The Time Garden (8 page)

"There!" said Eliza. "The three faithful attendants bore the Sleeping Beauty to the waiting chariot!" For the Willys-Knight was already honking in the driveway. Eliza and Roger and Ann ran toward it, Roger carrying the Natterjack-tin carefully in a horizontal position.

If old Mrs. Whiton noticed the tin, she did not mention it. She had decided to drive into Boston herself today, which she did sitting straight and fierce, and flinging her arm out so wide and wildly at the turns that Ann was afraid she might dislocate something. She spoke little except to point out an occasional point of interest, but Jack was in an unusually good mood, regaling the company with song and story as they drove, till it seemed no time at all before the tall buildings of Boston began to show in the distance, and all was billboards and filling stations.

"It's like having the old Jack back with us again," muttered Eliza to Ann. "All he needs now is a magic adventure to make him practically as good as new." And she cast a meaningful glance in the direction of the tinned Natterjack.

If you have ever been to Boston (and everyone should go there at least once), you will know that as a city it is a bewildering mixture of modern improvements and the relics of antiquity, and it is interesting, for example, to come out from buying plastic clothespins and chocolate-strawberry-marshmallow-banana splits in a department store glittering with neon, and find yourself face to face with the Old South Church. And the streets have wonderful old names like Milk and Pump.

Jack had brought his color camera along, and took snapshots of all the important landmarks, and more than once Ann's eyes or Roger's wandered hopefully toward the Natterjack, when they came to a historic spot that might make a thrilling adventure. When old Mrs. Whiton drove them past the Bunker Hill monument, Roger wanted to plunge back through time and enlist in the battle right now, and when they went by the harbor where the Boston Tea Party had been, even the shy and retiring Ann yearned to be there with blackened face, tomahawking tea casks right and left with the rest of the Sons of Liberty.

But Eliza was adamant. "No," she said. "It would be instructive—in disguise—and that's one thing I won't bear!"

After the harbor, old Mrs. Whiton said there was one more surprise she'd like to show them, if they didn't mind going home a long way round, and of course they didn't. So then they drove over a bridge like pepper pots, and along the still waters of the Charles River, and past the red-and-white buildings of Harvard University (only that wasn't the surprise), and after that the scenery started getting more country-ish again. Pretty soon they passed a sign that read, "Concord, five miles." Eliza nudged the others.

"More history," she muttered. "Those old minutemen again. We've
had
that!"

But when they came into the town itself, her heart relented, and she and Jack and Ann and Roger didn't need to know anything about New England architecture to realize that Concord was a perfect place, with its beautiful, serene old gabled houses looking as if they had been sitting there squarely and at peace forever.

Old Mrs. Whiton drove slowly past one of the oldest-looking houses, a small brown one, and brought the car to a stop. "This," she said, "is the house where Louisa Alcott lived. It's the house she wrote about in
Little Women.
I thought you might like to get out and take a really good look."

Her last words were unnecessary. Eliza and Ann were already clambering out of the backseat, with rapt faces.

"Aren't you coming?" said Roger to Jack.

"Who cares?" Jack yawned. "It's just an old girls' book." But he got out of the car.

"I don't think it's just for girls, exactly," said Roger. "I think it's sort of for everybody, more."

The four children stood looking at the house.

"It looks just the way I thought it would, always," breathed Ann, in reverent tones. "You can just
see
Meg and Jo and Beth and Amy living in it!"

A glint appeared in the eyes of Eliza. "Why not?" she said.

Ann looked at her, a wild surmise in her face. Her heart thumped. "Could we?"

It was but the work of a second for Eliza to run to the car and fetch the coffee tin with the Natterjack.

"This is crazy," said Jack. "Even if there were anything to the magic, you couldn't go back in time to
them
! They weren't real. They didn't ever happen."

"They did, too," said Ann. "She wrote about herself and her sisters, just the way it was!"

"It's real-er than anything in your old history books!" cried Eliza. "Anyway, we went back in time to Ivanhoe, didn't we, last summer?" She was struggling with the lid of the coffee tin. It came off, and the Natterjack awoke and looked out. It seemed to recognize its surroundings right away.

"So
this
is what you picked," it said. "You might 'ave done worse."

"Excuse me," said Ann, reaching under it for one of the thyme snippets. The piece that her fingers fell on turned out to be a sprig of the golden kind.

"That's very appropriate," said Roger, learnedly. "It was the golden age of New England, just about."

Ann rubbed the bit of thyme, and even Jack sheepishly joined the others as they leaned over to catch a sniff of its fragrance. Then they stood looking around them.

Everything was the same and yet everything was different. Old Mrs. Whiton and the car were nowhere to be seen. It was winter. And it was snowing. (For who can think of the March family without thinking of snowballs and mittens and skating on the pond and Christmas coming any minute?)

"Gee," said Jack. "There must be something to it, after all. I'm just in my sports shirt and cotton pants and I don't feel a bit cold."

"That's the way with thyme-magic," said Roger. "Probably we're all in alpaca coats and beaver hats, as
they
see us." He gestured at two figures that were approaching along the walk.

The snowflakes were falling so thickly that it was hard to see who the figures were. But at this moment the foremost one spoke, and after that nobody needed to be told.

"Christopher Columbus!" said the figure. And Miss Josephine March, Jo herself, came running toward them with her lanky stride, and then stood regarding them in a gentlemanly manner, with her hands behind her back, her feet well apart and her thick chestnut hair escaping from under her cap, just as it always did. Ann and Eliza could only stare back, too moved for speech.

"Do not
prance,
Jo! Don't stand with your hands behind your back, and try not to use such tomboyish slang," said the second figure, following more sedately and proving to be a pretty girl with brown hair and pink cheeks who could only be the sensible, ladylike Meg.

Ann found her tongue at last. "Hello," she said. "YouSre Jo and Meg. I'm Ann. These are Roger and Jack and Eliza. Where are the others?"

"Beth has a slight cold," said Meg, "and Amy is spending the week with Aunt March."

Ann and Roger and Eliza felt relieved, on the whole. Because in the book Beth dies, and there isn't much you can do about people who die in books except hope their days were happy though numbered, and that it was worth it. As for Amy, neither Ann and Roger and Eliza nor anyone else has ever yet forgiven her for marrying Laurie in the end, when anyone could
tell
he was meant for Jo!

Jo was peppering them with questions now, and not waiting for the answers. "Are you a new family just moved to Concord? We
will
have times! Have you met Laurie, the boy next door? You're sure to like him, for he's a capital fellow!"

"Oh, I
know!
" said Ann and Eliza, adoringly.

"Come on!" said Jo, striding toward the big stone house nearby. Ann and Roger and Eliza followed. Then they looked back. Jack wasn't coming on. He was staring at Meg, and his face was red and his eyes were taking on a glazed expression. His behavior, in short, was all too familiar.

"Good grief!" said Eliza. "That's one thing I never thought of. That Meg. You know what she is? She's a
teenage girl!
"

"It's good-bye to hope," Ann agreed. "He might just as well not be here from this moment on!"

Jo looked where they were looking, and glowered. "Let's not take any notice," she said. "I hate sentimental nonsense, spoiling all the fun." And she strode on with her shoulders hunched and her hands in her jacket pockets.

Laurie must have sen them from his window, for now there was a cry of "What ho?" and he came running down the steps of his house to meet them, looking just as everybody had known he would look, with his bright black eyes and his curly black hair. Roger liked him right away, and as for the girls, they had been his willing slaves since long ago.

"What shall it be this afternoon?" he said, after everyone had been introduced. "A grand dramatic entertainment called 'The Witch's Curse,' or sledding, with apples and gingerbread to follow?"

A short whispered colloquy ensued.

"Shall we tell them?" said Roger.

"Why not?" said Eliza. "Those two would be fine to have along on
any
adventure!"

"Let's not," said Ann. "Let's stay here and have sledding and apples and gingerbread. I
like
Concord."

But she was overruled. A second later Roger and Eliza were telling all about the thyme-magic and introducing the Natterjack, in its coffee tin. Jo and Laurie were impressed.

"Tell me about the twentieth century," said Jo. "Is the Civil War over and the slaves freed and everything perfect?"

"Well, maybe not quite," said Roger, "but we're getting better all the time."

Laurie, ever less serious, brushed this aside. "Let's talk about
now,
" he said. "Magic adventures are the one thing that's been needed to make this the best year ever! How do we begin? Do we make wishes?"

"There are a hundred things I could wish for," sighed Jo. "The butcher's bill paid and a new parlor carpet. If I could begin selling the stories I write, I could help. Could I wish it were time for that?"

Ann thought this would be nice, but perhaps not exciting enough for Eliza. "Anyway, all that comes later," she said. "You sell lots and lots of stories."

"I do?" said Jo.

"Yes," said Ann. "Only you stop writing wild romances and just tell about your life here, in this house."

"
That
wouldn't make a story," said Jo.

"It does, though," said Roger, not exactly sure at this moment whether he were addressing his remarks to Miss Josephine March or to Louisa May Alcott herself, but it didn't matter because they were the same person, really. "It makes a story that'll never be forgotten as long as there are children anywhere."

"Christopher Columbus!" said Jo, staring into the future with wide eyes.

"Now then, that's enough, Miss Charlotte Bronte George Eliot March!" said Laurie, his eyes twinkling. "Come down to earth and shed your genius on
us!
Tell us what we're going to do
today!
Forget duty for once, and let's be thoroughly selfish and frivolous!"

"For goodness' sake
let's!
" said Eliza, jigging from one foot to the other. "Less talk, more action!"

"Very well!" said Jo, casting sober thoughts sky-high with a grin. "We'll fly round and have larks! We'll go to the Orkney Islands! Or off with the wraggle-taggle Gypsies, 0! Or over the hills and far away!"

"Let's make it Gypsies," said Eliza. "I'll be the beautiful Gypsy fortuneteller. A king's son will cross my palm with silver and fall in love with me! I'll..."

But there was an interruption. A tall motherly-looking woman had appeared in the doorway of the house. Jo ran to her. Meg detached herself from the conversation of Jack and joined them.

"Oh my girls," said the woman, "in our happiness we must not forget others less fortunate than ourselves. I have just heard some sad news."

"Wouldn't you know?" muttered Eliza to Ann. "She always did!"

"Not a mile from here," continued Mrs. March, for of course it was she, "lies a poor sick woman with a young baby and neither food nor firewood, and no money to purchase either! I leave it to my dear girls to think what best to do for her."

"I'll cut logs, Marmee!" cried Jo. "I'm as good a hand with an ax and saw as any boy in Concord."

"There is a pound of scrag of mutton in the larder," said Meg. "I was planning to try a French ragout such as the Moffats always serve, but it will make a nourishing stew for the poor woman, and we can dine on tea and toast."

Mrs. March rewarded her daughters with a proud smile and a quiet "Well done."

"Oh, for goodness' sake!" said Eliza, indignantly. "It's as bad as the time they had to give up their breakfast on Christmas morning and have bread and milk instead! We can't do good deeds now; we're just starting an important adventure!"

Mrs. March said nothing, merely folding her lips tightly and giving Eliza a long look. So of course after that Eliza had to be noble and self-sacrificing, too.

"At least we can go by thyme-travel and not walk a mile, can't we?" she said, after Mrs. March had gone inside. "We'll get there earlier and have that much more time for nobleness!"

And all agreed that this was only logical.

Meg fetched the scrag of mutton from the larder and Jack offered to carry it for her and seemed not to mind the greasiness of the paper. Jo and Laurie ran for the ax and saw. Ann rubbed the sprig of golden thyme.

The next moment they and the Natterjack found themselves in a dusty and disorderly one-room hovel. A woman, looking more lazy than ill, lolled on a rumpled bed reading a book called
How He Won Her,
while the baby, a lusty boy of three, sat in a corner, knocking a battered doll against the wall.

"Who are you?" said the woman.

"We've come to help," said Meg.

"How nice," said the woman. "I always say the Lord will provide!" And she lay back on her pillows and watched complacently as Jo and Laurie ran for the wood lot, Roger found sticks for kindling and laid a fire on the ill-kept hearth, and Meg dealt with the scrag of mutton while Jack watched in mute admiration.