The Moffats
1. The Yellow House on New Dollar Street
2. Jane and the Chief of Police
7. Another Sign on the Yellow House
11. The New Second Avenue Trolley Line
12. The last Chapter in the Yellow House
Copyright © 1941 by Eleanor Estes
Copyright renewed 1969 by Eleanor Estes
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Estes, Eleanor, 1906–1988.
The Moffats/Eleanor Estes; illustrated by Louis Slobodkin.
p. cm.
"An Odyssey/Harcourt Young Classic."
Summary: Relates the adventures and misadventures of the four Moffat
children living with their widowed mother in a yellow house
on New Dollar Street in the small town of Cranbury, Connecticut.
[1. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 2. Family life—Connecticut—Fiction.
3. Connecticut—Fiction.] I. Slobodkin, Louis, 1903-1975, ill.
II. Title.
PZ7.E749Mo 2001
[Fic]—dc21 00-39726
ISBN 0-15-202535-9 ISBN 0-15-202541-3 (pb)
Printed in the United States of America
C E G H F D
L N P Q O M K
(pb)
1. The Yellow House on New Dollar StreetTo Rice
The way Mama could peel apples! A few turns of the knife and there the apple was, all skinned! Jane could not take her eyes from her mother's hands. They had a way of doing things, peeling apples, sprinkling salt, counting pennies, that fascinated her. Jane sighed. Her mother's peelings fell off in lovely long curls, while, for the life of her, Jane couldn't do any better than these thick little chunks which she popped into her mouth. Moreover, it took her as long to peel one apple as for Mama to do five or six. Would she ever get so she could do as well?
"There," said Mama, "that's finished." She set the blue-and-white kettle of apples on the stove. She sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on the apples with the same deft fingers. Jane sat with her elbows on the kitchen table and her chin cupped in her hands, watching her mother and considering vaguely what to do next. Upstairs she could hear Sylvie saying her lines and saying her lines. She was going to be Cinderella in the play at the Town Hall. Joey had gone bicycling up Shingle Hill with Chet Pudge, and Rufus was probably playing marbles down there at the end of New Dollar Street, waiting for him to come home.
There wasn't anyone to play with, so Jane picked up her doll, Hildegarde, stuck her in her knitting bag, and went out the back door.
All the fruit trees in the yard looked inviting to Jane. She had half a mind to climb the old apple tree, sit in one of its forks, and do some knitting. But first she would go and see if Rufus or Joey were in sight. She skipped round the house, out the gate, and climbed onto the fat old hitching post in front. She looked up New Dollar Street and down New Dollar Street for a sign of Joey or Ruf us. But neither was in sight.
New Dollar Street was shaped like a bow. That is, it was not a straight street put out by a measuring rod. It had a gentle curve in it like one half of a parenthesis, the first half. Exactly halfway down New Dollar Street was the yellow house where the Moffats, of whom Jane was the next to the youngest, lived.
Jane clanked her feet against the hollow hitching post. For the hundredth time she was thinking that the yellow house was the best house to be living in in the whole block because it was the only house from which you could see all the way to both corners. You could see every inch of the way down New Dollar Street to Elm Street, where the trolley ran. When Mama went to town for provisions, you could see her when she got off the trolley, arms laden with bundles and surely a bag of peanuts among them, and run to meet her. In the other direction you could see every inch of the way to Wood Street, along which the railroad tracks ran like a river. For hours on end the Moffats liked to sit on the fat old hitching post and count the cars in the freight trains as they galumphed along. Eighty-eight was the most so far.
No. From no other house on the street could you see both corners. For instance, right next door to the Moffats' house on one side was Mrs. Squire's house. Mrs. Squire had no children. Did that make her like the Moffats? Not at all, and she watched them suspiciously. She never would let them or anyone else sit on her fence, though it was a heavy wire one with a flat board along the top, excellent for sitting on, whereas the Moffats' fence, a picket one, naturally was not. Once, however, when Jane had seen Mrs. Squire go out she had sat on the forbidden fence and she had observed that if Mrs. Squire had ever wanted to sit there, she would be able to see all the way to Elm Street, where the trolleys ran, but she wouldn't be able to see the other end of the street, where the railroad tracks were. Not possibly.
Next door to the Moffats' house on the other side was an empty lot. This lot was filled with small mounds of charred and broken bricks, all that was left of a splendid red brick house that used to stand there. The Moffats called it the Brick Lot. It must have been a terrific fire when the brick house burned down, but that was years ago, before Rufus was born even—and now dandelions and daisies grew between the bricks. As for the cellar, even that was filled in a long time ago, and nothing was left of it save a brick fireplace where the Moffats sometimes played at being Druids. But Jane figured that even if there were a house standing in the Brick Lot, its occupants would not be able to see both Elm Street and Wood Street. Only Wood Street.
"See, now, how lucky you are to be living in this yellow house?" said Jane to Hildegarde.
Today was a warm day in late summer. The sky was a rich blue and a slight breeze stirred in the lilac bushes at the side of the house. Jane had that feeling of something good about to happen.
"Come," she said suddenly to her doll. "We'll look at things the upside-down way." She jumped off the post, stooped down, and looked at the yellow house from between her legs, upside down. It was wonderful to look at things from between her legs, upside down. Everything had a different look altogether, a much cleaner, brighter look.
Now she looked between her legs at this yellow house where she and Mama, Sylvie, Joey, and Rufus had lived ever since Rufus, who was the littlest—just five and a half, in fact—was a tiny baby. Jane could just barely remember the day they had all moved into this house from the white one across the street. She could just barely remember wheeling her doll carriage across the street to the new house, for she had been only three years old at the time. Now she was nine.