The Old Meadow (13 page)

On the ground, a few field folk saw him. Not many. Few animals expected a snake to appear in the sky.

“That's Walter!” said Emily Chipmunk.

“And flying!” said her brother, Henry.

The fussy chipmunks were cleaning their front yard, as usual.

“He shouldn't be up there.”

“No,” Henry said, sighing. He was sick of cleaning. “But sometimes I wish that I was.”

Ms. Beatrice Pheasant also saw the flight. She only gave it a glance.
“Hmm!”
she sniffed, as the water snake soared through the heavens above her. “Some people just never know their place!”

Donald Dragonfly lay on his twig. The brook hurried beneath him. He was just about to take a nap, when something happened in the sky.

“Hi, Don! Hi, Don!”

Donald sleepily looked up.

“Come on up and join me!”

“I flew this morning, Walter,” said Don. But something bothered the dragonfly. He cradled his head on his twig again. Walter Water Snake was up in the sky. It did seem strange. But not so strange that it kept him awake.

“I'm flying!” hollered Walter Water Snake down.

“Well, that's nice,” mumbled Donald. He dreamed about wings—not his own—that day.

“Oh, flying!” Walter said to his wings. “We all belong up here!”

“
We
do!” said John Robin. “We're birds! We do this all the time.”

Crestfallen in heaven, Walter said, “All right. Let's—oh, wait! Once over there—”

There was a single human being who saw this rickety miracle. Young Alvin Irvin had been wandering, alone, near Mr. Budd's cabin. He was wondering if he'd done the right thing—that is, getting his father and uncle involved—and he also felt dismal. As if the world was a boring and disappointing place—full of grandmothers. Then above him he saw—

“Hooray for snakes!”

“Do you hear that?” Walt said to his wings. “For two years that kid has been trying to bean me with rocks. And now he's shouting ‘Hooray for snakes!' Fly over him—
near!
I want him to know that I like him. Despite the rocks.”

Wings did as they were told.

“I'm awfully tired already,” puffed John.

“All right, my fellows,” said Walter Water Snake, “I've seen my home as it ought to be. From above. Now let's go to jail.”

NINE

Jailbreak—Number Two

Chester Cricket decided that waiting was the worst torment of all. It was worse than a flood in the brook. It was even worse than one of the sudden meadow fires that swept through Pasture Land, after days and days without rain. The human beings caused most of them, but sometimes lightning did, too. But waiting, not knowing, the fearful endless wondering—that had to be the worst. Yesterday the cricket had waited for Dubber Dog; today for Mr. Budd.

“It's really too much,” Chester said to himself, as he fidgeted on top of his log. “I'm only an insect, after all. I ought to be chirping merrily—not a care in the world.”

The glowing golden late afternoon didn't help one bit. There had been a brief thunderstorm about half an hour after that marvelous flying machine made of birds and serpent had vanished into the southern sky.

“They could have been struck by lightning!” said Chester. “Blasted all to smithereens!—the four of them.”

“What?” mumbled Dubber. He'd fallen into a nervous doze.

“I was talking to myself.”

“Then why talk so loud? Can't you hear yourself?”

“Oh, go back to sleep!”

“No, don't!” said Simon. He eased his head out from under his shell just as far as it could go. “Don't sleep!” he rasped, with an urgency unusual for a turtle. “Hide, dog!”

Silently, on the fat pads of his paws, Dubber sneaked down the bank and concealed himself in a clump of reeds.

Two men were approaching on the path that led to the brook. It wound down from the hill where Bill Squirrel lived in his maple tree—his first tree, an elm, had been smitten by blight—past Simon's Pool, then crossed the brook on stepping-stones and went on to Mr. Budd's cabin. The town Councilmen, who'd voted to preserve the Old Meadow, thought stepping-stones were a lovely touch—so natural and quaint. However, these stepping-stones weren't like Mr. Budd's. His were
stones.
These were made of concrete.

“He couldn't be anywhere else,” said one man. “They always go home. No place else to go. Especially the dopy, soulful ones, with eyes like that pooch.”

“Yeah, but if he isn't there, in that cabin—”

In his hole in the log, with all his small heart, Chester Cricket willed—
Dubber Dog, don't move! Or make a sound!

“Then we'll come back tomorrow. They always go home. He won't have a home to go too much longer. Those old fogies from the Council said a vicious dog and a senile old man are good reasons to pull the hut down. They've been looking for reasons. And now they got them. The pooch has to be lurking somewhere.”

“Yeah—and
we've
got to catch him. You know what those guys said: we catch all the dogs that escaped—and we've only got six—or no job!”

“We'll come back tomorrow. He's sure to be here. Where's the old guy, by the way?”

“In jail. They're trying to decide where to send him. There's a lot of old folks' places that won't take him. No money.”

The first man—his name was Moe Saffer, and he had one son and two daughters—paused. He looked ahead. Through an opening in the trees he saw the cabin that he was going to have to ransack, for a dog. “You know something, Dennis. I used to play here a lot. 'Course, I was little then.”

“Me, too.” Moe's partner, Dennis Reynolds chuckled—but somewhat ruefully. “One Halloween, I remember, I came all the way here. And none of the kids would come with me. But Mr. Budd—I think he'd been waiting—he had some candy. He said, ‘Well, Dennis Reynolds!—thank goodness you're here, at least. No one else came.' And then he filled up my bag with candy.”

“Let's get on with it,” said Moe. He shivered. Perhaps there was a chill in the air. “The Old Meadow is full of my childhood. It makes me feel—creepy—”

“Yeah. Me, too,” said Dennis.

The two men stepped carefully, but not with pleasure: they had to use those artificial concrete stones. Mr. Budd's hut was this side of the brook.

“You see! You see! They're going to ship him off!”

“Now calm down, Dubber,” said Chester. “They were looking for you—”

“But they're talking about Mr. Budd—”

Dubber Dog had lumbered up out of the rushes, and now seemed about to have a fat fit. Red sunset flamed over Avon Mountain, but the brilliant colors on his coat just made him seem more wild—mad!

“They're trying to find a place for him. You know what that means: a place—a ‘home'—a little room somewhere.”

“Dubber, please calm down—”

“No, I won't calm down! I'll—I'll—I don't know
what
I'll do! But I'll terrorize the world! And I'll shake up the whole Old Meadow! Potbelly or not.”

“I'm back.”

In the frenzy, jowls shaking and hackles raised, of Dubber's fury, nobody had noticed John Robin alighting without a sound on the log.

“The others will be here later. It's much harder,” John Robin explained, with a confidential chirp, “when one of the group is an old man walking. And with a snake in his pocket at that.” He warbled a giggle.

“What
happened!
” shouted Chester. It seemed to him that for two whole days that was all he'd been able to say.

“Why don't you just wait.” John laughed at his private joke. “You'd never have guessed where Walter is hiding. Nobody would.”

“Oh, waiting! Waiting! I'm going crazy! I just wish I had some big fangs, like Walt. I
would
bite somebody!”

For more than an hour, Chester fumed. And fidgeted. And shifted from one set of legs to the other. That was one of the great advantages of being a cricket: when you were so nervous you had to shift legs, you had a lot of legs to shift.

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—!