The Moffat Museum (4 page)

"Mama!" said Rufus. "You ever hear of a waxworks museum?"

"Yes," said Mama. "There's a famous one in London ... Madame Tussaud's Waxworks Museum."

"True," said Rufus. "And you pronounced it right. Tusso!"

Rufus went outdoors, sat on the back stoop, and ate a bread-and-apple-butter sandwich. He studied the museum with the sleigh in front, all polished up, pretty black sleigh with filigrees just waiting for someone to sit in it ... him, Rufus Moffat, a waxworks boy, sitting in the sleigh, holding on to the reins, not moving.
What a great addition to the artifacts!
he thought.
More interesting than famous dresses, easels, and such.

"Look!" people would say. "Besides being the one and only museum in Cranbury, it has a waxworks statue in it. Can any museum you know of beat that?"

Wait till Jane and Joey heard this and
saw
this! He didn't know where they were, gone off somewhere, maybe on some artifact-finding expedition. He'd get busy right away with his transformation ... not wait for them. Nice to surprise them anyway....

He went indoors, moved from room to room, and collected all the wax crayons, bits of candles, the wax Mama rubbed her flatiron on to make it smooth—he had to peel the scorched cloth off that—even little half-burnt birthday candles being saved for another cake probably. He found some jars of homemade strawberry jelly covered with wax that Mama had stored on the top shelf of the pantry. He carefully took the white wax off the tops of these. He did not dip his fingers into the jelly, just licked the wax tops, then covered the open jars with paper so ants would not get in, or bees. What a collection of wax he had from here or there!

He thought he had enough to transform himself into a waxworks boy. He put some saucers on the kitchen table to keep the colors separate. Not being allowed to light matches, he asked Mama if she would help him melt wax.

Mama said, "All right. But what's all this for?" Mama shrugged and melted the wax. "What for?" she repeated.

"You'll see, Mama. You'll see!" said Rufus.

Then the doorbell rang. It was Mrs. Shoemaker, come to try on her new dress. She was one of the ladies for whom Mama, the best dressmaker in Cranbury, sewed. So Mama left and did not witness the transformation of Rufus into a waxworks-boy statue.

Rufus put the saucers on the sink, over which there was a small square mirror. He got a chair and watched as he made himself into a Madame Tussaud waxworks statue.

He patted the wax on his face, dark pink cheeks, blues and purples for shadows, here and there white on his hoary forehead, some red on his nose. He figured if he were sitting in a sleigh, his nose would be red ... it would be wintertime. Having it wintertime made the whole undertaking easier. All he'd have to make out of wax was his face, a mask. He could wear mittens, a woolen cap pulled down to meet the collar of his old plaid mackinaw, and a scarf around his neck. He could stiffen the mittens a little bit with wax and maybe put some white wax on his cap. The rest of him would be covered by the humped-up-in-the-middle rag rug Jane had crocheted. No one would suspect that he was bare kneed.

This would all make a winter scene, waxworks boy Rufus, holding reins in an antique sleigh on a cold and frosty day ... a hoary day!

Being a fast worker, it didn't take Rufus long to do all of this. It hurt only a little when he took his wax face off his real face. He had left small holes for his eyes, for his nostrils, and a wide hole for his mouth. The eye holes were so small that no one could possibly see his eyes if he blinked. He would practice, without his waxworks uniform on, sitting immobile in the sleigh, being a Madame Tussaud statue, so when the time came to be an artifact, he would be a perfect waxworks one.

He then carefully laid his face on a newspaper ... an old issue of the
Cranbury Chronicle
... on a shelf inside the cellar door. He dug around in closets upstairs and downstairs for mittens, scarf, woolen cap, and last year's mackinaw, put the last of his wax on these, and put everything together on the deep shelf beside his face. It was always cool in the cellar, and his face would not melt. As he was about to leave his treasures, his eyes were caught by the page in the
Cranbury Chronicle
open to the "What's New in Cranbury" section.

"A coincidents," he said to himself.

This week's
Chronicle
would be out today.

He went outdoors, pleased with what he had done. He got up in the sleigh and sat there to rest, but there wasn't time for that. Riding around the side of the house came Joey with Jane on the crossbar. They were very excited. They had a copy of the
Cranbury Chronicle,
so hot off the press that ink came off on their hands.

Jane hopped down. "Look at this, Rufus, look!"

"Just take a look at this!" echoed Joey. They handed Rufus the newspaper. Rufus looked. There on the page that had the column "What's New in Cranbury" was...

"Read it out loud," Jane implored.

Rufus read:

'"At last! A museum in Cranbury! Unlike any of our neighboring towns and hamlets, Cranbury alone now has a museum. It is a special museum and is named The Moffat Museum. It is situated in the yard of the Moffats' house at Twelve Ashbellows Place, easy to get to, right off the trolley line. There will be no charge for admission. Like the
Cranbury Chronicle,
it is
free!
'"

"O-o-oh! People will come!" gasped Jane. "They might be on their way now, on foot, in trolleys, by horse and wagon, in a car..."

"And you know what," said Joey gloomily. "Tomorrow is the day Mr. Pennypepper takes a group of children, who want to join in, on a visit to important places in Cranbury. It is the day of the Pennypepper tour."

"Ts!" Jane gasped again. In her fancies, when she had thought up the museum, the idea of people coming to it seemed like fun. But now with that possibility perhaps coming true, she trembled. "Supposing Mr. Pennypepper and all of them come?" she asked.

Tomorrow was Saturday. Mr. Pennypepper always conducted this tour on a Saturday, so the boys and girls would not miss one single important lesson in arithmetic, geography, anything. "Every second counts in your schooling," he reminded them all. And he said, "Meet me on the front steps of Union School tomorrow morning at nine o'clock on the dot. No chewing gum. The tour is to places renowned for their dignity."

"Lucky it's not today," said Rufus. "I'm not quite ready. But why be such gloomy guts?"

"We're gloomy because when Mr. Pennypepper reads the paper and sees the 'What's New in Cranbury' page—'At last! A museum in Cranbury!' and all the rest of it—he might squeeze our museum into his tour," said Joey crossly. "That's why we're gloomy."

"The Superintendent of Schools! Mr. Pennypepper stopping here on his tour, that's what scares us," said Jane. "I'm afraid of him ... such an important man! Kids, yes. Superintendents of Schools, no!"

Rufus laughed. "Let him come; oh, let them come! They'll get a real surprise." And he went in to see how his waxworks face was doing cooling in the cellarway.

This annual tour was supposed to be a lot of fun, on the order of a Sunday School picnic, except there was never anything to eat at the famous stops. No swimming or egg races, either.

"Isn't the tour always the same?" asked Jane. "Like the time I went on it?"

"Just about always the same," said Joey. "There are four stopping places, and they stick to these mainly ... only stop once in a while if some kid, say, sees a rare bird. Then Mr. Pennypepper gets out his little bird book and looks it up."

"We're not a little thing," said Rufus, who, satisfied that his face was hardening in the cellar, had rejoined the others.

"No, we're not a little thing, like a bird. We're a whole museum," said Jane sadly. "I'm really scared that the great Mr. Pennypepper might come here on his tour."

"What are the four regular stops?" asked Rufus.

Joey got out his little notebook to remind himself of the usual stops, just four, on the Tour of Important Places held each year by Pop Pennypepper. This was an affectionate nickname for the Superintendent of Schools, who was liked and respected.

"If they come, don't forget and call him Pop," Rufus interrupted.

"Nope," said Joey. "Here we go then."

"
Stop Number One:
The public library, where the librarian shows this and that but especially the big dictionary. 'How many pages in that book?' some kid always asks.

"'Three thousand and two hundred and ten,' the librarian says. She doesn't even have to look it up. She knows it by heart. Some kids believe her but want to see for themselves. So the librarian lets them look. True! The kid who asked the question pretends to faint. Like dominoes, all the kids follow suit. Mr. Pennypepper says, 'Get up, children. Children, get up. More sights to be seen.' As we leave, some kids keep repeating the number of pages in the big dictionary so they can tell their mothers and fathers. 'There are three thousand, two hundred and ten! Don't believe me? Go and see!'

"Then we go out of the library. Most kids circle the two tall lamps on each side of the top of the steps before they go down. 'The granite is from the quarries of Rockport, Massachusetts,' Mr. Pennypepper says as we go down on our way to:

"
Stop Number Two:
This is the printing press of the
Cranbury Chronicle,
run by Mr. Peter G. Gilligan. When we go in, he tells us it had been run by his father before him, and
his
father before
him\
All the kids like this place. It's the only stop where the kids are given something to take home. Nothing to eat, but nice strips of shiny paper, the width of a column in the
Chronicle.
'For galleys,' Mr. Gilligan tells us. 'Nothing to do with ancient boats.' He lets one or two of the kids press down on the narrow galleys and see 'What's New in Cranbury' come out on the paper. All the kids crowd around to see what they had made the press print. And everybody learns to count the picas (not a strange pie—a word for 'type') and figure how many would fit on a line. The kids, even me, want to be printers when we grow up. We like this place, don't want to leave. But we like the next one, too.

"
Stop Number Three:
This is a visit to the front porch of Mr. Buckle, the oldest inhabitant of Cranbury, one hundred and two years old on his last birthday! The kids love to visit him. He has a glass cabinet filled with furniture that he made out of chicken bones ... tiny, tiny chairs, tables, a sofa, beds, and a grandfather clock. He makes the clock go
ticktock, ticktock
with his veined and frail old hands.

"On visiting day he has the cabinet moved out onto the front porch. He sits beside it in a rocker and rocks as he makes the clock go
ticktock
and answers questions not only about the furniture but about his long life in the Army. Then the kids file down the steps. 'Thank you, Mr. Buckle, thank you!' they say. And to each other say, 'Did you hear the grandfather clock go
ticktock
and hear its little bell?'

"
Stop Number Four:
A visit to the oldest house in Cranbury, built in colonial times. The fireplace is so big you can stand in it. Most kids do, if they have the chance. And the girls set the little cradle by the big bed rocking, rocking. Then, after this stop, it's back to the steps of Union School, where we are to be dismissed. Mr. Pennypepper's final words are 'Good-bye to you all. You have learned a great deal ... Use your wisdom wisely,' he says, and smiles. Most kids don't hear him, they're so hungry, and they tear off, starving for lunch! I wait to hear him, though. Seems polite. So does the teacher. Then Mr. Pennypepper tips his hat to her, and he goes his way and she, hers. And I, mine. Here!

"End of annual tour."

When Joey concluded his record of the Pennypepper tour as it was usually conducted, he closed his little black notebook, put an elastic band around it, and slipped it into his back pocket. The tour, even in Joey's fine handwriting, took up almost the entire notebook.

Jane was enthralled by his tale of a usual tour.
Joey should be a writer,
she thought. Then, remembering the tour would not even gather until tomorrow on the steps of Union School, Jane said, "I'm not going to be gloomy. Don't you look so gloomy, Joey."

"You should be gloomy, too," said Joey. "The tour might change its course. Stop Number Three might be The Moffat Museum before the chicken-bone furniture! We live on the same street as Mr. Buckle, don't we? Our house is reached before his because our house is number twelve and his is twenty-one. They might swing in here after the press and before the furniture! I just don't like surprises. Anyway, I need a haircut."

"Maybe I should put my hair up in rag curlers," mused Jane. "Just in case..." She smoothed her hair as though it were already tomorrow and the class were marching in. Then she said, "Aw! Let's forget it! Probably most people don't read the
Chronicle
anyway ... just chuck it away because it's free."

Rufus, who had listened to all of this in silence, now spoke. "Well, I hope Mr. Pennypepper does squeeze The Moffat Museum into the tour. Just so they don't squeeze me!" He laughed and slapped his knee and gasped, "Oh, my!"

"What's so funny? Let us in on the joke!" said Jane, laughing in spite of not knowing.

For a moment Rufus was tempted to tell Jane and Joey about his plan to make himself into a museum piece, a waxworks-boy statue such as they have in London at Madame Tussaud's. Then he thought he shouldn't. If the Pennypepper tourists did come tomorrow and Jane and Joey were struck dumb, turned to stone themselves, the sight of him might stir them into life. There he would be, sitting in winter attire in the sleigh, a Madame Tussaud statue. Joey and Jane would be so relieved, not be nervous anymore. They would be able to say, "Star dust," or "Heads of the three bears," when the people went inside the museum. So he said nothing.

However, their anxiety did have some effect on him. He went into the kitchen to have a private waxworks-boy rehearsal. His mask had hardened nicely. No one was around. First he put on his last winter's frayed plaid mackinaw, then his mask. Then he tied a scarf around his neck, covering slightly the chin of his mask. Then he pulled on his old red woolen cap, which covered the place where mask left off and real head began, and finally his mittens, stiff with wax.