The Middle Moffat (6 page)

"Wait for me!" Nancy had said to Jane when they parted after school. "I have to practice for an hour. Then we'll play."

Jane didn't know what they were going to do, play in Nancy's gymnasium in the attic, paint paper dolls, or play hide-and-go-seek with Nancy's sister, Beatrice. They often played with Beatrice, even though she was a year younger and only in Room Four. Now, Jane was sitting here on the back fence waiting for Nancy to finish her practicing and whistle for her.

A long high whistle and a shorter low note. That's the way Nancy whistled for her. She whistled this way in the morning when it was time to go to school, and at noon when it was time to go back. They always went to school together and they came home together, too, both at noontime and in the afternoon. They did their homework together. For instance, if the teacher said, "Find out something about the artist Millet, when he was born, when he died, and what else he painted besides this picture on the classroom wall called
The Gleaners
," they studied the encyclopedia together.

Best friends! That's what that was.

The first time that Jane saw Nancy was the day the Moffats moved into this little house. That very day Nancy said to Janey that very likely they would be best friends. She didn't even know Janey; she just must have liked her looks. The next day Nancy and her family had gone away to Maine on their vacation and Jane did not see her again until the first day of school.

This year Jane was going to a different school. She had looked around the room to see who was in the class. She knew some of the children, for they were from the school she used to go to; but some of them she didn't know as well, for they had always come to this school. Nancy Stokes was one of these.

She must have come home in the middle of the night, because Jane had watched and watched for her yesterday and by bedtime she had not come home yet.

Naturally Jane did not stare across the room at her. Nancy had been away for a long time. She might have forgotten Jane or she might have found a new best friend. But when the class was standing in line in the hall, legs moving up and down in time to the music the teacher was playing on the Victrola, Jane found that Nancy was her marching partner.

The children must not look to the left or the right. Eyes straight ahead! Shoulders back! That's the way they had to stand. The teacher was standing at the head of the line, with her head bobbing up and down, clapping her hands and marching her legs in time to the music, too. The class had to march a long time, legs going up and down in the same spot, before the teacher said, "March!"

Practice,
thought Jane. If they were properly wound up before starting, no one could get out of step.

While they were warming up this way, eyes straight ahead, shoulders back, legs going up and down, Nancy whispered to Jane:

"Aren't you that girl in the house in back of ours?"

"Yes," whispered Jane.

"We'll walk home together. Wait for me," said Nancy.

"Yes."

Jane smiled to herself. This girl remembered her! Out of all the people in the class, and it was a big one, she remembered who Janey was. Of course, it was easy for Jane to remember Nancy because Nancy had golden curls. "Aren't you that girl?" she repeated to herself.

That had been the first day they had walked home from school together. And they had every day since. When they got home, "So long!" Nancy would yell, and Jane would climb over the high board fence into her own yard.

Nancy's mother said they would wear all her nice green paint off the fence, so after a few days she had her handyman take out the corner board and put hinges on it. Now they had a real little swinging door to step through. And they weren't spoiling the looks.

Janey banged her feet against the fence, her side of the fence, where there wasn't any paint. She did wish Nancy would come now. And she wished that Nancy did not have to practice her music so much. Then they could play together all the time. But just then Nancy did come to her door and she whistled, a long high note and a short low one.

"Jan-ey!" she called for good measure.

Jane jumped into the Stokeses' yard and ran through the apple orchard. She went into the Stokeses' big house. Now she was able to walk in Nancy Stokes's house all right, but she remembered the first time she had come here. That time when she had stepped into this house, she had nearly fallen down. What was this floor made of? Glass? That's what she had first thought. But it wasn't; it was just a very shiny floor. And the rugs! Jane thought she was stepping on moss, the kind that grew around the brooks in the woods. They were real rugs, though, not moss. Mama said there were a lot of houses in New York, where she came from, like that.

Now, of course, after many visits in this house, Jane was able to walk on these floors. She never did really fall down. She slipped sometimes, but she didn't actually fall. It was lucky the oldest inhabitant did not live in a house with floors of this sort, thought Jane. He would never reach the age of one hundred if he had to slide around like this.

Jane never ran through this house the way she did the Moffats' house. She just walked, and she walked the way she did on ice. She put her whole foot down and she took careful steps. Nancy and her sister ran through the house sometimes, and the rugs slid together in a heap behind them. They never fell down. They were used to the shiny floors. But so far, Jane had not tried running.

Now she carefully followed Nancy through the hall. "What'll we play?" asked Nancy. "Trapeze? Paper dolls?"

"Let's make paper dolls," suggested Jane.

So they went upstairs to Nancy's room. Going up the stairs was the hardest for they were the shiniest of all. Nancy just walked up and down without even hanging on to the banister, but Jane still had to hold on. She wished she could walk up and down the stairs the way Nancy did, just as easy as though they were the old ones at school, worn hollow in the middle from so many children stepping on them.

But then, Nancy was very brave. She wouldn't be afraid of shiny stairs. She was not afraid of one thing that Janey knew about so far. She got into fights with anybody that would pick on a smaller child, boys and girls alike. Jane wished she could be as brave as that.

If anyone asked Jane, "What kind of a girl is Nancy? Describe her!" she would say, "This girl is brave, fearless, and kind to animals. She has golden curls and she laughs good."

Janey and Nancy sat down at Nancy's desk. They started to cut out paper dolls. Nancy made a horse for the prince to sit on. She did love animals. That's why she was so kind to them.

If Nancy ever saw a stray dog loping along the street in the sleet or in the rain, covered with mud, hungry, and thirsty, she'd take it home and bathe it in the Stokeses' own white bathtub. That is, if Mrs. Stokes was away. Mrs. Stokes thought the set tubs in the cellar the place to bathe stray dogs, but Nancy thought the best was what all dogs deserved. That was the way she was about animals. Alter the bath she would give the dog a good dinner and keep him until the owner could be found. Then she would have to send the dog home. That always made her cry, having to send the dog home. Mrs. Stokes said the dogs weren't lost anyway, they knew where they were, and Nancy should not bring all these dogs home. But Nancy didn't think so. They were muddy and hungry and needed care, she said. Nancy also carried carrots and apples around in her pocket for any horse she might meet. Jane had read about people doing this in books, but she'd never known anyone like that in real life.

"Goodness!" said Nancy, bursting into a laugh as she held up her paper-doll horse. "Look at this horse, will you? What's the matter with him?"

"He slopes," said Jane.

Nancy laughed explosively again. Mrs. Stokes came in from her room with a bit of darning in her hands.

"Nancy, dear, please don't laugh so boisterously. Janey doesn't laugh that way. Try and laugh gently, the way Janey does."

Jane wiggled her toes in her shoes, embarrassed.
This was a funny thing,
she thought.
Nancy's mother doesn't like the way Nancy laughs, but I do. Ha-ha! Like a firecracker.
She herself was trying to learn to laugh the way Nancy laughed. She had practiced often, but so far she had not succeeded. Nancy's laugh was so hearty. It burst out suddenly in loud high notes and raced rapidly down the scale to a deep low pitch. Jane's laugh was more of an inside job. She shook silently and tears rolled down her cheeks. How could people tell whether she was laughing or crying? she wondered.

But when she tried laughing like Nancy, the effect was even worse. She always hoped it would sound like Nancy, but it didn't. It sounded like herself, Jane, reading out loud in school. She would come upon the words
ha-ha
in the book. Should she say them the way they were written or should she laugh them? She always said them,
ha-ha,
like words, instead of like laughs.

Once they were reading a good book. The teacher said, "Who can read this book with expression?" Janey raised her hand because she had been reading to herself with the most wonderful expression. But when she read out loud, the teacher said, "Goodness! Do you call that expression?" And Janey sat down. The passage had had the words
ha-ha
in it. Janey thought perhaps the teacher expected her to laugh these words instead of saying them. But then the teacher read out loud and when she reached the words
ha-ha,
she just said them, too. She didn't laugh them. So that couldn't be what was wrong with Jane's expression.