CHAPTER 36
The shop was dark but headlights flashed by out on Wisconsin Avenue,glaring over the meager display of objects in Mr. Wicker's window.There seemed even fewer objects than before, Chris thought, for thecarved figure of the Nubian boy was gone, and so was the coil of dustyrope. The ship in the glass bottle was still there, however.
Mr. Wicker went forward in the darkness and leaning over, took up thebottle with care from where it had lain for so many years, dusted andpolished only by the loving eyes of a boy who had often pressed hisnose against the Georgian panes.
"You are to have this," Mr. Wicker said, putting the bottle with itsdelicate contents in both Chris's hands. "Both Ned and I would like toknow that it is yours."
He turned to put his hand on the doorknob. Chris found his voice.
"What about the job, sir?" he broke out. "Can Jakey Harris apply forit?"
Mr. Wicker smiled, and it was strange, in that dim room inconsistentlylit by the lights of passing cars, Mr. Wicker looked exactly like avenerable, wizened old man, when Chris knew perfectly well he was not.
It's peculiar, he thought, the tricks your eyes play on you. Guess I'mtired.
"Jakey Harris for the job?" Mr. Wicker remarked, "Why no--there is nojob to fill. You filled it, Christopher!"
And all at once, without any good-bye, Chris found himself outside onthe top step. The din of cars and honking horns rushed at him like agape-mouthed monster; the drumming whine and roar from the freewayshook the ground, and up ahead the lights of the People's Drugstorelooked garish but friendly. Across the way as he turned to go home,Chris glanced at the two tumbledown storehouses opposite, the winchand tackle broken, and panes of glass missing from the windows.
As he reached the corner of Wisconsin and M Street, Mike rushedbreathlessly up.
"Hey! Here I am! Not much later than I said I'd be, either! What yougot?" he asked, falling into step beside Chris and looking down at thebottle.
"Mr. Wicker gave it to me," Chris replied in a colorless voice.
"What for?"
"I dunno. Guess he didn't need it."
A silence fell, and then Mike said as they passed the strong light ofa shop window, returning down bustling M Street toward 28th: "Say--youbeen running--or sitting by a fire? You look almost sunburnt. Andlook--"
They stopped dead while Mike put a grubby forefinger on a mark onChris's jaw. "I never noticed that before. It shows up white an'plain. Must have been a pretty deep cut ya had there!"
For the first time in what felt like hours, Chris smiled, and thesmile became a grin.
"It sure was!" he said reminiscently.
"Oh--an' by the way," Mike said much farther along as he left Chris togo on to his own house, "your Aunt Rachel called my ma and told heryour mother was so much better she could come home soon. Seems thatyour father's on his way back too." He walked off and then turned tocall from a quarter-block away, "Bet you'll be glad to have your ownfolks at home?"
Chris's grin deepened but he did not reply, nor even wave, for fear ofdropping the bottle.
N Street, then Dumbarton Avenue, dropped behind him, and he came toHappy's Grocery with the bookshop on the opposite corner. He stoodlooking at his lighted windows, the lighted windows of his house,remembering a time when he and Amos had seen only a wooded ridge and aburnt-out campfire.
Something stirred in his mind, and after finding the front doorunlatched, he eased himself in and up the stairs as quietly as hecould. He did not want to face his Aunt Rachel for a few minuteslonger.
In his own room he shut the door and carefully lifted the _Mirabelle_in its bottle to the place of honor on top of his chest of drawers.Then he stood looking at his reflection in the small mirror hung askewnear the window.
He looked the same--well, not quite. The tiny scar was there, to proveit was not a dream, and he quickly undid his shirt, and pulling itoff, got up on a chair to peer over his shoulder to see how his backlooked in the square of glass.
A whiplash like a long clean briar tear lay across his shoulders, andas he looked, he almost felt again the searing cut.
Chris grinned, buttoning up his shirt. Then it had been no dream, nochildish imagining.
A voice soared up the stairs. "Chris! Chris darling? Are you home?"
Aunt Rachel had news for him of his mother's imminent return.
Chris opened his bedroom door, pulling out from his pocket the firstthing his fingers hit on, and as he went downstairs whistling,"Farewell and Adieu, to you Spanish Ladies," he tossed and caught, andtossed and caught again, an old silver button burnt black in a fire.
* * * * *
$3.25
_Mr. Wicker's Window_
_by_
Carley Dawson
When twelve-year-old Chris entered Mr. Wicker's shop to inquire abouta job for his friend, something about old Mr. Wicker forced him totake the job himself. Chris found himself the pupil of Mr. Wicker, notthe old man he first saw, but a powerful man in his forties--amagician. Chris learned how to turn himself into a fish, a bird, afly, and with a magic rope he learned to make a boat or even anelephant.
Chris had been chosen to sail to China on a mysterious mission. Longbefore he sailed, Chris met the enemies who would try and stophim--evil Claggett Chew, the dandy Osterbridge Hawsey, the treacherousold beggar Simon Gosler. With a Nubian boy Chris brought to life withmagic, he set out on his hazardous voyage.
Carley Dawson writes beautifully, combining fact and fantasy withskill. Her characters are lifelike and vivid, and the plot of this,her first book, is fantastically exciting and exceptionallyoutstanding. With power and imagination Lynd Ward has illustrated thebook with over eighty drawings in two colors.
_Illustrated by_
Lynd Ward
* * * * *
Johnny Tremain
_By Esther Forbes_
Illustrated by
_Lynd Ward_
"If Jonathan Lyte Tremain never lived in the flesh, he lives vividlywith the men of his time in this book. So we dare to put him among thepeople of importance.
"He is a boy, an apprentice to a silver-smith in Boston, when we meethim just before the American Revolution. Casting the handle of a sugarbasin for John Hancock, he seriously burns his right hand. He iscrippled, the work that he loves must be given up--forever. Johnnygoes through some hard and bitter times before he finds his work inthe struggle that is to free the Colonies from British rule. Thesolution comes through the young printer, who likes Johnny andbefriends him. Rab, too, is a 'person of importance.'...
"This story of Johnny Tremain is almost uncanny in its 'aliveness.'Esther Forbes's power to create, and to recreate, a face, a voice, ascene takes us as living spectators to the Boston Tea Party, to theBattles of Lexington and of North Creek. It takes us, with Johnny, tothe secret meetings of the Sons of Liberty, to the secret training ofthe Minute Men...."
_Saturday Review of Literature_
$3.00
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