felt wonderful, too. Quite brave and wonderful.
They drank some more, Moira dipping her cucumber into the tonic until she suddenly noticed the time.
“I’ve got to go home,” said Moira, jumping up. “Moreover said early today.”
“I’ll come too,” said Arthur. He picked up the medicine bottle, and Pauline flapped after them.
“See?!” he exclaimed. “She really likes it.”
On the way to Moreover’s house they laughed and sang “Plaisir d’Amour” in loud voices. Once they stopped under a tree to catch their breath and drink more medicine. Pauline fluttered up next to them and they shared it.
They came to Moreover’s house, stumbling across a hydrangea bush and falling, giggling, up the front steps. The door opened for them, and Moreover stood there, looking very tall and stern.
“I’m here,” said Moira loudly. “See!? Sorry if I’m late.” And she tripped over the top stair with Arthur tripping behind her. He fell on top, with Pauline flying in over their heads.
Moira laughed. “Get up, Mouse. I can’t move.”
“Arthur!” said Arthur, laughing back at her.
“Moira!” Moreover’s voice was strained.
Moira heard the tone, and she pushed Arthur off of her. Then, they both saw the woman with the briefcase. Arthur heard Moira cry, “The social worker!” And then she stood up and threw up all over Moreover’s black Sunday shoes. When Arthur saw that, he threw up, too.
“Why they’re sick,” exclaimed the woman with the briefcase. “The chicken’s sick, too!”
Then Moreover smelled them, and he knew what they didn’t know.
“Whisky,” he announced. “They are sick, ma’am; moreover, they’re drunk.”
And then he took Moira over his knee and spanked her so hard that Arthur began to cry. Moira cried, too. But it was different.
“Oh, Moreover,” she cried joyously between sobs, “you do love me!” And she threw her arms around him and held on.
The woman came over to Arthur and put a wonderfully cool cloth on his head as he lay there. He pushed himself up on one elbow.
“I’m sorry,” he said feebly. “I wanted to make Pauline feel better. So I gave her Yoyo’s tonic.”
“Hush,” said the woman softly.
“And we thought we should taste it first.” He started to cry. “I’ve been doing. Moira said I should be doing things.”
“And you have,” said the social worker in a soothing voice. “You have.”
Arthur slept fitfully. When he awoke, he was in his own bed, and his thoughts were a tangle of pictures and talking: Moreover with his arms, tightly, lovingly, around Moira; Uncle Wrisby telling him “a fine pen”; and strangely, his mother reaching out of the car to put her arms around him saying, “I love you, too.”
The strong light from the windows made him wince, and he turned over to burrow beneath the bed covers. The sudden movement made his head hurt.
“Arthur?”
He peeked out of a fold of quilt to see Aunt Elda sitting by his bed, Pauline on her lap.
“Are you feeling all right?” she asked. She set Pauline on the bed and the chicken settled on a pillow, giving Arthur’s outstretched hand a soft peck.
“I’m all right,” said Arthur miserably, closing his eyes again. It was hard to talk, but he forced himself to ask the question that was there between them.
“Moira and Moreover?”
“Fine,” said Aunt Elda. Arthur could tell she was smiling, but he made himself look at her to make sure. She was. “She sent you a note. Do you want to read it?”
Arthur sat up gingerly and took the note.
Dear Mouse,
Are you O.K? Becaus Moreover and I are O.K. We are getting to know each other better. The socail worker said we are fine. Fine together, that is. This one promised not to ask meeningful questions. She knows Moreover loves me. I know Moreover loves me. That’s pretty meeningful, isn’t it?
Do you know what I feel like, Mouse? A baby. That’s what. A baby starting out from the beginning. Thanks, Mouse.
Love,
M.
Tears stung Arthur’s eyes. “Boy,” he said after a minute. “Moira sure is a rotten speller.” And he lay back on the pillows and fell asleep again.
The next time he opened his eyes, Uncle Wrisby sat in the window seat, looking out the window through his binoculars.
“The funniest thing,” said Uncle Wrisby as if he had been talking to Arthur all the while. “I believe this mockingbird is building a nest in the hedgerow by the barn.”
“I’m sorry, Uncle Wrisby,” said Arthur.
“Goes without saying,” said Uncle Wrisby briskly. “Goes without saying.”
When Aunt Elda came upstairs later with juice for Arthur, he asked her what Uncle Wrisby meant.
Aunt Elda smiled. “It means ‘I know what you’re saying’ or ‘I know what you mean’ or . . .”
“Or I love you, too,” said Arthur.
“That, too,” said Aunt Elda matter-of-factly.
After she went downstairs, Arthur lay for a long time, thinking. His mouse peeked its head out of a small chink in the fireplace. He got up and gave it a piece of cheese, and it disappeared into the chink again. Arthur lay down with his face to the hole, trying to see in. He thought about the moles beneath his parents’ lawn. He thought about eating peanut-butter-and-lettuce sandwiches with his father and the way his mother walked when she was in a hurry. He got up and dressed. Then he found a pen and paper.
Dear Mom and Dad,
My summer has been fun. I got drunk and threw up. It’s my fault that Pauline got lost, too.
Love,
Arthur
No, that wasn’t right. Too long. He tore up the letter and began again.
Dear Mom and Dad,
Everything is fine here. I’m not drunk anymore.
Love,
Arthur
He tore that letter up, too. He didn’t want them to worry. Or did he? He frowned. He finally wrote:
Dear Mom and Dad,
Things will get better. It goes without saying.
Love,
Arthur
“Mouse!” There was a knock at the window, and Moira pressed her face against the glass.
“Moira!” Arthur ran happily to the window and opened it. “You came the tree way.”
“I brought some watermelon gum,” said Moira, sitting comfortably in the tree. “And some of my cookies to make you feel better.”
They both laughed, for Moira’s cookies were always horrible, either too crumbly or too hard or without sugar. These were hard. Arthur found a hammer and pounded them into sucking pieces.
“I’ll come in,” said Moira, poking her head in the window.
“No. Wait!” said Arthur suddenly.
Moira stopped and sat back on the tree limb.
“I’ll come out there.”
With only a moment’s hesitation, Arthur crouched on the windowsill. Then, carefully, he crawled out onto the limb and over to where Moira sat.
He smiled at Moira.
“Now,” he said with his mouth full of cookie and his voice sounding only the slightest bit frightened, “tell me how it is to start all over again like a baby.”
Small Changes
The wind began in the night. Arthur awoke to hear the tree branches scraping against the window and the sound of sudden sheets of rain being pushed against the
house. By morning the paddock was soggy, and rushing water was making deep ruts at the shoulders of the road.
Uncle Wrisby and Arthur waited for a lull in the storm, then put on boots and slickers and ran through the mud to herd the pigs inside the barn. Bernadette was slow in coming, and Uncle Wrisby urged and prodded her gently. Arthur and his uncle stood for a while in the barn, smiling at each other as the rain and wind began again. Outside the trees bent low and the wind sent waves through the honeysuckle vines covering the stone walls. The wind took Arthur’s rain hat and blew it into the paddock. Uncle Wrisby and Arthur ran after it, laughing, as they struggled through the mud.
They dried off in Aunt Elda’s fragrant kitchen, holding their hands out above her stove.
“It’s going to last a while,” pronounced Uncle Wrisby over his teacup. He peered at Arthur. “It may get worse. We’re going to town early and fast today. Want to come?”
Arthur shook his head. “I have something to do,” he said. “I’ll stay.”
He looked up, embarrassed, as Uncle Wrisby and Aunt Elda looked at him curiously.
He sighed. “I’m going to read my parents’ letters,” he said finally.
“Hmn,” said Uncle Wrisby, getting up to put on his raincoat, “I reckon that will take most of the day. How many you got there?”
“Wrisby,” warned Aunt Elda, smiling at Arthur.
“Twelve,” said Arthur.
Moreover and Moira slammed into the kitchen, the wind blowing rain in behind them. Moira’s hair stuck to her face. Aunt Elda took a towel and rubbed her dry.
“We’d better get to town,” said Moreover. “The road’s getting rutty. Moreover, it’s getting worse. Moreover . . .”
“Moreover, we’re ready,” finished Uncle Wrisby loudly.
“Can I stay, too?” asked Moira. “I’ll just sit.”
“And eat cucumbers,” said Uncle Wrisby.
“Come on,” said Moreover, urging them out the door. “The river’s high; moreover, the old bridge planks are rotting out; moreover . . .” His voice trailed away with the wind.
Arthur settled into an old velveteen chair and opened his letters one by one while Moira peeled cucumbers and read old copies of Hoarde’s Dairyman.
Moira was quiet all the time Arthur read his letters, and when, at last, he looked up, he was surprised that an entire hour had gone by. He read her two, one from his mother telling him about a squirrel who after two weeks had finally become brave enough to eat out of her hand. “Everything takes time, Arthy,” she had written. He smiled. His mother was the only one who called him Arthy. Another one from his father told about how his mother had lost her temper after trying to paint a sunset. “She ripped the paper in lots of pieces and jumped up and down on them,” he wrote.
This made Moira laugh. “They sound nice” was all she said.
Arthur nodded. “They are nice,” he said to her and to himself.
Arthur and Moira went to the window, peering out at the storm. For a while, they drew on the windows, breathing on them to make them clean again.
“Mouse,” said Moira, suddenly rubbing a pane of glass clear. “Did you and Rasby leave the barn door open?”
“Arthur,” said Arthur. He bent his head beside hers and looked out to the barn. “No. Come on. The wind probably blew it open.”
They put on rain gear and pushed the back door open, closing it firmly on a curious Pauline. They ran through the paddock that was now a lake of mud and water. Arthur could feel the mud pulling at his boots as he ran.
Inside the barn, the pigs were in their stalls, restless with the sounds of wind and pouring rain against the barn.
“Where’s Bernadette?” asked Moira. “She’s not with the others.”
“No,” called Arthur. “Uncle Wrisby’s put her in a stall of her own. Over here.” They both leaned over the stall railing and stared at the empty stall.
“The door’s open,” said Arthur. “Silly pig, where is she?”
“Bernadette!” called Moira.
“Come, Bernadette!” Arthur called louder.
They searched the barn, but Bernadette wasn’t there. Not in any of her special places. A loud clap of thunder nearby made them jump. The pigs began to squeal. Arthur looked at the open barn door.
“She must be outside.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s go.” He pulled at Moira’s hand.
“I really don’t like thunder and lightning,” Moira said, standing still.
“And I really don’t like strawberry sandwiches,” said Arthur softly. “Let’s go.”
Moira smiled, a smile that came and went quickly, and followed Arthur outside.
The rain was worse now, coming in sheets, and they held hands and ran bent over to keep it from hitting their faces.
“Bernadette!” called Arthur.
They stumbled around in the mud, searching the paddock, then stood very still as another flash of lightning and roar of thunder sounded.
“Look!” Moira grabbed Arthur and turned him around. “She’s there. See? In the new pen!”
As they began running, another flash of lightning sparked through the sky, and Arthur could see Bernadette standing in the far part of the pen.
“Come!” called Arthur. He neared Bernadette and then stopped, seeing what kept her there.
A tiny pig, flesh-colored with a single dark spot, lay under Bernadette. Its body lay in the mud, and as Arthur knelt to see it more closely Bernadette lashed out with a back leg and turned to look at him. The baby pig lay so still that Arthur thought it must be dead. He put his hand on Bernadette’s side to help steady himself, and he could feel her sides heaving and moving.
“Moira?” He looked up. “Go get a rope. We have to get Bernadette out of here. Out of the rain.”
“Is it dead?” Moira didn’t move.
“I don’t know.” Arthur looked steadily at her. “Go get a rope!” He shouted the last, and Moira’s eyes suddenly came into focus. She stared at Arthur for a moment, then turned and ran to the barn.
“Hanging by the door!” Arthur shouted after her. Then he turned and put out his hand to touch the baby Pig.
“Easy, easy,” he crooned to Bernadette.
The baby was warm, strangely warm in the cool rain, but it didn’t move. He tried to feel for a pulse, but couldn’t find one. And then he remembered in the book Moira had given him that he must massage it and keep it warm. Quickly he took off his slicker and then his sweater. He wrapped his sweater around the baby pig. It was so small that it seemed lost in the wool, but he began to stroke its chest.
“There’s no rope,” said Moira, standing suddenly beside him. She had lost her hat, and the rain plastered her hair into her eyes and down her cheeks.
“Where’s your slicker?” she asked, and they both laughed, because they were so wet and it made no difference.
“There’s another pig coming,” said Moira suddenly, and Arthur saw Bernadette lean toward him.
“Go get a canvas,” said Arthur. “Just inside the barn door, covering some hay. Hurry!”
He kept stroking the small pig, and as he watched Moira run to the barn he saw that her shoes were gone. Then he looked down and saw that his boots were gone, too. I wish I had a warm light, he thought. Baby pigs need a warm light.
Moira appeared with the canvas just as another flash of lightning made them all seem white and frightened looking.
“The canvas has small ropes at each end,” he shouted to Moira. “Try to tie them to the sides of the fence, over Bernadette. We have to keep the rain off.” His voice sounded to him like a sob, and he couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t crying.
Moira began tying the ropes to the fence, first one, then the other, so that there was a small shelter.
“There’s nothing to tie the other ends to,” shouted Moira, frustrated.
“I know,” said Arthur patiently. His voice sounded like his father’s, from far away. “You have to hold the other ends over us, like a tent.”
He looked down and saw that there were two more baby pigs, alive and wiggling in the mud, then another. He thought, for a moment, that there was another, but then he saw that it was his own bare foot, half buried in the mud. He made an effort and wiggled his toes. “Yes!” he shouted. “It is my foot!”
“What?!” shouted Moira, holding the canvas and peering underneath.
“It’s my foot!” he repeated.
Moira looked down to where he bent his head, nodded at him, understanding what he meant. She smiled just as two more baby pigs were born.
Arthur continued to stroke the chest of the smallest pig, thinking once he felt the barest of movements, but not trusting himself to stop. The rain came harder, and all he saw was Bernadette and a mass of wiggling, wet babies, and of course, the one he held so carefully in his smelly, wet, wool sweater.
Bernadette began to get up, suddenly, and Arthur shouted at her. “Bernadette! Stop!”
Moira looked under the tent.
“Do something,” he yelled at her. “She’ll step on them!”
“I can’t!” cried Moira. “I’m holding the tent!”
“Then sing!” shouted Arthur, suddenly smiling as he felt the smallest pig, from the depths of his sweater, begin to move. “Sing!”
“Come all ye fair and tender maidens,
Take warnin’ how you court young men.
“They’re like a star on a summer’s morning.
First they’ll appear and then they’re gone.”
Bernadette lay back, sinking slowly into the mud, and the baby pigs began to strain to nurse as Arthur and Moira sang. The smallest pig began to kick its feet, and unable to speak, Arthur held up his sweater to show Moira, who grinned and continued to sing, very loud and, Arthur thought, quite a bit off key.
There was a flurry of feet beside him then, and Arthur looked up, seeing Uncle Wrisby’s boots and the storm-white face of Moreover peering under the tent.
“It’s breathing!” he shouted to Moreover as he lifted his sweater, still stroking the chest of the baby pig. “It’s alive!”
“Arthur did it!’ called Moira. “Arthur really did it all!’