The Summer of the Falcon (5 page)

“It’s good, but not excellent!” It was in moments like these that she wanted to fight her father. She stomped to the maple and lifted the buffy-breasted falcon upon her finger. His beautiful flat head tilted as he looked at her. Deftly she untied the leash from the pole and walked down the yard with him. She crossed the railroad tracks and pushed through the joe-pye weeds to the meadows.

“It’s no use” she said to Zander. “I thought I was doing a good job...I might as well give you up...oh phooey.”

In anger she unsnapped the swivel in the jesses and twisted it out of the leather holes. The bird sat free on her hand.

“I never do anything well enough,” she cried, and felt so sorry for herself she threw the bird into the air. “Go away. Go away.”

Immediately she regretted her action. Zander danced on his wings and whirled over her head. He circled, and took to the sky. She called, furious with herself for “cutting off her nose to spite her face.” She knew she was hurting only herself and she did not like it.

There was no food with which to lure the bird back. June could only whistle and swing her arm. Zander climbed higher: above the willows, over the sycamore, up to the tall ash, and into the hot white sky.

She watched him bank and tip onto a high river of wind and ride it like a bullet beyond the swimming hole. She whistled. And then climbed the fence to balance herself on the rail.

“Come down here, Zander!” she pleaded. She could feel the tears running warm down her cheeks. “Please come,” and she lifted her hand. Suddenly—and she did not even see it happen—her hand was struck; she toppled, she jumped, and Zander fluttered above her. She held out her arm again and her falcon settled upon it as beautifully as a ballerina. In relief, June wept openly and hard.

“That was wonderful...not just good...but marvelous. Ulysses couldn’t do better.” June talked on and on as she slipped her thumb and forefinger around the jesses, held Zander tight, then looked for an insect for a reward. The meadow grasses bounced with grasshoppers; and she finally caught one and fed it to the falcon. While he ate she promised herself that she would never again turn him loose in spite. The loneliness had been too deep.

As she crossed the railroad tracks to go home, she stopped on the hot cinders to study him, wondering what she had done to reach his small bird brain and make him react. She knew they could not communicate, except through whistles and screams...and yet the bird had known what she had wanted, and he had come to her.

Suddenly she became aware that words were not the only way to express ideas, and she whispered, “Now you and I have a secret language, too.” She skipped home.

June did not tell anyone of Zander’s flight. She was afraid they would ask to see the falcon fly free. And she feared that the next time Zander would not come back. But for the following week she trained the bird with the first real interest she had ever had in everyday routine. She knew now what training could do.

The new training period went on for about two weeks...and then...her mother took her to town on market day. Elizabeth Pritchard went every Saturday morning to buy vegetables and fruits and chickens and eggs in the farmers’ market.

The market was on the square, an old red brick building with stalls around the outside and an enormous three-story cathedral-like room inside. As soon as she stepped inside,

June always bent back to see the vaulting beams and girders and the sparrows high in the eaves. They amused her in their private world at the top of the market, talking and fluttering and scrapping, above the din of the buyers and sellers below.

The Brethren and the Amish of the countryside brought in their foods every week to sell, and their counters were mounds of color. The women in their gray dresses and bonnets offset the red apples and yellow squash. The purple eggplants blended with the black hats and pants of their men.

June’s mother went very early Saturday to get the best buys. She delighted in visiting many stalls before she made up her mind which jewel of a pepper or apple to buy. This day she cut down her pleasure. She shopped quickly, then parked her baskets under Mr. Breneman’s stand and led her daughter across the street to the town department store. Her brown heels clicked hard on the brick walk and her movements were fast and deliberate. June sensed a growing-up crisis. She hung back, trying to avoid another frictiony burst as her mother tried to shape her for adulthood.

They turned into the plain brown store. They passed the stony clerks at the button counter and marched on toward the back of the store and behind the stacks of yard goods. This was the underwear department. The plan was clear even before her mother said with a warm and nice smile, “It’s time to buy you a brassiere and a little light girdle.” June wanted to disappear.

A saleslady smiled and her smile was too sweet.

“Mother,” June murmured in pain, “please, can’t we wait?” She grew angry at the saleslady, as well as her mother. As she turned to flee she saw the grinning, thin, store owner, Mr. Shide. He, too, knew; and June hated him all over, even to the laces in his shoes on which her eyes fastened in humility.

There was nothing to do but stand through the embarrassing ordeal, the measurements, the smiles, the pleasantries, the fitting...and finally, the acceptance of the green paper bag at arm’s length like a leaky bucket. As the saleslady said good-bye June seemed to see millions of shining teeth standing around her words, “You’ll look sweet, dearie.” June wanted to bite...even the counter.

Somehow she got home. She carried the paper bag to her room, three steps at a time, opened the bottom bureau drawer and stuffed it in. She stomped out of the room to the head of the steps. She listened. The car was being unloaded of its bountiful baskets, the boys were carrying in bundles, Rod was trying to play his flute in spite of his broken collarbone. She turned in the confusion, flew back to the drawer, opened it, and peeked in the bag. Carefully she lifted out the garments and stared at them. There they were, very real, representing a whole long, unwritten life that lay ahead, mysterious and exciting. She wondered about marriage and childbearing and nursing and buckets and brooms. Then she put the garments back in the bag. She closed the drawer.

All down the dark back stairs the young lady walked with a swing of her hips, with a toss of her head. At the bottom she opened a door and saw Charles. She didn’t want him to see her flounce, so she jumped down the last step. He gave her a quick, friendly punch; she sparred with him. He touched her shoulder; she socked back, stumbled, missed—and went sprawling into the dining room.

“You’re a puppy!” Charles teased.

June thought of the package in the drawer upstairs and answered with a toss of her head, “That’s what you think!” Charles’s face puzzled, his eyes studied the mystery of his sister.

“Don’t be that kind of a girl,” he said. “Don’t play silly secret games.”

June knew what he meant. She was being flashy and it did not go with the upbringing he and Don had given her. They thought she should be honest and open and natural about all things, from climbing a rope to becoming a woman. June was abashed. She punched him hard and ran out the back door to the maple tree and her falcon.

Zander stepped to her finger the moment it was offered. She dug her nose in his feathers and said to the bird, “At times it’s very hard to know who I really am.” And the tears stood along the rims of her eyes.

For the rest of the day June had no interest in working with her falcon. She just held him on her fist.

Don was working with Ulysses, the tiercel. Ulysses had broken a tail feather and Don was “imping” a new one in for him. It was not a duck hawk tail feather, but a Cooper’s hawk, one Jess had moulted. A broken feather made flying difficult for Ulysses. He lost speed, so Don was carefully cutting and, with some airplane dope and wire, imping the new feather into the broken base of the old. June carried Zander to his side and watched.

“It’s not as pretty as his own feather,” she said.

“No, and it’s a little long. But it’ll work. He’ll hunt better. You’d better watch that ring at the base of Zander’s perch, or he’ll be breaking feathers, too. He was banging yesterday.”

Presently the back door opened and Charles senior and Uncle Paul strode down the yard with hammers, saw, and nails to fix the canoe landing.

They stood chest-deep in the creek, hammering and arguing about where the new supporters should be nailed. Uncle Paul finally changed the subject. “Will Bunker came by the office today. Left a nice book for Rod.” June listened in a half-world. Uncle Paul continued. “He’s about to close a big deal on his textile mills. Double their output and profits. A man has come in from California to invest in his business.”

There was a long pause as the two men worked as a team.

“Will said he and Mary are giving a big party Monday night for the man...All business people from the plant. They hired Ross Mort to play music, bought seven turkeys, five hams...and are getting a woman from Philadelphia to help decorate...It’s going to be a humdinger...”

June was listening completely now. The Bunkers were splendid when they did things. And this party sounded of castle grandeur; it glittered in the top of her mind.

A few nights later at dinner, they were all seated around the table in the old converted parlor. The tablecloth was red, the wallpaper plaid. It was gay to everyone but Charles senior. The room still reminded him of piano lessons and funerals, the only events for which the parlor was used when he was a boy.

On the table was a casserole of chicken pot pie covered with homemade biscuits. There were stewed tomatoes, cold sliced cucumbers, breaded eggplant, cranberry sauce, and blueberry pie. Elizabeth Pritchard was a marvelous cook even on her shaky kerosene stove. In contrast, Aunt Helen was no cook at all. She disliked the entire process; and so, that night, on the other side of the house the Paul Pritchards were having a kind of white stew and potato salad. Suddenly Uncle Paul tiptoed through the door, spying on the food. “Wow!” he said and picked up a plate.

The young people chuckled, for Uncle Paul always checked the tables in the house to see which had the best food, and when he found a special delicacy he snitched some. He was usually gracious and he admired all the food everywhere with ecstatic words; but Elizabeth Pritchard’s he ate.

He was sneaking back with chicken pot pie and cranberries when they heard him roar out a laugh. He reappeared in the doorway.

“Look!” he said. In the center of his plate sat Bobu, the screech owl. “He thought the cranberry sauce was his dinner!” Uncle Paul held the plate high so they could see the little gray owl sitting straight and surprised in the red sauce.

June stared at Bobu on the plate, and suddenly it was no longer Uncle Paul holding him there, but Will Bunker, and he was in a dinner jacket and was embarrassed before his distinguished guest.

“I wish Bobu would sit on Will Bunker’s plate next Monday,” she said.

Uncle Paul looked at her. His eyes twinkled, his face broke into a thousand glad crow’s feet, and he came toward her slowly. “What an idea, what a wonderful, marvelous idea.” He put down his plate and picked up Bobu in his hand. Turning the bird over he wiped the funny feet that go two toes and two toes when sitting and spread out in the four directions of the compass when closing on prey. He released the owl and Bobu flew to the victrola to wait for someone to wind it up and mend his disappointed heart.

Uncle Paul gave the victrola a flip, and sat down. “Listen,” he said with enthusiasm, “we’ll get our whole menagerie over to the Bunkers’ party...and boy! will that be a surprised guest of honor! The orchestra leader will help. Will Bunker pulled a practical joke on him once. He’ll be delighted to get even.”

For the next week everyone at Pritchard’s planned and plotted and invented marvelous things to do at the Bunker party.

Monday night arrived. Uncle Paul drove the surprise party in his car and parked in the cornfield behind the Bunker house. Then the Pritchards, both wild and tame, stole quietly along the country road. June carried Zander. Don led the family dogs, Spike and Brownie. Rod had Windy, Jim walked with Bobu and Fingers, and Charles and Uncle Paul carried buckets of minnows and catfish.

They came in the back way behind the high hedge. June peeked through the dense leaves to see on the lawn a white table around which sat the guests, all glittering, all beautiful. Above their heads hung brightly colored Japanese lanterns; crystal shone, china belled at the touch of silverware. She was transfixed.

Don said, “Come on, Junie, they’ll see you,” and she followed the group through the big French doors off the dining room into the open, shining living room where Ross, the orchestra leader, was waiting.

There she spun in joy. The room was decorated in white; white flowers, candles, paper lanterns, white chairs to sit upon. In a spell of wonder she sat Zander, as planned, on the marble boy on the mantel.

But Zander was beautiful and he gave dignity to the little bare boy—not humor. June was surprised and glad. Her falcon could not be changed by silly pranks. He rose above them.

The glamour did not bother the men and boys. Charles and Uncle Paul were laughing as they carried the buckets of fish toward the ladies’ powder room.

Charles put three bewhiskered catfish into the washbowl. Uncle Paul poured minnows into the clear, roiling water of the old bathtub. His grin was enormous.

Rod, by the old victrola, was whispering excitedly to Ross. “Please open it after they all get dancing and wind it up a little bit.” Then, lizard-like, he climbed the bookcase and placed Bobu quietly in a space between the books. Bobu settled in as if it were a hollow tree. Bobu was well fed, and he fluffed his feathers, pulled up a foot, and squinted down upon the band.

Uncle Paul next took a bag of aniseed out of his pocket and tied a string to it. He dragged it across the dance floor, out the back French doors, around the house, into the front doors, and across the floor to complete an enormous circle. Aniseed is used to make trails to train hunting dogs. Brownie and Spike loved to follow the odor over the house at Pritchard’s, howling and barking. Now they would go through their routine in the Bunker house.