THE HERMIT PART 2 THE PARTY
At 1:30 the next day Piya and Ingrid and
Bill were already at the corner by Mr. Earle’s house. Then came Ellen and Lucy and John. Then came Joshua.
"Where’s Sam?" Ingrid asked
anxiously, when it was nearly 2 p.m.
"I’m so glad we got back," said
Lucy.
"Shall I go get him" Bill
fretted.
It was two o’clock.
The gang was all in a fidget.
"If we’re late he might change his
mind," Ingrid said in horror. It
had never happened but that it might was enough to worry the entire gang.
"We have to go," said Ingrid
hopping from one leg to the other.
"Okay, we’ll go," said Joshua,
"but we’ll tell Mr. Earle Sam is likely to show up at any minute."
The gang hurried down the street. Sam was hopping from one foot to the other
in front of Mr. Earle’s house. He had
his hand clamped over his mouth. "Where were you!" he squeaked, his normally loud voice
squeezed out between his fingers.
"Where were YOU?" the rest of
the gang was asking Sam.
"Right here," he said.
"But we always wait on the
corner," Bill reminded him.
"I was late so I came right
here. I thought you had all gone
in!"
"Let’s go, let’s go." Joshua herded them up the front path.
The Hermit opened the door as soon as they
knocked.
"We’re a bit late," Ingrid
explained.
"Come in, come in. Don’t worry."
The gang gave a huge sigh in unison.
The Hermit was always telling them he
hated it when people were late.
There was a table set up in the corner
with great things on it. Normally the
table had a lot of neat junk. Now it
had a lot of neat food.
The gang kept glancing at it as they found
places to sit. Old Ray didn’t have nine
chairs – he didn’t even have room for nine chairs – but he had lots of cushions
and two small stools and one-half of a nail keg and a big old rocking
chair. Now the chair was the most
special seat and like the tree house they got to take turns sitting in it. But since they only were invited into the
Hermit’s house on rare occasions Lucy figured it would take years until they
all had a turn.
"Whose turn is it today to ride the
chair?" Mr. Earle was asking.
"It’s Bill’s," they all
said. They were going by age because
Old Ray said that remained a constant.
"But ages change," John had
said.
"But never the order," said Old
Ray. "You’ll always be the same
age in relation to all the rest so your turn will come when it’s supposed
to. Do you see what I mean?"
John didn’t but he said he did. He thought he’d figure it out eventually.
There was a watermelon on the table, cut
up into neat sections. And a big bowl
of jello. And some potato chips. And a big jar of Kool Aid. And some doughnuts. Old Ray knew how to feed kids.
For just a moment Lucy thought that the
jar with the Kool Aid was the one that normally held Mr. Earle’s goldfish but
then she saw that jar over on the floor by the window with the fish in it so
she relaxed. She loved Kool Aid.
"My lumbago is bothering me so I’m a
bit cranky today," Old Ray said. His lumbago meant his knees hurt. "But I promised you a party and
here it is. Now what shall we do?"
Lucy thought Mr. Earle should plan out the
party beforehand and then tell them what he had decided. She was about to say this but Ellen was
staring hard at her as if she knew what she was thinking and didn’t want her to
say it. Ellen thought it was a perfect
way to run a party, to let your guests decide.
"We could hear your latest
letters," Ingrid suggested. Old
Ray liked to read the letters his pen pals sent him.
"Or polish your brass
collection," said Ellen.
The boys were all silent. Mr. Earle looked at them.
"What do you want to do first?"
he asked, knowing full well.
"Eat," shouted Sam, behind his
hand so it came out fairly normal.
Old Ray chuckled and then laughed. "I thought so. Okay. Okay. So we’ll eat first." The gang squirmed and grinned at each other,
even the girls.
Mr. Earle had several times since the
previous day gone out and looked at the face John was carving in the log. He thought of it now and getting up from one
of the small stools where he had been sitting he picked up a paper napkin, put
a doughnut on it and handed it to John. "For my friend, John, the
artist," he said and no one laughed. John took what was offered and said a very quiet, "Thank you." Then the party returned to normal and
everyone got food and ate and talked.
Piya swallowed a watermelon seed and
wondered if it would grow in her stomach, if it got caught in the folds. She liked to look at her aunt, the doctor’s
medical books and was fascinated by the illustrations of what was inside the
body.
Bill worried that if he got up out of the
special rocking chair to get seconds of food someone would take his place. He didn’t think they would but they
might. He was in a frenzy of worry
until Mr. Earle asked, "Hey, Bill, don’t you want some more?"
"Yes, I do," Bill said in such a
miserable voice that Ingrid came over and stood by him and waited for an
explanation.
"Your Mom won’t mind if you have
more," Ingrid told him. "She
won’t even know."
"Save my chair, Ingrid?" he
asked her.
"Oh, fuss pot, so that’s your
problem," laughed Lucy. She would
have simply told anyone who sat in the chair if it were her turn to get out –
and thumped them if they didn’t.
"Don’t mind her," Ingrid said
and slid onto the chair for a quick rock while Bill got seconds. She was older than Bill and had already had
her turn so she knew what a great chair it was. It didn’t only rock backward and forward it sort of also swayed
from side to side and was most fun.
When they had eaten all the food everyone
helped Old Ray clean up the dishes. This just meant carrying stuff across the bigger room which was the main
living area into the smaller room which was the kitchen and bedroom combined.
The gang had tried to decide one day if it
was a kitchen with a bed in it. Or a
bedroom with a kitchen in it.
"Whatever it is it’s weird,"
Lucy had thought, but not out loud. Old
Ray’s comment was that whoever had built the house had their head screwed on
wrong because the hallway that went clear through the center of the house and
which led to the tiny bathroom at the back and a large waste space going out
the back door could have made three perfectly good-sized rooms with a little
thought. "It’s a bit lacksadaisacal, but it suits me okay," he had
finished.
John had rolled the word lacksadaisacal
around and around in his mouth until he could taste each sound and he thought
he could likely draw a picture, either on paper or with his hands, of the word.
When they had put the paper napkin plates
in the garbage and the serving dishes in the sink and the glasses and cups on
the counter they went back into the bigger room and sat down again.
"Oooohhhh my lumbago," Old Ray
complained as he lowered himself onto the small stool.
"What will we do now?" Sam asked
behind his hand because he saw Ellen look thoughtful and he was afraid she
would suggest they all go home if Mr. Earle wasn’t feeling well. Sometimes he thought she was just too darned
polite. He got that enough at home from
his mother and one of his sisters.
Bill was wondering if he should offer to
give up his turn on the rocking chair so Mr. Earle could sit in a more
comfortable spot. But he didn’t want
to.
"I could wash my shirt and make it
rain," Mr. Earle said with an innocent face but then he looked at Piya and
grinned hugely and everyone realized he was teasing her. And Piya giggled to show that she didn’t
mind.
"I’m sort of sorry you’re not
magic," Ellen said, "I’d like to know someone who has magical
powers."
"I know someone who has," Joshua
said and this was so unexpected that everyone stared at him.
"You’ll likely laugh," he said,
taking off his glasses and rubbing them up and down on his shirt even though
they weren’t the least bit dirty, "but my Mom is magic. Just at times."
Nobody said anything. They continued to stare.
"She has dreams," he said
slowly. "I mean everyone does, but
she has a certain kind of dream – different somehow. And…," he paused and wiped his glasses and wouldn’t look
at anyone. "And they come
true," he finished quickly.
Then everyone spoke at once. "Wow!" shouted Sam before he could
clamp his hand over his mouth but everyone else was talking too so his voice
wasn’t so startling.
"That’s amazing," said Lucy.
"You’re kidding," said John and
Piya both at the same time.
Ingrid didn’t say anything but she looked
as if she didn’t really believe it.
Bill opened his mouth but if words came
out they weren’t heard in the din.
Old Ray was asking, "Can you give us
a for instance?"
"Sure," said Joshua, relieved
that he was believed, at least by some of them.
"One time she dreamed the train to
St.Catharine’s crashed when my Dad was supposed to go there the next day and
she wouldn’t let him go and it did crash and people were hurt."
"Wow," said Sam again but this
time he said it softly and some of the gang turned to stare at Sam because his
speaking softly was as shocking as what Joshua was saying.
"And another time she dreamed about
our moving to another house – before we moved here – and it wasn’t the house we
were nearly buying so she said no, we shouldn’t buy it, it wasn’t the right
house, the right house was white stucco with green shutters and so we didn’t
buy that house even though my Dad was sort of mad and the man selling the house
was really mad but then we saw this one, the one we’re in now and it was a
better house and not so much money and so we bought it. And it had green shutters so my Dad painted
the stucco white over the gray. And afterward
they found out that other house, the one they nearly bought, had a leaky
basement."
Everyone was fairly silent. Ellen was thinking she’d pay more attention
to Joshua’s Mom next time she saw her. Piya was a bit afraid to see her. Old Ray just looked thoughtful. Bill rocked faster and faster. He thought there had to be a logical explanation but he didn’t know what
it was.
"Want to hear my newest letter?"
Mr. Earle asked suddenly.
Everyone said yeah.
Mr. Earle had an old Times Journal delivery
bag hanging on the back of the door into the bedroom/kitchen. It was filled with letters held together
with elastics. Each packet was from a
different pen pal and they came from all over, some from the States and some
even from Overseas. Ingrid was
fascinated by the stamps and loved to look at them.
"This one came this morning,"
Mr. Earle said taking one from the top of a thick pile that had a wide brown
elastic around it. "It’s from a
lady who doesn’t live far away but she is such a fascinating person that I feel
I’ve been to a foreign country when I read her letters."
Sam and Lucy frowned at each other because
this didn’t make much sense to them. John was nodding – he thought he knew what Old Ray meant.
"I won’t read it all to you. I just want to share one little part – it
reminded me of it now we were talking about magic."
He looked over the pages of the letter,
"Hmmm, let me see, oh yes, no, not that part, I’ll save that for another
time. Oh, and this too, my, my imagine
that…"
Sam was getting restless and started to
swing his legs and kick against the rungs of the stool he was sitting on. Bill put out his hand to stop him but Sam
kicked out at Bill and Joshua and Ingrid both frowned so strongly at Sam that
he stopped.
"Bossies," Sam said but mostly
with his lips.
"Here it is," Mr. Earle said at
last. "Now listen."
He began to read, " ‘I must tell you
about he circle of fairy stones in the next field over from our corn. My husband says that particular section of
land will grow only rocks so it’s been left alone and I just happened onto it
because I was following a butterfly and then came across a perfect circle of
stones.
"Now most people would not be
impressed but I think you will share my feeling that they are fairy stones and
who knows what lovely gatherings occur there of the little people. It’s moonlight that brings them out, is it
not? I plan to creep out one bright
night and try to catch them unawares.’"
Old Ray smiled as he folded up the letter
and it was a quiet sort of smile that was not really for others but mostly for
himself.
"There," he said.
Piya didn’t say it out loud but she was
thinking that if Mr. Earl wasn’t actually able to do magic the next best thing
was that he believed in fairies.