Then There Were Five (6 page)

“I'm Helen of Troy,” she panted, as they went by. “And that's the Trojan horse.”

“Helen of Troy!” exclaimed Rush. And Randy was rather hurt by the lengthy and violent manifestation of his mirth. After all, it wasn't so funny that he had to lie down on the grass and roll! But before there was time for reproaches the Addisons appeared. They had their bathing suits and towels tied into bundles on the ends of sticks.

“We're tramps!” shouted Daphne. “We're on our way to Alaska to pan gold!”

Then she saw Mona, and the shyness settled over her again. Over Dave, too.

“H'lo,” he said, looking uncomfortable. “Gosh, hot, isn't it?”

“This is Mona, my other sister,” Rush said, remembering his manners. “And I've got a brother somewhere, named Oliver, but I don't know where.”

“Fishing, of course,” Mona said. “That's all he ever does anymore.”

Daphne was staring at Mona.

“We heard you on the radio in
The Penfold People,
” she said at last. “My, were you ever good!”

“Sure were,” Dave agreed.

Now it was Mona's turn to be shy. She was not quite used to being a radio star yet.

“Well, don't get her mixed up with Polly Penfold, though, just because she plays that role,” cautioned Rush. “Polly's supposed to be kind of a misunderstood genius, or something. A grownup's idea of a smart kid that does dumb things.
You
know. But Mona's just ordinary. She isn't any genius or anything.”

“No, she's just a nice, swell, everyday person,” Randy agreed.

If Mona felt faintly nettled at having the glamour torn away from her so ruthlessly she didn't show it.

“I think I'll put on my bathing suit,” she said. “Daphne, you go with Randy, and Rush, you take Dave up to your room.”

The swimming pool made friends of them. That pool was a blessing in every way. The Melendys were in and out of it all day long. It wasn't so very large. Even Oliver could swim the widest part in eleven strokes (or rather eleven dog paddles) and they were always having to pick caterpillars and dead hornets out of it, but at least it was water, and deep enough in one place to be above even Father's head.

Rush had built a springboard above this spot. He had worked with it until it snapped you into the air so briskly that your head almost flew from your shoulders. It was lovely.

Rush devoted hours of practice to his jackknife but had not yet succeeded in unfolding himself fast enough. Mona fancied herself doing a swan dive, and was pretty good at it, except that she almost always forgot to point her toes, which ruined the effect. Randy was just learning to dive, and spent hours determinedly hurting herself; but Oliver would have nothing to do with the springboard. He contented himself with belly-whoppers off the bank.

Dave Addison turned out to be a star swimmer. He could do a jackknife without forgetting to unfold in time, and a swan dive without forgetting to point his toes. He could do the crawl, the trudgeon, the butterfly breast stroke, and stay underwater longer than any of them. Mona and Rush were envious and admiring. They were fired with the zeal of competition. But Daphne was just about Randy's speed. They splashed together quietly, and talked as they swam.

Midges hung, gauzy flecks of gold, above the pool; the maple leaves were edged with light. Dragonflies hovered, sleeping on air, and were gone in a breath. The Melendys and their friends were water-sodden like old logs. All their skins were wrinkled, their nails were blue, their hair hung over their eyes in limp soaked strands, and they were perfectly happy.

“For heaven's sake, what's that?” Mona squinted, suddenly, through wet lashes at the driveway.

A boy was walking along it. Behind him trailed a small, dun-colored express wagon that had obviously had a long, eventful life: its wheels wobbled, and its sides were bent. In it were a tricycle, also aged with experience, a broken scythe, a lead fire engine, and an old-fashioned rattrap. The boy seemed to be a match for his possessions: barefooted, shirtless, he wore only a pair of faded overalls. His straw hat was frayed at the edges in a kind of brittle fringe. His arms were thin and long, and on each side of the crossed overall straps his shoulder blades stuck out in angles.

“It's Mark Herron!”

“He's brought the scrap!”

Randy and Rush were out of the pool, running to meet him, scattering water in the sunshine like sparrows leaving a puddle.

“Mark Herron!” exclaimed Daphne.

“Well, I'll be darned,” said Dave. They both hung onto the bank and stared at the boy in the drive with their mouths open.

Mona frowned at them, mystified. “Mark Herron! Who's he?”

“He's a boy goes to our school,” Daphne told her. “He hasn't any folks except a mean, terrible old cousin he has to live with.”

“He's in my class,” Dave said. “When he comes to school at all, he is.”

“Why? Doesn't he like school?”

“Sure, but Oren, that's the cousin's name, he keeps him home to do the chores half the time. But he's smart! He doesn't have to study as hard as other people.” Poor Dave looked rueful as he thought of his own defensive battles against arithmetic and spelling. “The teacher went down to see this cousin one day, over at his farm. Miss Schmidlapp, her name is, and she's real small. Well, she went driving down to Meeker's in her Ford coop, to talk about letting Mark come to school oftener. He chased her out of the house, Oren did. He chased her out yelling like a Comanche Indian, she told my mother, and he sicked the dogs on her, too. She got into her car fast as she could and slammed the door. And then she leaned out the window and told him what she thought of him, loud and quick. But there's still a dent in the back of her car where he threw a stove lid when she drove off.”

“Yes, and so then they got the superintendent of schools after him. Mr. Ploutweaver.” Daphne giggled. “He's an awful fat, big, serious man.”

Dave giggled too, in spite of himself.

“
He
didn't even have time to get back in
his
car. He just ran, with the dogs on his heels, and it took him days to get his breath back. They had to send the constable down to drive the car out for him.”

“Though it's awful to laugh, really.” Daphne tried to look shocked at herself.

Meanwhile Randy and Rush were exclaiming enthusiastically over the scrap. You would have thought that Mark had brought a load of precious stones.

“Why, it's beautiful, just beautiful,” gushed Randy, gazing fascinated at the rattrap.

“It was swell of you to lug it all that way,” said Rush.

“Oh, that's nothing. Gee—” Mark said and waved his hat to finish the sentence. His glance stole briefly toward the swimming pool. Randy saw the dew of sweat on his upper lip, and the red damp pattern printed on his forehead by his hatband.

“Come and have a swim.”

“Oh, I better be getting back home. Thanks just the same.” Mark's bare feet shifted on the grass, and then paused as though they could not endure the thought of leaving.

“No, you stay; just for a dip. I'll lend you a suit,” Rush insisted.

Mark hesitated, looked longingly at the pool, and turned to Rush with a smile.

“Well, okay. Just for a few minutes.” This time his feet followed Rush's; quick, light, glad to go.

“So that's the Four-Story Mistake,” he said, staring up at the house as they approached. “Sure looks nice.”

“It's a good old dump.” Rush sternly kept the pride out of his voice. “It's got it over the city like a tent.”

“That little thing—that tower on top. I like that. All windows and a little roof. I bet it would be a wonderful place to sleep.”

“Sometime maybe you can come and spend the night. You could sleep up there.”

Mark's bright gaze wavered. “No, I guess I never could.” Then he grinned again. “I'm sure glad to see it though. Say, why don't you and your sister come over on Wednesday? Would you? If it's not raining?” There was urgency in his voice.

“We'd like to,” Rush said.

The Addisons were glad to see Mark, and he seemed glad that they were glad. He could swim all right, but had never tried to dive. Rush and Dave spent a happy, high-pitched hour instructing him in the rudiments of the art, while the girls dabbled and talked at the farther end of the pool. Daphne was telling them more about Mark in an undertone.

“His cousin treats him awful mean. Why, he hits him!” Daphne stared at them with appalled eyes. And they, treading water, stared back. “Once he came to school with a
black eye!
And he never has hardly anything to eat in his lunch pail. Dave used to try to give him some of his, but he's awful proud, Mark is. He almost always wouldn't take any. The kids all like Mark, they try to make friends with him, and he's real nice and everything, but after school he just kind of fades away. He won't ever go home with anybody or ask anybody to go home with him. We're all scared of his cousin and I guess he knows it.

“You know what he does, Oren? He locks Mark in his room at night when he's away. Mark told one of the boys and the boy told Dave and Dave told me. He locks him in but Mark knows a way to get out. He climbs out the window—”

Randy related all this to Rush a few minutes later when he swam up beside her. As she told him she kept staring at Mark with sorrowing eyes. There he was, a skinny boy in trunks, with his hair water-plastered to his head, holding his nose and running along the springboard. But she saw him as a martyr, a brave soul suffering in silence.

Rush splashed water at her. “Quit looking at him like that. I bet that's why he steered clear of the kids at school.”

“Why? What are you talking about?”

“I bet he hates to be pitied. I bet if he thought we were going to get all mushy and pitying about him he'd steer clear of us, too.”

“But, Rush, he has such a horrible time.”

“Maybe he doesn't think of it like you do. People never feel pitiful to themselves. They feel sore, or mad, or blue or something; but they don't
ever
feel pitiful.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know, that's all.”

Randy accepted this as wisdom.

And afterward when they had come out of the pool and were playing on the lawn, and Mark was showing them how he could walk on his hands, the expression on her face was one of envious admiration. She could turn a perfect cartwheel herself, and Rush could stand on his head till he got purple in the face. But walking on the hands! That was something. Even Mona was impressed. Randy's heart swelled with respect as well as pity. Dave and Rush both tried to do it too, but though they got up all right they couldn't stay there. Randy and Daphne tried it. So did Mona. But none of them were any good. After a while they were so hot they had to go in the pool again.

“My lands!” shouted Cuffy from the house. “My lands! If you young ones don't come out soon you'll ooze water like sponges for the next three days. Come on out now, it's gettin' late, way past five.”

“Past five!” Mark clambered onto the bank. “I'll have to hurry. I bet I've missed the milking. Oren will—”

But he didn't finish the sentence. He was running toward the house.

They all got out.

“We'll dress, too,” Dave said. “Then we can walk up the road with Mark. Come on, Daff, make it snappy.”

When they came down the children were so clean that they looked as if they'd been shellacked. There were wet drops on their collars from their soaked hair, and all their noses were red.

“So long, and thanks a lot,” Mark said. And to Rush he added, “Remember Wednesday.”

The Addisons became shy and formal again.

“Had a very nice time.”

“Sure did.”

They turned often and waved as they went up the drive.

“I like Mark,” Mona said. “They're all nice, but Mark's the nicest.”

Rush shook his head. “I hate to think of what he's going home to. A tanning, most likely, for missing the milking.”

“Oh, Mona, if you could see where he lives!” said Randy. “A falling-to-pieces old house, and a falling-to-pieces old barn, with big, mean pigs all over the place, and big, mean dogs.”

“And a big, mean cousin Oren,” finished Rush.

“The whole thing sounds like Grimms' fairy tales,” said Mona. “Almost too bad to be true.”

“That's right,” Rush agreed. “All the place needs is some bats, and cats, and buzzards; and a wicked stepmother cooking poison in a kettle.”

“It couldn't be any worse even then,” said Randy; and Mona said, “We'll have to do something about him. We'll just have to think of
something!
”

They stood there on the lawn; each thinking about Mark.

“RUSH!” came an indignant voice from the front door. “You come right straight in and take your wet bathing trunks off your mantelpiece. Randy, go dry your hair! And, Mona, why aren't you setting the table?”

“Look out, Cuffy,” warned Rush. “You sound as if you're studying to be a wicked stepmother. If you don't look out we'll give you to Oren Meeker.”

“No, we will not!” Randy flew to the door where Cuffy was standing, and hugged her hard. “You're too good to us.”

“Too good to you?” Cuffy was startled. She stroked Randy's head. “Gracious, child, your hair is sopping! Bring me your towel and I'll dry it myself.”

Mona drifted languidly toward the house.
Her
head was effectively wound up in a turban of towel. As she walked she held her arm out in front of her and watched the sunlight glittering on the little hairs. Some words came into her mind.

“Three beauteous springs to yellow Autumn turn'd

In process of the seasons have I seen,