The Old Meadow (14 page)

“Your flying machine? You called it that—?”

“Well, it had to have a name!”

“An' to think—I never knew!”

“Also, one woman had looked up and seen us. From her expression, I would guess that she thought we were some kind of migrating thing. And that she didn't want us to land in Hedley, and hoped that she'd never see us again. So, since she might have reported us to the Rare Bird Society, we decided we'd better get on with it, and made for the corner of Hedley Avenue and Upper Lebel Street, where the jail is. Of course all the windows have bars, but since it's summer and they've got no air-conditioning, the windows were open. The one we got in was in the lavatory. And the first cell we inspected held a man who'd been driving drunk. That was lucky, because I was on the floor now, and he thought I was just a bad dream. The second cell was occupied by a man who'd stolen a donut and was going to be held all night, without food. But the third cell—that was unoccupied. We knew who'd been in it, though. The officers had urged Mr. Budd to take a shower and change his clothes. They provided the clothes. But Mr. Budd's underwear was still on his bunk.”

“Now comes the part I like,” said Ashley. “I'm not partial to jails—”

“—but,” Walter went on, “Mr. Budd was out by the sergeant's desk—
learning how to play poker!
And mostly dressed up in pieces of officers' uniforms. He had on Mike Gallagher's coat, and Mike was teaching him the difference between a flush and a straight. All the other cops were helping, too. Most of them had played in the meadow with Mike. Oh, and also—they'd sent out for pizza. My gosh!” Walter Water Snake leaped from the pool. “I
do
love Hedley! The dogcatchers all watch television, and the cops eat pizza and teach an old man to play poker!
Hooray!
” Walt flip-flopped joyously.

“Anyway—us birds and us snakes decided on this: Ashley warbled a little melody—and, as planned, Mr. Budd recognized the voice. He knew something was up. And then
I
was rearing up! Walter Water Snake! Me! I became a cobra! And it was very hard to do. I'm just not built to be vertical.”

“A cobra snake?” gasped Chester.

“Darn right! One of my most disagreeable relatives!”

“But, Walter—how—?”

“How could I be a cobra? With no venom at all? And the tenderest heart in this whole meadow? I'll tell you how. The human beings come into this meadow—they sit on benches, they read magazines, and sometimes they drop those magazines. One dropped magazine was all about science—with a reared-up cobra on the cover. I about passed out when I saw it—I can't stand nasty relatives!—but it served a purpose, that picture, when I imitated it in jail. But I've still got a pain in the neck where I tried to spread out—for realism. They rear and spread, cobras do. Makes me shiver to think about it.”

“Oh, Walter!” said Chester. “How awful. Those poor policemen! Scared out of their wits—”

“I hated to do it,” said Walter sadly—a bit too sadly.

“You loved to do it!” said Ashley. “Biggest night in your life!”

“Well, it served its purpose!” said Walt. “When the roaring cops took off—I did a fierce hiss, too—Mr. Budd just had to open the door. Ashley here conveyed the message that I was a friend—”

“—by sittin' on this cobra's head, an' singin' a familiar tune—”

“—and John Robin led the way. Until he got lost. The idiot! Then J.J. here took over. And this is a changed bird, let me tell you!”

“Now, Walt,” said Ashley, “John did his own best—”

“You did more,” J.J. voiced his trill again. “By singing on Abner's shoulder, on the way home, to make him have peace and have hope as we ran.”

“Yes, but I was the lucky one. When everyone started to run, I thought—there goes the last of my tummy scales! I'll have to slither home. But Mr. Budd took a look at me—I think he may have recognized something—he opened his policeman's coat pocket—and in I jumped—”

“—and here we are!”

“Budd wasn't scared, though—!”

“At first he was—!”

“Not when you sang, Ashley. And I wasn't, either—!”

The tale was hurried to its end with the rushes and sudden interruptions of all the other animals.

TEN

A Meeting

“Someone's got to go get Dubber,” said Chester. “Mr. Budd needs him.”

“I will.”

“No, me!” said J. J. Bluejay, who'd been listening with a new delight as Walter related all their adventures. “I never knew I had so much fun! Where is he?”

“Off near your beech,” said Chester. “The TV viewers and pizza eaters just searched the near meadow.”

J. J. Bluejay, with the gift of his wings, jumped up in the air. “Abner wants to see Dubber! We have got to get them together!” he announced from his perch of nothingness.

“The cabin may be watched secretly,” said Chester.

“Even though there's no pizza or TV,” Walt added.

J.J. jumped higher—then higher still: he could see upstream—and then settled down on Chester's log. “No one's there. They've given up. No one, I mean, except Mr. Budd. He's sitting on that stool of his, in the moonlight.”

“Hush!”

A whistle was heard through the night. Then a call—“Dubber! Dubber!” Then nothing but shivering, whimpering sounds, like the sounds Dubber Dog might make himself. “They got you, too. I forgot. My dog. The same time as they captured me.” In a while, the man who was crying fell silent.

“Mr. Budd's gone to sleep,” said Walt. “All alone.”

“I'm going to get Dubber,” said J.J.

“Those guys may come back again—”

“No, they won't,” Simon thought aloud. “Not tonight. Tomorrow maybe.”

“Then tomorrow I'll peck their heads into the brook!” said the blue jay.

“And I'll become a cobra again!”

“And you'll both be killed!” said the cricket.

“Let's worry tomorrow,” said Simon Turtle. “I've had enough worry these last two days to do for a lifetime.”

“You folks go on up to the cabin,” said J.J.

But Chester wondered, “Perhaps we shouldn't. I feel sort of embarrassed about watching Dubber and Mr. Budd meet.”

“Me, too,” said Walt. “But let's hurry, anyway. I can't stand the suspense!”

“Oh, me too then!” moaned Simon. “I'm too old to give up.”

In silver moonlight and a flurry of silver-blue wings, J.J. flew off, to bring home a dog to his master. He felt good too, as he made his way through the trees, over open spaces, and at last saw the woods where Dubber was hiding.

J.J. alighted on his beech. The moon shone through the leaves beautifully, like a pure white flower that verged on the brink of its richest bloom. He was just about to squawk—“Aw! haw!”—but then he remembered his lessons from Ashley. He bobbed his head up and down, as if he were going to give out a “Doodly-oo”—and then he trilled. And his trills were getting better and better.

“Is that you, Ashley?” a blubbery voice asked, below.

“No, it's me!”

“Who's me?”

“J.J.!”

“I don't believe it!” Dubber Dog crept out from the shadow of the beech where he'd been in hiding, and looked up at the branches. “That voice was beautiful.”

“Mine
is
now!” J.J. flickered down toward Dubber's voice, and found the dog. He had tried to conceal himself beneath last year's leaves and looked like a sad ghost of every October. “Hi, Dub! Old rub-a-dub-Dubber!”

“I know this is your beech,” began Dubber nervously.

“And don't get nervous. I'm nice now.” J.J. laughed his new laughter. “And I've got a surprise for you.”

“What surprise?”

“You'll have to follow me and see!”

“
What
surprise—?”

“Well, goodbye now. I'm off to see if my surprise is still there.” J.J. made as if to test his wings, getting ready for flight. “'Course, this surprise may have woken up by now—”

“Is it Mr. Budd? Oh! Is Mr. Budd free—?”

“So long, D.D.,” twittered J.J. “But someone's waiting for you or the cops. Whoever comes calling first.” The blue jay flew away—very slowly, for a quick bird like J.J. He wanted to know he was being followed.

And he was. Dubber lumbered after him. In the dark, and in this part of the meadow, the dog might have gotten lost, if he hadn't had such a loving guide.

So back through the skeletal shadows of branches, trees, bushes the two friends went, toward Mr. Budd's cabin. J.J. darted ahead and waited patiently on a twig or a tuffet as Dubber caught up, noisily. The dog had never been known for his grace, and he was so eager now that his fumbling through the underbrush was clumsier than usual. It took quite a time to reach the cabin.

And while the teasing beneath the beech and the fumbling journey home took place, Chester, Simon, and Walt had been waiting. They'd come up the familiar path—then they'd seen Mr. Budd asleep on his stool, with his back propped against his home. The moonlight was making his gray hair look even more silvery, as his head drooped on his chest. Now and then he'd fidget and say something, in his sleep. “Fisk!” he shouted once. And then mumbled, “Bad lettuce this year.” And sighed. “New isinglass. I can't see the west, or Avon Mountain. Oh, Luke—I do miss you so much!” And then there was only more snoring.

“He's going to fall off that stool,” said Walt.

“No, he's not,” whispered Simon, in a voice that sounded very much like Mr. Budd's. “He's sat there as long as I've lived in my pool. And we've neither one of us lost our balance.”

Everybody needed to talk—to fill up the space of expectancy—and the fear they felt at seeing this meeting.

“Hush now,” said Chester. There was crashing in the underbrush. “I think it's Dubber—”

“It's either him or a dinosaur!” said Walter Water Snake.

Now, as Dubber appeared—J.J. flying above him—a muffled rumpus took place. No one wanted to wake up Mr. Budd, so the joy of everyone being free, not imprisoned by cops or dogcatchers, spread over everyone stealthily. Abner Budd stayed asleep, and wandered a long time in his dreams.

“Dubber—!”

“Walt—!”

“Welcome home—!”

“And Chester—!”

“Ha, dog—!”

“Our mockingbird, too! Gosh, I'm glad to be back! Just a day away seems like forever.”

The hushed ruckus went on for several minutes, the hugging and greeting.

“And, Dubber,” said Chester, “look up there—”

Asleep and snoring though he was, Mr. Budd somehow felt like the center of all the animals' happiness.

“He
is
back!” yelped Dubber. His eyes filled up. “You got him out, too. Oh, thanks, everybody! I don't know how to thank—”

“Then why try?” asked Chester briskly, and coughed. Sometimes feelings get too strong to be chirped.

“Did they hurt him in jail?”

“Not at all!” said Walt. “They gave him two desserts and one policeman's overcoat—and a lovely meal first. Meat loaf it was, and looked very tasty. But he wouldn't eat, so they left all the goodies in his cell and took him up to the head officer's desk.”

“To punish him for not eating dinner?” asked Dubber.

“No—to teach him how to play poker.” Walt went on and told the whole adventure over again. This was only the second time, and he hoped there were many more to come.

“I don't care about meat loaf!” Dubber erupted. “I just want to make sure that they treated him right. To think of it!—Abner Budd in
jail!
”

Walt wrapped himself around Dubber's neck. “Now listen to your old snakeskin collar—he's fine!”

“For now,” said Simon.

“For now,” echoed Chester.

“Look,” said Ashley. “He's stirrin', up there.”

Mr. Budd was mumbling something—the animals couldn't quite understand—it sounded like “Lived too long.” Then he shifted positions on the stool, and fell into deep sleep again. Half the moonlight was blocked by the roof of his cabin. But part of his beard, as the moon eased away, was touched by the brilliance of the bright night.

“He's dreaming,” said Dubber. “He dreams of the past. And the future he dreams might be.”

“He was calling for you, earlier,” said Chester Cricket.

“Me—?”

“Even when he knew you'd been taken away. And he tried to whistle, too.”

“He always knew I loved that whistle. You know”—Dubber grinned, beneath his whiskers, and his eyes got shy—“we dogs do love to be whistled for.”

“Then I guess he got tired. Who wouldn't? That long race from the jail—”

“He's waking up again!” Simon Turtle insisted. “I think his back hurts. Mine would, too—shell and all—if I'd leaned against that cabin so long.”

“Dubber,” said Chester—and his voice was firm, ruthless almost. “This is up to you now. Go to him.”

“Okay. But after today he'll probably just whop me again. I don't blame him.”

The dog lumbered to Mr. Budd's feet. He took a look up. The man's face was working in dream-thoughts—just on the margin of waking up.

Then Dubber jumped: a big heave, but the dog accomplished it as gracefully as a cat.

“Who's that?” yelled Mr. Budd, thrown pell-mell from the end of his sleep.

Dubber whined in a voice that he knew his master would recognize.

“Why, Dubber—!”

A great big lapful of dog was nestling in Mr. Budd's arms.

“Oh, Dubber—it's you, it's you! You escaped, like me!”

Mr. Budd stroked Dubber's head. Then he scratched, because Dubber had twisted his neck: dogtalk for “Scratch me here, please.” And this was a scratch in the back of the neck that Dubber had waited for for so long—this dog who had once only dreamed of ice cream.