The Well-Wishers (11 page)

"One reason to stay is to fix it so things like this don't happen," said my father. "Then there'll be no reason to leave. It's a problem, though, how to do it the right way."

"No it isn't," piped up Deborah suddenly. "It's all fixed. We told the well."

"Not that well again?" said my mother. And she rolled her eyes at the others. "Remember last summer?"

For our parents, unlike most parents in books, know about the magic. Or at least they know something. Though not all.

"As I think back to it," said my father, "it seems to me last summer the well did a pretty good job. When you think of the new school. And other things. On the other hand, though..." He broke off, looking thoughtful.

"I agree with you," said James's father.

And now all four of our parents were looking at us in that way they so often look, as though they weren't sure what we'd do next, or what they would do about it when we did.

James's father was the first to speak. "Look, kids," he said. "I know your hearts are in the right place and you want to help, but this is a pretty ticklish situation. Even with that magic you think you have, you could still go wrong. Feelings could get hurt. So if I were you, I'd stay out of it. Or if you absolutely
can't
" (and here his face relaxed in a grin, because he is an understanding man), "I'd be careful. Don't do anything rash, or drastic. Don't do anything at
all
without checking with one of us first."

"We won't," I promised. I seemed to be spokesman.

"And now back to the kitchen with those chops,"
said James's mother. "Honestly, Margaret, you'll think we never have a decent meal around here!"

"From the number of times Kip begs to stay to dinner here," replied my mother, "I gather you must eat a lot better than
we
do."

We left them vying in polite laughter like a couple of rival hostesses, and went back to the kitchen and put our dishes in the dishwasher and our chop bones in the garbage can. And then we went outside.

"You know, there's something in what they say," James said in a troubled voice. "I don't see how the magic's going to manage it without big scenes and people quarreling."

"Leave it to the well," said Laura. "It'll seek its own level."

"And while we're waiting," I said, "at least we can tell people about it. Our friends and all the Well-Wishers. So they'll be prepared for whatever happens."

This didn't seem to be rash or drastic enough to have to consult a parent about it; so we started out, taking a big sheet of blank paper with us that could be added to Mr. Chenoweth's list of names later.

We dropped in first on Lydia's grandmother. She is always a firebrand in any cause, provided she can be fighting against something. In some ways Lydia is very like her.

"I'm with you," she said, writing her signature at the top of the paper in big sprawling letters. "We'll lick the Philistines or bust." That is what she always calls anybody she doesn't agree with. I do not know why. Except that I seem to remember about the Philistines that they had the jawbones of an ass, and that is certainly true of the people who were spreading ugly talk in this case.

After that we stopped at Hopeful Hill and talked to Doctor Emma Lovely. Or rather Gordy did most of the talking because he knows her best.

"Well, well, Diogenes," she said to him when she'd heard the story. "Still looking for an honest man in a naughty world? And lo, Abou Ben Lovely's name led all the rest! Well, at least it comes second."

And she signed her name under Lydia's grandmother's, with a string of letters after it that probably meant something important and medical. "Peculiar psychology, people who want to keep other people out of things," she added. "Comes from a thwarted childhood, of course. Still, that's no excuse."

We went past Gordy's house next, but no one suggested stopping. Everyone was privately afraid it might be embarrassing for Gordy. Mrs. Witherspoon is not a person you can depend on to be on the right side, in a thing like this. So we marched straight by the driveway and no one said a word. No one looked at Gordy, either. But he was in front of me, and I couldn't help seeing the back of his neck get red.

But we talked to a lot of other people who were highly cooperative. The woman who had given us the Lady Baltimore cake not only signed the paper, but offered to bake another Lady Baltimore cake for. the new arrivals as soon as they were safely moved in.

As for Miss Wilson, when we told her, her face got crosser than I've ever seen it in school. "Why must there be hate and prejudice in the world," she said, "when you think what a little love can do?" And her look softened as she gazed out of the window at Sylvia, playing in the yard.

After that we visited some of the friends we had made the summer before. Miss Isabella King, the little old lady who owns the abandoned silver mine, was gentle but peppery, as always. "This could never have happened in the old days," she said. "In
my
time, neighbors were neighborly."

Mr. Hiram Bundy, the town banker, was taking tea with her in her parlor, as he so often is. He hemmed and hawed when we asked him to sign the paper, but Miss Isabella gave him a firm look and he did it.

From Miss King's we went up the river to where the movie-starish lady and her husband live. They are the people whose long-lost heir we rescued from kidnapping one day.

When we arrived at their palatial estate, the heir's parents were just driving off in one of their collection of sports cars, probably bound for some sophisticated cocktail party. But they stopped and listened politely while I made my speech.

"Oh, Gregory," said the movie-starish lady when I'd finished, "must we be involved? We came to the country for peace."

"Peace at such a price," said the heir's father, "is the peace of ostriches. We want our son to grow up in a decent world, don't we?"

I have heard that is not true, by the way, about ostriches. I mean, about their burying their heads in the sand when danger comes. But I did not bring it up. And the heir's parents signed their names under Mr. Hiram Bundy's.

Our last stop was at Madame Salvini's house. The hedge had been clipped since we saw it last, and Mr. Adam Appledore was in the act of repaint-ing the mailbox, while Madame Salvini stood by holding the paint can and singing "Home on the Range" softly under her breath.

"Ayeh," said Mr. Appledore, when we told him about the new family and asked him to sign the paper. "I'll put my name to that. It takes all kinds to make a world, and a good thing too. More interesting that way."

"Why not have a housewarming party for them?" said Madame Salvini. "I would be glad to sing."

"I'll see about it," I said quickly. Because I was not sure her singing would be the kind of welcome a new family would want. But I thanked her, anyway. And the housewarming party was not a bad idea.

By this time it was getting to be late afternoon and we had biked all over most of the town. And while we may have had a ham sandwich here and a plate of cookies there, we were beginning to think lovingly of dinner. Not only that, but the thought of homework loomed. So we separated for the evening. Tomorrow at school would be soon enough to get signatures from the kids we knew.

But the next day at recess we found the playground already buzzing with discussion. Because naturally the people who were against the new family's moving in had talked about it in front of their children just as our families had talked about it in front of us.

The division was about what you'd expect. The stuffy, hopeless, purseproud ones were on the wrong side as usual, and the feckless goons who'll do anything for a little excitement. All the really good kids saw the idea right away, though, and were only too happy to sign the paper.

But of course there are always the mindless ones who never have any opinion of their own and have to borrow other people's. We worked on these and got a few more names.

Only while Lydia was handing the paper round, a big bullying boob called Clarence Hindman suddenly grabbed it right out of her hand and went running across the playground with it before James or I could stop him, and yelled out that he was going to tear it up. He might have done it, too, but just then Dicky LeBaron came round the corner.

He saw James and me and the rest of us running after Clarence and stuck out his foot just in time. Clarence tripped over it and lost his balance and almost fell and
did
drop the paper, and I rescued it.

"What's the big deal, dad?" Dicky wanted to know, and we told him.

He considered for a minute. "These people want to move here and some other people are trying to stop 'em?"

"That's right," I said. "This paper's to stop them stopping them."

"I'll sign that," he said. "So will you, won't you, Clarence? And so will you and you and you." And he looked round in a masterful way at the crowd of tough little kids that follows him round and hangs on his every word. Then he licked his pencil and added his name, with a flourish under it, and where he led the others followed, even Clarence, who was looking sheepish now. Altogether it made seventeen more signatures that we wouldn't have had otherwise.

"Thanks," I said.

"Forget it, dad," Dicky said. And he strutted away.

That afternoon we took the papers, three pages of them by now, to Mr. Chenoweth. He seemed pleased but troubled. What was troubling him was the same thing that had been troubling our parents.

"With these pages added to my own list," he said, "I'm sure we have enough names to show that the majority of public opinion is on our side. But I am still afraid there may be unpleasantness."

We were still afraid, too, particularly after something Gordy learned that night. Because that night a deputation from the other side called on Mrs. Witherspoon. She is an influential person in her own circle, and these people wanted her to join them, but I'm happy to say she wouldn't. She wouldn't sign our paper (because Gordy asked her), but she wouldn't go along with the intolerant ones, either. She said it would be undignified. Which is about the best we could have expected of her, I guess, considering her background and training.

But Gordy sat on the stairs and listened to everything that was said, and was not ashamed of eavesdropping in a good cause, and reported it all back to us.

What these people were planning was to march down Silvermine Road in a group the very day the new folks moved in, and hand them a letter saying they weren't wanted and advising them to move away again, and offering to buy the house from them for exactly what they had paid for it.

"All perfectly quiet and respectable," said the chairman df the deputation. "No violence or mob stuff. Our motive is the good of the community."

"A mob is a mob," Gordy told us his mother said then, "no matter what the motive. And it is
never
respectable."

And I say good for her.

We had Gordy report his counterspyings to our parents, and what he said worried them, too.

"They'll do it, and there's not a thing we can do to stop them," said James's mother.

"What day are the people moving in?" I wondered.

"Saturday," said my mother.

"That's right," said Gordy. "This mob's going down there at three o'clock Saturday afternoon."

"Then it's up to us to figure out something before then to try to counteract it," said my father.

"
We
could all march down there in a body, too, and say we don't agree," said my mother, "but it seems like descending to their level and squabbling."

"Like two dogs fighting over a bone," said James's father. "Who would blame the bone if it moved away in disgust?"

"We'll have to think of something better," said my father.

"Or maybe the well will," said Laura.

Our parents looked at each other.

But we went and told the well this latest development and asked it to be working on it.

"We've got three days before Saturday," I said.

But the next day, Wednesday, we still hadn't thought of anything and neither, apparently, had the well. We didn't hold a secret meeting after school that day, but went our separate ways. Homework was the excuse, but I guess everybody knew everybody else wanted to be alone and think.

I decided to go for a walk, because I generally think better on my feet, and moving. Just as I was starting out, I heard a pattering sound behind me and something went, "Seep seep seep," and I knew Alice our dog had decided to come, too. "Seep seep seep," is all Alice knows how to say, except for hunting cries. She has not found out about barking as yet.

We do not see a great deal of Alice, as a general rule. She has a wonderful secret life of her own with rabbits and things, and runs round the woods all day attending to this. But once in a while she comes across one of us in the course of her wanderings, and then she is overjoyed and quite willing to walk along with me, or Mom, or Pop as the case may be, for a while, before returning to her personal concerns.

She walked along with me now, and our feet turned up Silvermine Road, in the opposite direction from the red house. I wasn't noticing particularly where I was going, but of course I was thinking about the new family and that must have guided my footsteps unbeknownst, because the next thing I knew I was staring at the house that I'd been told was the one the family was planning to move into.

It was (and is) a roomy white house of the kind that is called a saltbox, not really an old house but a good imitation of one, sitting at an angle to the road under some fine tall oak trees. It looked pleasant and peaceful and as though a family could be very happy in it, though the grounds were neglected. The lawn needed cutting and the backyard was tall with weeds. But beyond that was quite a good woods.

I stood there looking at the house and thinking about the problem and marveling at man's inhumanity to man, as the poem by Robert Burns that we had to learn at school puts it, when suddenly Alice began to bay and charged round the house and plunged through the weeds and into the woods, and I knew a rabbit must be passing by. Not that Alice has ever
caught
a rabbit, but she lives in hope that she will.