The Old Meadow

  The wait wasn’t all that boring, however. A long half hour after John Robin had flitted off to tell his mate, Dorothy, that he was safe, flashlights appeared on the hill above the pool.

  “Run, Dubber!” said Chester. “It’s the dogcatchers again. Go hide in the woodsy part.”

  “Let me know if Mr. Budd—”

  “Get going!”

  Dubber loped off to the northwest corner of the Old Meadow, where nature had been left to itself. J.J.’s beech was there, too. There were no paths where the human beings could stroll—no benches where anyone could sit. It was the part all the animals loved best. And trees, bushes, and brambles made hiding easy—if not comfortable.

  But it wasn’t the dogcatchers who came down from the hill, the bright rays in their hands darting everywhere. In the thickening darkness Chester hadn’t been able to see too well, but as the men tripped and felt their way down, he saw uniforms: the police. The shafts of their flashlights, crisscrossing each other, seemed like baffled eyes that couldn’t focus. Their blue uniforms glimmered dark in the night.

  “Blue shines on my wings nice, too,” murmured Donald Dragonfly, all by himself. He was always creeping up, unobserved. “But I don’t want to wear a uniform.”

  “Hush, Donald,” whispered Chester.

  “He’s gotta go back to that cabin.”

  They’re treating Mr. Budd just like Dubber, thought Chester. A man—a dog. What a town!

  “Who says so? After what I’ve seen today, I don’t believe anything!”

  “You scared?”

  “I’m not scared. Who’s scared. But that kind of a snake—in Connecticut! My wife’ll have a fit, if I tell her.”

  “Then don’t. The exterminators must have got the snake out by now.”

  “We’ll search the cabin. Then, if he’s not there—”

  “—we’ll go back to the station house. But after we’ve called the exterminators, to make sure they were there.”

  “Right. I just hope he’s still wearing my coat. It’s gotten sort of chilly.” This voice sounded like Mike Gallagher.

  “And listen—snakes—all kinds of snakes—are scared of lights, aren’t they? Like the light from a flashlight.”

  “Sure.”

  “Tchoor!” echoed Chester Cricket, inside his hole. He jumped straight around and hid his head in the pile of grass that he used for a bed. And no policeman heard his laughter, as he wondered about this new kind of snake.

  Then there was more waiting. But this time it was sort of exciting. The cops trudged off, toward Mr. Budd’s cabin, darting their flashlights left and right on the way, in search of a deadly species of snake that had just been seen in Connecticut. Chester’s waiting, although it was still a bit anxious, began to feel like fun. There were more adventures to be told, and retold.

  The moon, one day from the full, rose over the world like a silver promise that had to be kept. The hand of a cloud was barely concealing one cheek of it. And Chester Cricket decided that he would stay awake forever before he’d not know what was happening.

  “Ha, Chester!” said Ashley Mockingbird.

  “Oh! I didn’t even hear you. Where’s Mr. Budd—Walt—J.J.—?”

  “All here. Mr. Budd’s on the other side of the brook. He’s a wonder! May be old and overweight, but he’s got a lot of grace—for a man.”

  Mr. Budd was sloshing across now. He hated those concrete stepping-stones and refused to use them. Puffing a little, he rested on the bank. Chester stared—and couldn’t believe what he saw. Mr. Budd was wearing a deep-blue coat, an officer’s coat. It was spick-and-span clean. His pants, too, looked strangely well-pressed.

  J. J. Bluejay settled on Mr. Budd’s shoulder.

  “We’re back,” sighed Abner.

  J.J. tried his trill. There was peace between former enemies.

  “Poor Walt, though,” Ashley sadly murmured. “He got lost in the rush for freedom.” But his mockingbird’s sigh was too gloomy to be the truth.

  “He did not!” said the cricket. “Walter Water Snake, you come out of there!” He’d seen a wiggle inside the blue coat.

  A head peeked out of the deep right pocket of Mr. Budd’s new officer’s coat. “Who told? It must have been John. Robins never know when to shut up!” Walter slithered out all the way and plunged down straight into the pool.

  Mr. Budd shouted, “Hey! Wait—snake! I got to thank you!” He looked up at the moon, and then around at the whole Old Meadow, as if seeing things for the first—or last—time.

  Walter surfaced, silently. He wanted to hear what Mr. Budd said.

  But all Abner said was, “I don’t care now—and I don’t even know what’s happened—but this last night I just want to be home.”

  The police, the dogcatchers—they all had gone. Now its rightful owner went back to his cabin.

  “I’d just like to see my dog once more,” Mr. Budd plodded off in the night. And he needed no light, although the moon was there. He’d walked that path for fifty-nine years.

  “I want to know—” began Chester.

  “Me and my six-winged kadoodle,” said Walt, “lounged over the town of Hedley, enjoying the many sights below—”

  “I’m not going to get angry,” Chester Cricket reminded himself. He tried to think of a lullaby. None came to mind. “But if this darned snake—!” His antennae were sticking up like hatpins. “What happened!” he squeaked.

  “I’m telling you! I enjoyed the many sights below, like streetlights going on, houselights, too. From the sky it all looked like David Spider’s web—but made out of lights. And husbands coming home, getting hugged by wives and kids. Very lovely scenes. Except for the man whose wife hit him with a mop, since he stopped to relax with some friends. But even that seemed nice and human, when seen from several hundred feet up. That’s the greatest thing about being so high: the problems that you see below all look so manageable.” Walter Water Snake sighed, at the memory of flying. “Birds have it best. They really do. However, after a delightful hour or so of sightseeing, The Delapidated Cloud and I—!

  “Your flying machine? You called it that—?”

  “Well, it had to have a name!”

  “An’ to think—I never knew!”

  “Also, one woman had looked up and seen us. From her expression, I would guess that she thought we were some kind of migrating thing. And that she didn’t want us to land in Hedley, and hoped that she’d never see us again. So, since she might have reported us to the Rare Bird Society, we decided we’d better get on with it, and made for the corner of Hedley Avenue and Upper Lebel Street, where the jail is. Of course all the windows have bars, but since it’s summer and they’ve got no air-conditioning, the windows were open. The one we got in was in the lavatory. And the first cell we inspected held a man who’d been driving drunk. That was lucky, because I was on the floor now, and he thought I was just a bad dream. The second cell was occupied by a man who’d stolen a donut and was going to be held all night, without food. But the third cell—that was unoccupied. We knew who’d been in it, though. The officers had urged Mr. Budd to take a shower and change his clothes. They provided the clothes. But Mr. Budd’s underwear was still on his bunk.”

  “Now comes the part I like,” said Ashley. “I’m not partial to jails—”

  “—but,” Walter went on, “Mr. Budd was out by the sergeant’s desk—learning how to play poker! And mostly dressed up in pieces of officers’ uniforms. He had on Mike Gallagher’s coat, and Mike was teaching him the difference between a flush and a straight. All the other cops were helping, too. Most of them had played in the meadow with Mike. Oh, and also—they’d sent out for pizza. My gosh!” Walter Water Snake leaped from the pool. “I do love Hedley! The dogcatchers all watch television, and the cops eat pizza and teach an old man to play poker! Hooray!” Walt flip-flopped joyously.

  “Anyway—us birds and us snakes decided on this: Ashley warbled a little melody—and, as planned, Mr. Budd recognized the voice. He knew somet
hing was up. And then I was rearing up! Walter Water Snake! Me! I became a cobra! And it was very hard to do. I’m just not built to be vertical.”

  “A cobra snake?” gasped Chester.

  “Darn right! One of my most disagreeable relatives!”

  “But, Walter—how—?”

  “How could I be a cobra? With no venom at all? And the tenderest heart in this whole meadow? I’ll tell you how. The human beings come into this meadow—they sit on benches, they read magazines, and sometimes they drop those magazines. One dropped magazine was all about science—with a reared-up cobra on the cover. I about passed out when I saw it—I can’t stand nasty relatives!—but it served a purpose, that picture, when I imitated it in jail. But I’ve still got a pain in the neck where I tried to spread out—for realism. They rear and spread, cobras do. Makes me shiver to think about it.”

  “Oh, Walter!” said Chester. “How awful. Those poor policemen! Scared out of their wits—”

  “I hated to do it,” said Walter sadly—a bit too sadly.

  “You loved to do it!” said Ashley. “Biggest night in your life!”

  “Well, it served its purpose!” said Walt. “When the roaring cops took off—I did a fierce hiss, too—Mr. Budd just had to open the door. Ashley here conveyed the message that I was a friend—”

  “—by sittin’ on this cobra’s head, an’ singin’ a familiar tune—”

  “—and John Robin led the way. Until he got lost. The idiot! Then J.J. here took over. And this is a changed bird, let me tell you!”

  “Now, Walt,” said Ashley, “John did his own best—”

  “You did more,” J.J. voiced his trill again. “By singing on Abner’s shoulder, on the way home, to make him have peace and have hope as we ran.”

  “Yes, but I was the lucky one. When everyone started to run, I thought—there goes the last of my tummy scales! I’ll have to slither home. But Mr. Budd took a look at me—I think he may have recognized something—he opened his policeman’s coat pocket—and in I jumped—”

  “—and here we are!”

  “Budd wasn’t scared, though—!”

  “At first he was—!”

  “Not when you sang, Ashley. And I wasn’t, either—!”

  The tale was hurried to its end with the rushes and sudden interruptions of all the other animals.

  TEN

  A Meeting

  “Someone’s got to go get Dubber,” said Chester. “Mr. Budd needs him.”

  “I will.”

  “No, me!” said J. J. Bluejay, who’d been listening with a new delight as Walter related all their adventures. “I never knew I had so much fun! Where is he?”

  “Off near your beech,” said Chester. “The TV viewers and pizza eaters just searched the near meadow.”

  J. J. Bluejay, with the gift of his wings, jumped up in the air. “Abner wants to see Dubber! We have got to get them together!” he announced from his perch of nothingness.

  “The cabin may be watched secretly,” said Chester.

  “Even though there’s no pizza or TV,” Walt added.

  J.J. jumped higher—then higher still: he could see upstream—and then settled down on Chester’s log. “No one’s there. They’ve given up. No one, I mean, except Mr. Budd. He’s sitting on that stool of his, in the moonlight.”

  “Hush!”

  A whistle was heard through the night. Then a call—“Dubber! Dubber!” Then nothing but shivering, whimpering sounds, like the sounds Dubber Dog might make himself. “They got you, too. I forgot. My dog. The same time as they captured me.” In a while, the man who was crying fell silent.

  “Mr. Budd’s gone to sleep,” said Walt. “All alone.”

  “I’m going to get Dubber,” said J.J.

  “Those guys may come back again—”

  “No, they won’t,” Simon thought aloud. “Not tonight. Tomorrow maybe.”

  “Then tomorrow I’ll peck their heads into the brook!” said the blue jay.

  “And I’ll become a cobra again!”

  “And you’ll both be killed!” said the cricket.

  “Let’s worry tomorrow,” said Simon Turtle. “I’ve had enough worry these last two days to do for a lifetime.”

  “You folks go on up to the cabin,” said J.J.

  But Chester wondered, “Perhaps we shouldn’t. I feel sort of embarrassed about watching Dubber and Mr. Budd meet.”

  “Me, too,” said Walt. “But let’s hurry, anyway. I can’t stand the suspense!”

  “Oh, me too then!” moaned Simon. “I’m too old to give up.”

  In silver moonlight and a flurry of silver-blue wings, J.J. flew off, to bring home a dog to his master. He felt good too, as he made his way through the trees, over open spaces, and at last saw the woods where Dubber was hiding.

  J.J. alighted on his beech. The moon shone through the leaves beautifully, like a pure white flower that verged on the brink of its richest bloom. He was just about to squawk—“Aw! haw!”—but then he remembered his lessons from Ashley. He bobbed his head up and down, as if he were going to give out a “Doodly-oo”—and then he trilled. And his trills were getting better and better.

  “Is that you, Ashley?” a blubbery voice asked, below.

  “No, it’s me!”

  “Who’s me?”

  “J.J.!”

  “I don’t believe it!” Dubber Dog crept out from the shadow of the beech where he’d been in hiding, and looked up at the branches. “That voice was beautiful.”

  “Mine is now!” J.J. flickered down toward Dubber’s voice, and found the dog. He had tried to conceal himself beneath last year’s leaves and looked like a sad ghost of every October. “Hi, Dub! Old rub-a-dub-Dubber!”

  “I know this is your beech,” began Dubber nervously.

  “And don’t get nervous. I’m nice now.” J.J. laughed his new laughter. “And I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  “What surprise?”

  “You’ll have to follow me and see!”

  “What surprise—?”

  “Well, goodbye now. I’m off to see if my surprise is still there.” J.J. made as if to test his wings, getting ready for flight. “’Course, this surprise may have woken up by now—”

  “Is it Mr. Budd? Oh! Is Mr. Budd free—?”

  “So long, D.D.,” twittered J.J. “But someone’s waiting for you or the cops. Whoever comes calling first.” The blue jay flew away—very slowly, for a quick bird like J.J. He wanted to know he was being followed.

  And he was. Dubber lumbered after him. In the dark, and in this part of the meadow, the dog might have gotten lost, if he hadn’t had such a loving guide.

  So back through the skeletal shadows of branches, trees, bushes the two friends went, toward Mr. Budd’s cabin. J.J. darted ahead and waited patiently on a twig or a tuffet as Dubber caught up, noisily. The dog had never been known for his grace, and he was so eager now that his fumbling through the underbrush was clumsier than usual. It took quite a time to reach the cabin.

  And while the teasing beneath the beech and the fumbling journey home took place, Chester, Simon, and Walt had been waiting. They’d come up the familiar path—then they’d seen Mr. Budd asleep on his stool, with his back propped against his home. The moonlight was making his gray hair look even more silvery, as his head drooped on his chest. Now and then he’d fidget and say something, in his sleep. “Fisk!” he shouted once. And then mumbled, “Bad lettuce this year.” And sighed. “New isinglass. I can’t see the west, or Avon Mountain. Oh, Luke—I do miss you so much!” And then there was only more snoring.

  “He’s going to fall off that stool,” said Walt.

  “No, he’s not,” whispered Simon, in a voice that sounded very much like Mr. Budd’s. “He’s sat there as long as I’ve lived in my pool. And we’ve neither one of us lost our balance.”

  Everybody needed to talk—to fill up the space of expectancy—and the fear they felt at seeing this meeting.

  “Hush now,” said Chester.
There was crashing in the underbrush. “I think it’s Dubber—”

  “It’s either him or a dinosaur!” said Walter Water Snake.

  Now, as Dubber appeared—J.J. flying above him—a muffled rumpus took place. No one wanted to wake up Mr. Budd, so the joy of everyone being free, not imprisoned by cops or dogcatchers, spread over everyone stealthily. Abner Budd stayed asleep, and wandered a long time in his dreams.

  “Dubber—!”

  “Walt—!”

  “Welcome home—!”

  “And Chester—!”

  “Ha, dog—!”

  “Our mockingbird, too! Gosh, I’m glad to be back! Just a day away seems like forever.”

  The hushed ruckus went on for several minutes, the hugging and greeting.

  “And, Dubber,” said Chester, “look up there—”

  Asleep and snoring though he was, Mr. Budd somehow felt like the center of all the animals’ happiness.

  “He is back!” yelped Dubber. His eyes filled up. “You got him out, too. Oh, thanks, everybody! I don’t know how to thank—”

  “Then why try?” asked Chester briskly, and coughed. Sometimes feelings get too strong to be chirped.

  “Did they hurt him in jail?”

  “Not at all!” said Walt. “They gave him two desserts and one policeman’s overcoat—and a lovely meal first. Meat loaf it was, and looked very tasty. But he wouldn’t eat, so they left all the goodies in his cell and took him up to the head officer’s desk.”

  “To punish him for not eating dinner?” asked Dubber.

  “No—to teach him how to play poker.” Walt went on and told the whole adventure over again. This was only the second time, and he hoped there were many more to come.

  “I don’t care about meat loaf!” Dubber erupted. “I just want to make sure that they treated him right. To think of it!—Abner Budd in jail!”

  Walt wrapped himself around Dubber’s neck. “Now listen to your old snakeskin collar—he’s fine!”

  “For now,” said Simon.