Whittington
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For Carol and Ernie, Al, the barn folks,
and Ben and Abby
Be not forgetful to entertain
strangers: for thereby some have
entertained angels unawares.
—Hebrews 13:2
CONTENTS
Map of Dick Whittington’s Journeys
1. Whittington Meets the Lady
2. The Animals in the Barn
3. Bernie and How He Got the Horses
4. Abby and Ben Meet the Horses
5. The Lady Tells the Barn About Whittington
6. The Animals Tell Whittington About Themselves
7. Havey and the Cat’s Surprise
8. The Last Day for Baths
9. The Lady Asks Whittington to Tell His Story
10. The Man Whittington Named Himself After
11. Dick’s Dream
12. Dick Goes to London
13. Dick Arrives in London
14. Dick Is Given a Home
15. The Boy Goes to Work for Fitzwarren
16. Ben’s First Reading Lesson in the Barn
17. Blackie Arrives
18. Dick Meets His Cat
19. Out with the Owls
20. Spooker Is Sick
21. Ben’s Reading
22. To Africa on the Unicorn
23. The Registered Letter
24. Ben’s School Principal Visits the Texaco
25. Reading Recovery
26. Dick Sees a Beautiful Girl in Black
27. Two Newcomers Join the Barn
28. Dick’s Cat Returns
29. A Hawk Attacks the Lady
30. Ben Goes to Reading Recovery and Meets Miss O’Brian
31. The Cat’s Operation
32. Dick Meets Will Price Again
33. Willy the Goat’s Surprise
34. Dick Sees the Girl in Black Again
35. Marker Raids the Barn
36. Dick Decides on the Dangerous Voyage
37. Ben’s Decision
38. A Token for Mary
39. Gent Arrives
40. A Rescue
41. Dick’s Cat Is Lost at Sea
42. Mary
43. Ben’s Triumph
44. Life in the Barn Continues
45. The Last Warm Afternoon of Autumn
Endnote
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SHE WAS THE UGLIEST duck he’d ever seen, purplish black with splotches of white on her wings, red wart skin around the neck, a pink bill. Her eyes were bright black dots. She was lopsided and lurched as she walked from the barn to her bathing place. She bobbled her neck to balance. Her feet were orange.
There was a cold wind. It smelled like snow. The cat hunched under a bush, wrapped tight with his ruff up.
As the duck approached, the cat eased out. He was the color of old metal, broad-faced with thick whiskers and dark lines that ran from his nose to his forehead and down his back and sides. His coat was rumpled and slack, for all he was big. His paws were black, his tail was thick and ringed with black circles. It swelled out at the end like a fox’s brush. When he stood or sat, he rocked slightly from side to side like a punch-drunk fighter. He was stiff and walked low to the ground. His left ear hung down like a loose flap. He wasn’t old, but he looked beaten up.
“Hello,” said the cat.
The duck hadn’t noticed him. She wasn’t frightened, though; she was large and old and long past scaring, if that’s what he had in mind.
She stopped and gave him a long look, moving her head up and down, then twisting it around, checking what she saw with each obsidian eye, which is the way it is with ducks when they have time.
“Who are you?” she asked at last.
“Whittington,” he said, straightening up a little.
“Whittington?” she asked, pushing her head forward and cocking it toward him a little, as if to hear better.
He nodded.
“Whittington?” she asked again, stifling a giggle. “That’s a funny name for a cat. It’s more like the name of a town.”
The cat’s eyes narrowed, his tail switched with annoyance.
“Doesn’t it mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t know history,” he said. “Whittington is a person in history. He’s in books.”
The cat settled himself in his dignity and wrapped his tail tight around.
“You mean to tell me that in your family they call you Whittington?”
“No. In my family, or in what used to be my family, they called me Bent Ear. That was before my ear got torn. It used to hang over a little.”
The duck nodded. “Bent Ear is more like it.”
“I’m not Bent Ear anymore. My name is Whittington now,” said the cat firmly. “Anyway, what’s your name?”
“In Bernie’s barn they call me the Lady because I’m in charge,” she said, adjusting her wings. “Bernie himself calls me Muscovy, why I don’t know. I’m no more from Moscow than he is, but people and cats like to make up names.”
Again the cat’s tail flicked and twitched, but he kept his tongue.
“So what do you want, Mr. Whittington?” asked the Lady. She settled so she was aimed into the wind and began billing her feathers to keep them lined up and fluffed. She had more than a thousand and they required a lot of care.
“A place to live.”
She jerked her head around in surprise.
“You don’t have a home?”
“I did,” said the cat. “A boy took me in when I was a kitten. Then they sent him away because he read things backwards. They were ashamed. They’d both been to college and graduate school and here they had a child who couldn’t read. They sent him to a special school out west. They said it was the best thing. He was going to take me along but they said no.”
His voice trailed off.
“And?” the duck asked gently.
“They never loved me,” the cat said, looking away. “When the weather got cool, the man started jogging in leggings. I’d be waiting by the door when he got back. If I brushed his leg, he’d get a shock. He’d kick, I’d bite.
“With their boy gone, they began to wonder why they should care for his cat. When I got into a fight and killed the tom next door, they threw me out. Or they wouldn’t let me in again, which comes to the same thing.”
The duck gave him a long look. “Is that how you got your ear, fighting?”
The cat nodded. “It drooped before. He tore it half off. Then he bit me in the neck. Must have hit a nerve. That’s why I weave. I can’t help it.”
“What did you fight about?” asked the Lady.
“Love, a female, principle, religion, it’s all the same.”
“No, it is not!” said the Lady sharply. She had strong views about romance and dreamed of love. “But I don’t see why fighting should get you thrown out. That’s what tomcats do. Everybody knows that. I th
ink you’re well rid of that family. Lucky they didn’t have you put down.”
“If they’d tried they’d have paid in blood.”
“Yes,” said the Lady after a pause. “The senior barn rat is one-eyed now from the pecking he got when they ganged up on the gray rooster. I’d have said that rooster was a dandy and a coward, but when you’re fighting for your life you’ll risk everything.”
She gave a shudder, her way of shaking something unpleasant from mind.
“Why don’t you try for another family, wait and meow by a neighbor’s door and see if they’ll take you in?”
“Because I’m not cute anymore,” said Whittington. “My voice is harsh, I’ve got the shakes, I have opinions, I like to stay out, I stink, I like to fight. I’m not a house pet.”
The Lady nodded. “I guess not.”
The wind picked up. The Lady shifted into it like a moored dory. She waited for the cat to speak but he didn’t. Snow was coming. She wanted to get to her bath.
“So what do you want from me?” she asked.
“A place in the barn.”
She cocked her head.
“Why don’t you just take it?”
“I want to be part of the talking. If I’d snuck in, the chickens would have been afraid and maybe you too. I didn’t want that. I want friends.”
He paused. The Lady didn’t say anything.
“I can help out,” he added. “I’m a good ratter.”
“Really?” said the duck, leaning forward. “Most cats are afraid of rats.”
“It’s my specialty.”
“That I’d like to see. They just killed one of my friends.”
She shuddered again. “Enough of that!”
The Lady heaved herself up and flexed her wings. They were large. For a moment she towered over the cat.
“I’ll have to ask the others,” she said as she headed to the pond.
THE HORSES KNEW SNOW was coming. They curved their hoofs and dug bowls in the dust, where they lay down and rolled for a last good bath. It’s surprising how dust cleans hair and soothes itches. Lice and fleas can’t abide it.
The horses inspired the chickens to dry-clean too. They had their own dust pits, where they flapped and stretched as if they were airing bedding.
Coraggio the rooster was the singer. The bantams only murmured until someone laid an egg; then they all squawked together as hard as they could because chickens are socialists and it’s one for all in the world of eggs. The Lady could hiss but there seemed to be no music in her. She had never laid an egg.
Dogs and coyotes preyed on the fowl. Hawks were a threat too, along with the occasional fox, skunk, and raccoon. The biggest threat was rats. Bernie said he would put down poison to make them bleed to death inside, but he was afraid the chickens would get it. They ate everything. The mice did too, but nobody thought about them. The other reason Bernie didn’t try poison was that poisoned rats go into their holes to die and the stench is intolerable.
When one of the hens felt an egg coming, she would scratch out a nest in one of the topmost hay bales, preen herself of extra feathers to line it, and settle down to brood. Sometimes the rats found her. They always found the chicks. Bantams who weren’t sitting on eggs roosted high up on the roof rafters to keep away from the rats. The bantams could fly.
When dusk came, Coraggio would flap and claw his way up to a high place on the bales. He couldn’t fly because his wings had been clipped. To keep their birds from flying away, farmers sometimes clip off the final wing segments on young fowl. They never grow back. Coraggio’s wings had been clipped before Bernie got him. Every day after feeding the horses Bernie made sure some bales were stepped so Coraggio could get up to a safe place.
The Lady’s wings had been clipped too. She had a hollowed-out place near the door where she could keep an eye on things. Her wings were big and powerful even though they’d been clipped. She could knock a rat silly. They knew this. She was in charge in the barn.
It was a curious thing, the Lady’s authority. The horses obeyed her, along with everyone else except the rats. What gave her power was how steady she was. She never rushed; she was always sure, she took responsibility. When something came up, she said what to do. Presence of mind counts for a lot in this world. The Lady was as confident of her judgment as she was of her beauty. Nothing so improves the appearance as a good opinion of oneself.
THE FARM ROAD ran off the state highway past a house and down to Bernie’s barn. It was steep, muddy, and slippery, for all the gravel he put down. Every spring and fall the rains washed it out. In winter it got so slick he couldn’t get the truck down; he had to slip-slide in to feed and water the animals. By Christmas, when ice had locked up the pump, he’d clamber down behind his grandkids’ sled with jugs of warm water.
The road ended in the barnyard. The pond was to the left. On warm nights you could hear peepers and frogs and the horses snorting and talking together. Beginning at four in the morning you’d hear Coraggio. He crowed ancient music in a high, four-beat whoop that ended with a sound like scraping metal. His music always awakened Marker, the dog that lived in the house on the hill. Marker would listen and moan.
Bernie was a tall, lanky man with a face like Lincoln’s and a dead cigar stub in his mouth. He wasn’t allowed to smoke in the house; his truck was his smoking room. It smelled of independence. Even when he wasn’t in it, it had a rich smell of cigars. He didn’t talk much. He was so spare his jeans looked about to fall off. Under the baseball cap that said TEXACO, his hair was gray and wavy. He had a temper and a high voice you could hear a long way off when he was mad.
His barn used to be a tobacco shed. Pieces of land had been sold off from the farm before he got it, so there wasn’t enough left for a tobacco crop. There was space for a paddock, though.
He had always wanted horses. He didn’t know why, he just liked them. He liked the way they looked, the way they moved, their smell. He could watch horses for hours. There was something beautiful about the way they stood motionless in the sun, one hoof cocked up. He liked the curve of a horse’s foot, the delicate way they never stepped on a giddy chicken or a small child. He liked their neighing and nickering. He’d never had horses, he didn’t know how to ride, he didn’t know what it would take to keep them; but when he ended up with a place that had a barn and some ground, he decided to try the company of horses. His daughter’s passing away had left him lonely in a way he’d never been before.
When the county agricultural agent showed up at his gas station, Bernie told him about the barn and his dream of horses. A few days later the agent came back with a horse-care book and showed him in the Gazettes classifieds where two retired Arabian racers were offered for one hundred dollars. They’d been stable mates for a long time. The buyer would have to take both. It wasn’t a lot of money. Bernie didn’t ask Marion, his wife.
Bernie called about the horses. The man selling them said if they didn’t go soon, he’d have to let the knackers take them for horsemeat. “What can I do?” he said in a broken voice. “I’ve sold my place, I have to clear out.”
The gelding named Aramis was twenty-four. Li’l Spooker, the female, was twenty-eight. Old for horses, but they were in good shape. They had vet papers and the farrier had them on his list so he knew to come around when they needed new shoes or had to have their teeth filed. The man warned Bernie that they’d never been trained to the saddle. That was okay with Bernie; he hadn’t been either. Bernie understood everything the man said except the part about filing teeth. He bought the horses. He forgot about filing their teeth.
The man who sold them didn’t have a horse van and Bernie didn’t either. The day after he paid he was working out how he might walk them up a ramp and tie them down in his pickup when Ted from Wools and Furs showed up at the Texaco with a vanload of llamas.
Ted agreed to haul the horses in exchange for gas. He would have done it for nothing because Bernie was always doing things for him. Bernie helped everybody but i
t was hard to get him to take anything in return. He liked making his own way.
Ted was a huge Cornishman. Like most giants, he was gentle, especially with animals. His voice was not like anyone else’s because there were no pauses between his words. He ran everything together in a song heavy with the accent of his seacoast home in the southwest of England.
He and Bernie rode over together to get the horses. The seller was outside with them when the van pulled up. He tried to smile but he couldn’t. He handed over the bridles and stumbled to his house. Ted lowered the walkup. He sang softly to the horses, calling Spooker “my grand old girl” and Aramis “my brave, good boy” as he guided first one, then the other, up the ramp. When they balked, he didn’t shove; he cajoled with his music and his immense paws.
The horses stayed tied up in the barn while Bernie and Al, the night man at the Texaco, fenced the paddock and went to the hay man’s. The horses were scared. Everything was strange. There had been horses in the barn before, it was fitted with stalls, but that was a long time ago. It smelled of tobacco, old hay, and things left behind. Birds flitted in and out, barn swallows, a phoebe. The phoebe was busy with a nest of fledglings high up over the horses. The swallows wheeled and played in shafts of light as they called to one another. Sparrows darted up close, curious about the newcomers and pleased with their droppings. Just outside, a white-throated sparrow sang. The birds were comforting. The way the beams and stanchions were worn smoothed the edge of newness. It was not an unfriendly place. The horses were thirsty. When the men came back, they brought water. Once they began stacking the green bales it began to smell like home.
BERNIE AND AL were away from the station all day. By then his customers knew they were off getting horses. Marion and the two grandchildren knew too. In a small town word gets around.
Abby was ten; her brother, Ben, was eight. They were fair, round-faced kids with big white teeth their faces hadn’t grown into yet. Abby was tall. She stood straight, so she looked older than her years. She had a blaze of gold hair. Ben was sturdy; his hair was darker, buzz-cut. Until the horses came the kids were solemn. They lived with Bernie and Marion. Their mother was dead. They didn’t know where their father was.