The Witch Family (18 page)

Amy put her witch hat on and, standing on tiptoes, she looked at herself in the mirror above the mantel. She pressed her nose down and her chin up with her fingers. She had discovered lately that when you try to make your face look like someone else's, you may get a clue as to what that person is like inside. Right now, trying to look like Little Witch Girl, she felt pathetic. Brave and staunch and bright as Little Witch Girl was, nevertheless she was pathetic.

"
IT BE BARE UP HERE
!" a voice seemed to buzz.

"I know," said Amy with a sigh. "I know."

Amy thought about the bare and bleak glass hill. To think that that was where Little Witch Girl and Weeny Witchie had to live! And that Amy had thought it up! It was all right for Old Witch to live there. But Little Witch Girl? And Beebee? And Malachi?

Probably Old Witch was still asleep right this minute, tired out from her saturnalia. "Make Old Witch still asleep and snoring," she instructed Clarissa. "You know how to draw snores? Lots of z's, that's how."

"I know," said Clarissa, snoring some loud pretend snores.

"I said, 'Draw them,' not 'Snore them,'" said Amy.

They both laughed at this smart thing to say. Then Amy grew sober again, thinking about the little witch girl. Right now, Little Witch Girl was probably all alone on her rickety old front porch, lonesome, and thinking about Halloween and about Garden Lane. And about the wind rustling in the trees and the fall flowers swaying, and about the pretty pumpkins in the windows, and the children in their bright costumes under the lamplight, playing. Of the candles, too, lighted on the table, and of everything being warm.

"
THERE BE NO GRASS UP HERE
!" Amy seemed to hear the reproachful voice.

"No falling leaves," said Amy.

"
THERE BE NO FLOWERS.
"

"There should be a flower," said Amy.

And she said to herself, "After all, Little Witch Girl and Beebee were not the wicked ones. It was old great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Old Witch who was the mean and wicked one. Grass! Why shouldn't I make grass grow? Think of Witchie Baby rolling in the grass! Besides, even Old Witch is good now. She didn't eat any real rabbits, and she didn't eat me. She didn't eat up anybody for a Halloween treat. I don't think she did."

"Draw grass!" she instructed Clarissa, getting back to her own drawing and starting to draw feverishly. She kept her witch hat on in order to draw better. "They need to roll in the grass. Draw flowers, too," she added.

"What!" said Clarissa incredulously. Her high little voice grew higher. "Grass! Flowers! On the bare glass hill?"

"Yes," said Amy. "I'm making the grass to grow there now. And flowers and ... you'll see. First I'll write a letter."

Amy wrote the letter to the little witch girl who received it about a half an hour later by courtesy of the messenger cardinal. He dropped it into her lap as she sat rocking, lonesomely, in her red rocker on the rickety front porch.

"Oh!" Little Witch Girl exclaimed joyously. This was the third time that she had had a letter from Amy when she was feeling very, very lonesome. The letter was short and it said:

"Dear Little Witch Girl,
Happy, happy me
and happy, happy you.
Look all around and round
about.
I love you and you
love me,
Amy."

Little Witch Girl stopped rocking and she looked all about. What was happening? Grass was growing! The glass hill was turning into a regular, ordinary grass hill! Some glass melted into a little pool with lovely trees around it right in front of Old Witch's porch. Waterfalls could be heard trickling down the mountainside. Flowers, lovely flowers, burst into bloom all over. It did not matter that this was November now. Flowers were springing up everywhere. The hill was covered with star grass. Butterflies and dragonflies darted about.

Little Witch Girl stepped off the porch. It was a strange feeling not to slip. She turned and looked at the house. It had become a pretty little white house. Roses spread over the roof, and on the porch honeysuckle blossomed. At the end of the porch, near Malachi's place, there was a green swing, the kind suspended by chains and springs and covered with an awning. Malachi, himself, had come out of his camouflage hiding place and alighted on a pink clover near the pool. It was his favorite flower.

"
SWEET
!" he spelled.

Little Witch Girl spread her arms out wide in joy. "Oh, thank you, thank you," she breathed. She ran indoors and got Beebee to show her the sights.

Beebee said, "Abra, abra, abra," and sent some sparks out over the pool she was so dazzled at the glinting of the sun on the ripples.

The little witch girl said, "This can be our swimming pool. I think witches can swim in witch swimming pools, though not in any other kind. Maybe the little mermaid can come up here and visit me now and bring Babay with her. What will she think of this pool, out in the sunshine? I wonder if she has flowers, real ones, in the lagoon now, too."

As if in answer to her thoughts, who should appear from the depths of the pool but the little mermaid with Babay on her back! The mermaid cow next emerged and, uttering a questioning moo, she flopped herself up onto the star grass at the edge. Little Witch Girl was rather frightened of the cow, for this was the first time she had seen her. But she grew accustomed to Moolly, and after a while took rides on her back in the pool.

"How did you ever get up here?" Little Witch Girl asked the mermaid. "I thought I would have to get you here by abracadabra."

"There's a secret stream," said the little mermaid. "There're flowers along beside it. There're flowers everywhere, all of a sudden, real ones; the glass ones have become real."

"They have!" said Little Witch Girl. "Imagine real flowers inside of a glass hill. My!"

Now the little mermaid could come and visit her here and play in her pool sometimes. And sometimes she could abracadabra a little boat for herself and sail down the secret stream in it and visit the little mermaid at her pool and see the flowers there—take turns.

"Do you know what I am going to do?" she said to the little mermaid. "I am going in swimming with you. This is a witch pool and it is all right for witches to swim in it."

The little mermaid climbed quickly out of the pool onto an emerald green rock, where she had placed Babay. "Will I turn into a water witch? I don't want to turn into a water witch. Just a plain ordinary mermaid—that is what I want to stay."

"No," said the little witch decidedly. "You won't turn into a water witch or any kind of witch. "I don't thi-ink you will. Because you do not have on a witch hat."

This seemed sensible, and the little mermaid slid back into the pool. Little Witch Girl made ready to take the plunge, too. Then she thought she'd better swim in her underwear—long black tights and black shirt. This costume looked like an old-fashioned bathing suit, the way Amy had drawn it, and did nicely for the pool.

After their swim the little witch girl and the little mermaid lay on the rock beside the babies and basked in the golden sunshine. Moolly, the cow, lay on the other side of the pool, where daisies and buttercups had appeared, placidly chewing her cud. One would think, to hear her moo, that one was on a farm.

Filled with happiness, the little witch girl looked all about her. More and more flowers were bursting into blossom. An apple tree appeared, aglow with delicate pink blossoms. Weeping willow trees and other kinds of trees appeared in appropriate places. Herbs of all descriptions, easy to find ones and hard to find ones, filled the air with spicy fragrance. The old witch house, white now, seemed like a dream house high in the clouds.

Now Little Witch Girl had everything—a baby witch sister, a most-important-of-all-witches witch grandmother, and a best friend, the little mermaid from the mermaid lagoon. Moreover, she had another wonderful friend, Amy, who sent her important letters with beautiful surprises in them. All these letters she kept under her pillow, tied with Beebee's pink bootee ribbon. Beebee, being witch, did not want anything pink on her and kept throwing the pink ribbon away. But Little Witch Girl liked it and kept it for the letters. And it was this letter writer, this real girl named Amy and of the age of seven—now—who had made everything good happen.

"Moo-oo!" said the mermaid cow, echoing her contentment.

This moo apparently aroused Old Witch from her long after-saturnalia sleep. When she saw all the beauty laid out before her, she gave a great, throaty croak. "Oh, to glory be!" she muttered, and she sank into her rocker, taking in one thing and then another.

It is hard to believe, but it was true, that an old witch of her great reputation could have become so good that she enjoyed the beauty of the scene and did not pine for bats and caves and briers and brambles instead. It must be said that, for a moment, however, when Old Witch saw the mermaids, thoughts of fishing rods flashed into her mind. But the mermaids were so interesting, sporting in the sunshine, she decided to—

"
LET THEM BE
!" A sharply admonishing voice hummed in her ear.

"Oh, certainly," Old Witch said hastily. "Oh, to glory be! That bee still be here!" she muttered. Bemused, Old Witch rocked and rocked in her wicker rocker, which had not changed into a chaise lounge or anything else that is fancy. Amy knew how fond Old Witch was of this rocker the way it was; and it still creaked pleasantly as it used to before the transformation on the glass hill had taken place, sounding the way an old front porch wicker rocker should.

As the old witch sat and rocked, she thought, "This be a witch's—a bad good witch's paradise. Oh, to glory be! Heh-heh!" She didn't know whether to be glad or angry. "What did I do to bring this about?" she asked aloud.

"
NOTHING
!" spelled a voice, "
ALL BE DONE BY AMY!
"

Down on Garden Lane Amy and Clarissa had finished their drawings. "I've drawn so many flowers my arm is falling off," said Amy complacently. She looked long and happily at her drawing.

Old Witch was smelling a pink rose, and the little witch girl was holding a bunch of flowers so large that the flowers were spilling out of her fingers and down the mountainside. In the middle of softest, silkiest rose petals, the little witch baby was kicking her bare feet and making sparks fly through her fingers. She was cooing gently, gurgling to herself in great happiness. The mermaids had garlands in their hair. The red cardinal bird had alighted in the weeping willow tree, thoughtfully considering a nest. A little rabbit was peeking over the top of the hill. This was Brave Jack, hero of the day of the raid on the painting field. Jack was here on a scouting expedition to see how things stood with Old Witch these days. Never before would he have come up here, for the hill had been too slippery, and anyway why come to the place of exile of wicked Old Witch? But now, all was grass. Though his bright eyes never left Old Witch, his twitching nose took in the unusualness of the foliage up here. He would have much to report to Head Rabbit, who was busy below in the painting field. The three cats, big, medium, and little, were lined up at the edge of the pool, looking at themselves in it and cleaning their paws. Malachi was inside a honeysuckle blossom, arranging for a new place of camouflage and cleaning his feelers. Bees clean themselves even more than cats.

Clarissa surveyed Amy's picture for a long time. "She was good ever after, wasn't she?" she said after a while.

"Who was good ever after?" demanded Amy sternly.

"Old Witch," said Clarissa.

"What!" said Amy. "Wicked old mean Old Witch? Good ever after? Clarissa, are you a nope? Of course, she wasn't. She was still awful sometimes. The rest of the time she was good. Only when she was awful she was not good. Clarissa, listen to me. She
is
Old Witch, isn't she? What is the good of Old Witch if she is good all the time?"

Clarissa was confused. She gave a quizzical little laugh. "I don't know," she said.

"She can still be bad for Halloween, can't she? But not too bad. Just bad enough," said Amy. "I'm leaving Malachi right up there, I am. As my representatiff. See? There he is in the honeysuckle."

"Pretty big," said Clarissa.

"He
is
big," said Amy.

And that is the way things were with the witch family now.

"Lunchtime!" Amy's mother called up the stairs.

Clarissa was having lunch with Amy today. They were having lamb chops. In this house there were almost always lamb chops for lunch, just as at Clarissa's it was usually long 'noodoos.'

The girls sat down. Amy's mother cut the meat off the bone for them, and so they began on the bone. "Tell a story about Old Witch," said Amy. "Make it bad, but not too bad. Have it begin bad, but end good. All right, begin. One day, Old Witch..."

At this moment there was a buzzing and a scratching at the windowpane. Malachi! His eyes looked wild and foreboding. The window was open a little, so Amy could hear what he spelled.

"
APPLES
," he spelled.

Amy looked at Clarissa. "Oh-h-h," she gasped, and she clasped her hands over her mouth. "I should not have had an apple tree to grow. You know why..."