Cousins

The twins, Billy and Bobby, had been allowed to have breakfast with their cousin Mary, in her bedroom: toast and tea, oatmeal and a bowl of orange segments Aunt Catherine said came all the way from China. The two boys had gotten to have extra oranges because Mary had not much of an appetite and never touched her bowl. They stayed with her for a while after eating, but seeing her so different from the way they had always known her frightened them and, after what they thought was a respectable length of time, they escaped to the backyard to play.

It puzzled them that she wasn’t well yet.  They, themselves, had had the flu at the same time she did and both recovered within a week.  She had not, and it seemed that the grownups really didn’t know why.  She had been taken to doctors and hospitals for examinations and tests, but it seems all they knew after so many weeks was what she did not have. The boys felt the fear that their parents and aunts and uncles tried to hide from them.

Mary had been their companion every summer for as long as they could remember.  Together, they had found the birch tree in Mr. Foland’s field that had a limb that you could climb up until it bent, arching slowly, in a ride back to the ground.  She had been the first to discover the magical suppleness in that tree.  They had not, in all their adventures since then, ever found another tree like it.

As the eldest, she had led the way into that field, which could not even be seen until you bent halfway over and tunneled, crouching, making your way through the lilac bushes that had grown as big as trees.  The first time they discovered the field, she, claiming her place as the elder, had disappeared with a screech right before their eyes as they pushed through the lilacs that ended most abruptly at the ridge of a steep hill.

The boys had dropped to their hands and knees and crept to the edge to look down at her, sprawled at the bottom of the hill. They eased themselves down, not for a moment thinking about how they would get back up to that lilac bush tunnel. They looked around. It was like another world, as if they were  inside a cup.  Green and purple grapes were growing on trellises that ringed the all sides of what seemed to be a space almost like the inside of a balloon.  Straight ahead was an old stable, big enough for one horse and a carriage. 

Behind it lay the woods, with a shallow, sparkling trickle of a stream coursing past stones and fallen limbs of trees.  The woods rose beyond the stream up a steep hill.  They followed an old trail up the hill that day and, coming to the top, found an old hunting lodge that had been partly burned down.  They didn’t enter it right then, but on subsequent visits they had stepped over charred debris, testing the floors for strength as they went along.  They even went up the stairs on the side of the building that seemed less damaged by the fire.  Up there, they found tiny rooms, barely big enough to put a bed, each with a large window that looked out over the woods.  There was no running water inside, but outside, part of the way down the hill on the side facing where the sun goes down, they found a pump, and near it, a well, covered with a heavy, round, wooden lid. On top of the wooden cap there was a big stone. They had worked hard to move the stone and cover to see if there was water in it.  All three were scared when they looked into that black pit.  Their voices, when they hollered into the darkness, came back to them sounding as if they came from far away.  No bucket or rope remained for them to lower.  They imagined that rope and bucket being used at the time of the fire.  The picture they concocted of the absent bucket being lowered again and again into the well until the well went dry and the fire died remained with them as they visited this lodge, their secret place, during that summer.  They dropped stones into the well but never heard a splash.  Sometimes they didn’t even hear the stone land, which made them believe that the well was dug all the way to China where morning orange segments came from, the other side of the world, where the people wore hats that looked like umbrellas.

They had explored the old carriage stable from top to bottom, its old earth floor still smelling of the animal that drew the carriage that once was housed there.  No vehicle remained, only some broken wheels, some twisted horse shoes and some leather strips that might once have been reins or bridle.  They smelled of horse, too.  There was a broken ladder leading up to the loft, but too many rungs were missing for them to examine up there on their first visit.  Later on, telling the grownups that they were building a tree fort, they brought hammer, nails and some wood from the house and repaired the ladder so that they could see that loft.  Bits of hay too small to interest a mouse lay here and there, but nothing else.  They felt their loft was far superior to any tree fort they had ever seen.  The fear they felt being in the dark old stable was heightened by the conviction they had that, one day, for absolutely certain, they were going to be caught trespassing by old Mr. Foland and would be turned over to their parents, and that would be the end of their fun.

This summer, they were to have panned for gold in the little stony brook.  When they fished for minnows, they could see as plain as day that some of the stones shone gold. Mary, the leader of the gold mining band, was to have begged her mother for a colander from the kitchen.  The boys had found a canvas sack with a string at the top to put the gold into for safekeeping.

Then, they all got sick, and Mary had not recovered. If she’d only get well. The boys sat on the railroad tie that somehow made its way from the far-off tracks to a spot at the back of the garden. They took turns digging listlessly with the end of a spade, long since parted from its pole and handle, and a big kitchen spoon, as if they were little children again, playing in a sandpile. They looked up at the window where she sat, her elbows on the window sill, her chin resting on her fists, looking down at them.  They became uncomfortable being watched like that so, trying to act as if something had attracted their attention, the went around the back of the garage, and out of her line of vision, where they sat on some cement blocks and continued their pointless digging.

Upstairs, in the house, Mary heard the telephone ring and heard her mother’s voice, quiet and frightened, say “Yes, Doctor.”  Then, a long, silent time followed.  The child’s heart froze in her chest when she heard her mother start to sob out there in the hallway.  She turned from the window to watch the bedroom doorway, straining to hear what her mother was saying.  Suddenly, her mother stood in the doorway, her face twisted into the strangest mix of frowns and smiles.  “That was Dr. DeWitt,” she said.  “You’re going to be all right.”  Holding on to the door jamb, her mother turned to call down the stairs.  “Jack, that was the doctor.  Mary’s tests turned out Negative.” 

A hoot of jubilation rose up the stairwell ahead of him as he flew, two steps at a time, picking her mother up and hugging her before he charged into her room.  He went to Mary, still sitting by the window in the big chair.  He knelt at her feet, kissed her, and wrapped her hands in his. “You’ve been through so much and you’ve been so brave.  You deserve something wonderful.  What can we do for you to celebrate that you’re going to get well?  “Will you open the window?” she said. Then, she turned to her mother and asked, “May I have the colander from the pantry?” Her mother drew her shoulders up near her ears, turned her palms upward in a sign of incomprehension and shook her head, “Sure.”  Mary gripped the window sill and leaned way out over the ledge.  “Billy! Bobby!” she hollered, “I got the colander.”

The two boys appeared from behind the garage and jumped up and down at the back of the garden, acting as if laying hands on a colander was the most wonderful thing in the world. The gold was waiting for them, in the little stream that ran through Foland’s Field.