Whittington Read online

  “What did the cat want to tell him?” Ben asked.

  “Nothing specific, just that she had a good feeling about the future. Dick couldn’t hear her. His ears buzzed like someone in fever.

  “Weeks went by. He couldn’t decide about the venture. His old friend and partner was of two minds about it too. Fitzwarren was past sixty now. He liked to work in his garden and relied on Dick to handle their business. He feared that if Dick made the trip, he might not see him again. Folks regarded the strapping lad as his son. Fitzwarren had come to think of him that way too.

  “Still, Fitzwarren was as curious as he was fearful. He had the true English spirit for risk-taking. Among other curiosities, Dick might encounter rhubarb and lilac on his way, two plants that were much wanted. Rhubarb is cooked into sauces, pies, and jams now. In Dick’s time the dried root was imported at great price to relieve constipation because the diet then was mainly meat and bread. Vegetables and salads were not popular. One cure for sluggish bowel was a purge of powdered rhubarb root in honey water.

  “Dick had managed to obtain seeds of the Amapacherie. Perhaps he would be as lucky with rhubarb. Fitzwarren wrote to a friend about it. What he heard back was not encouraging: ‘The Country where the True Sort Lyes is so remote between China & Tartary that to procure it is almost Impossible, because no Europeans that I can learn trade thither. It is brought by the natives to Russians, who lay nearest & have engrossed that Trade….’

  “As for lilac, travelers from Algiers described a tall bush with heart-shaped leaves and bunched clusters of fragrant purplish-blue blossoms that perfumed an entire garden for weeks. According to one tradition, its name is Persian for ‘beautiful girl.’ Fitzwarren longed to have it. He pressed his thumb against his nose and said Dick should go.

  “The more he thought about her, the more determined Dick became to see the girl in black. Will reported that she’d been sent to Sir Louis’s country place ten miles outside London. He added that her suitor was a gentleman of rank and Dick should leave well enough alone.

  “The morning he was to advise Sir Louis, Fitzwarren, and the captains of his decision about the voyage, Dick set out on a different trip. He started walking up the Thames towpath to Richmond to find Mary.

  “The tide was coming in. The river surged like a pulse, noisy and slicking, carrying branches, leaves, and trash. At places it surged across the path. His cat tried to follow. She couldn’t keep up.

  “Dick was unkempt. His step was not steady. He saw things and heard things in the river noise. Sunday bells began to ring. They filled his head—deep bells, long bells, bells with silver, bells of bronze. In their rhythms there was a message that seemed to come at him from every direction: ‘Turn around, Dick Whittington, turn around.’ He kept walking like a man drunk. Then the river quieted and all the bells stilled but one, a harsh, dry bell that called up his grandmother’s face. It tolled one word: ‘Back. Back.’

  “He turned around. He was sobbing as he had never done before in his life. Stumbling back down the river path, he met his cat. He stooped to pick her up. He would never forget the beautiful girl, but the strange fever that had possessed him had broken.”

  AT THE SPRING parents-and-teachers meeting, Ben’s teacher told Marion she didn’t think he should pass. His attendance was almost perfect, he made no trouble, he picked up things they discussed in class. If he heard something, he would learn it. The problem was his reading. More and more classwork would be in books. If Ben couldn’t read with the others, he wouldn’t be able to manage.

  “I’m amazed what he can memorize, though,” she said. “He’s the best in the class at that. When it’s time for free discussion, the other kids always ask him to recite. Almost every time he has something new.”

  When Marion got home, she told Ben about the meeting. He didn’t seem surprised or upset. She didn’t know what to make of that.

  The next afternoon he told Abby and the barn, “Mrs. Wright told Gran they’re going to keep me back. They aren’t. Coach O has twenty sets of books I have to work through. She says if I’m reading in set twenty by the time school starts next fall, she’ll recommend I stay with my class. She thinks I can do it if I start RR in May when school lets out. It’s fourteen weeks, my whole vacation. …” His voice dropped when he got to the vacation part.

  Abby whooped, the cat’s tail went up, the horses snorted. There were cheers from all corners.

  “You’re going to be our missionary,” the Old One said. When he put it like that, Ben no longer felt bad about being one of the sent-aways and giving up his vacation. He’d send himself. He’d be the missionary.

  The cat had seen it coming, he’d helped it along. He wasn’t going to lose this boy.

  “You’re taking charge of yourself like Dick Whittington,” the Lady said. All hearts were full.

  “THE STORY!” “THE STORY!” they shouted. Whittington jumped up to his storytelling place.

  “Dick sailed from London in the cog Unicorn with Will Price, the cat, a rich cargo, and a crew of twenty. Their sail bore Sir Louis’s sign, the green stripe across the top. At the top of the lead halyard they flew the red cross of St. George.

  “Dick carried with him the charts Sir Louis had gathered from the captains and the Marco Polo book. Sir Louis had not wanted to give it up. He read in it every day. When Dick said he wouldn’t go without it, Sir Louis stared at him for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly and wrote on the inside cover, ‘For Richard Whittington, his vade mecum,’ which means the book he kept beside him for daily use.

  “Dick wasn’t himself the first weeks out. His face was hollow, he went about like a sleepwalker. But they had clear sailing and this time he wasn’t seasick. Gradually the sun and chores on shipboard got him out of himself. After a while he could hear his cat again. She said, ‘It will all work out.’

  “They made for Palermo in Sicily, where Greeks, Phoenicians, and Romans had traded for three thousand years. Palermo was a hive, one of the major ports of the world, with ships in from Africa and the East every day. Dick hoped to learn about rhubarb and lilac and other new things there, and trade for goods and commodities unknown in England. He’d picked up enough Italian and Arabic to make his needs known. He was used to speaking with sailors and dockhands from all over the world in the universal language of single words, figures, signs, and gestures. Sailors knew things before they got marked on charts and written in books.

  As they approached Palermo, the sailors watched for the square gold seamark rising against the mountains over the port and the dark green orange groves. Their ship bore straight toward it, the gold square of Monreale, the ancient church built by an Englishman.

  “Shortly after they docked, Will came down with a wasting fever that made him sweat and shake and turned him yellow. It would let up for a few weeks, then surge back. He looked like a skeleton. Marsh fever, it was called then; today we know it as malaria. Dick was sure it would kill him and Will said as much. Dick knew without being told that Will wished to die with his family around. He arranged for the captain to take him home in the Unicorn. He gave the captain a blue silk shroud to use if he had to bury Will at sea.

  “Dick told Will he was sending him home. The two men embraced.

  “‘You were my first true friend,’ Dick said. He didn’t try to hide his tears.

  “Will smiled through his. ‘You’ve been a good friend to me, boy, almost kin, like I told old Radish Face you was. Didn’t we give him a time!’

  “While the captain hurried to provision the Unicorn for her return voyage, Dick found traders who had lilac and other strange plants to delight Fitzwarren. One was rosemary, popular in Sicily for flavoring roast meats but not yet grown in England. Nobody had live rhubarb. Small quantities of dried root were available but no seeds.

  “It was late January, the time of year when the wild white narcissus blooms on the Sicily coast. Its blossoms are the size of snowflakes. Their sweet scent fills a room. Dick spent days gathering bulbs for Fi
tzwarren. He wrapped the bulbs, lilac roots, and other rare plants tight against weather and salt spray and put them in Will’s care.

  “He traded the Unicorns cargo of woolens and salt for its value in spices, wine, olive oil, cotton from Egypt, sandalwood, which was prized for carving and incense, tamarind, peacock feathers, saffron, pieces of carved ivory and jade, and a small sack of pearls.

  “The spices in their sealed casks were the most valuable part of the cargo. Salt was one preservative at that time; spices were a welcome alternative. Used alone and in mixtures, they were prized because they held off bacteria, fungi, and parasites and masked the smell of rot. Clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, mace, and ginger brightened all sorts of foods.

  “Two days before the ship was to sail, the cat told Dick, ‘Send home a token for Mary with this message: If you don’t know me, you know nobody’

  “‘Send her a token?’ Dick exclaimed. ‘If you don’t know me …’? What does that mean? How would it look? What would Sir Louis say? She is probably a married woman now….’ He broke off.

  “‘Go to the shell carvers,’ said the cat. ‘They are famous here. Tell them as best you can what she looks like, her coloring, the shape of her head, her particular nose, the way her chin curves. Have them carve her face in a fine piece of shell. Don’t sign the note. She will know who sent it.’

  “‘But why?’

  “‘Go quickly’ the cat said, and then she disappeared.

  “Safe in the captain’s cabin, tucked among the plant parcels for Fitzwarren, there was a small box tightly sealed in parchment. When Fitzwarren unwrapped it, he read, ‘Pray, friend, have this delivered to Mary with no hint from whence it came.’ Inside the box was a cameo, an oval of seashell carved in the image of the young woman’s face. It was framed in gold with a clasp. It was wrapped in the note the cat had dictated: ‘If you don’t know me, you know nobody’”

  EARLY ONE MORNING there was a strange honking over the barn, a sound no one had ever heard before. The Lady half flew out of the barn, uttering yawps that were altogether new.

  A brown and tan duck called and circled and finally landed on the pond. He came to shore to meet the Lady, moving his head from left to right, bowing and singing. When she murmured something in response, he turned and invited her to meet him on the water, where they could be private. She sailed out. For hours they clucked and honked at each other, then they billed and twined necks. From that day on they were inseparable.

  The Lady introduced him to the barn. His name was Gent. He was polite but shy. Somehow he’d got separated from his flock. There was no asking if he could become part of the family. The Lady said they were made for each other.

  Gent was not much for conversation in the barn. He’d come in when Bernie put down the sweetened grain, then he’d be off to swim and waddle along the pond margins eating shoots. He said he came from the south, where winters were mild and all the ducks returned at year-end. That puzzled the Lady, but she let it go.

  Within a month of his arriving she laid her first egg. A week later another egg appeared, then a third. The kids found them on their daily hunt for bantam eggs. The duck eggs were twice as large.

  Gent and the Lady spent their days sailing the pond, carving long, languid sweeps through the green weed that dotted the surface, pulling up delicious roots, chuckling and grunting to each other. She gave him all her attention. She didn’t ignore Whittington, she just didn’t have time for him.

  Whittington didn’t have a best friend anymore. He felt like Dick’s cat after her master fell in love with the girl in black. Only at dusk would the Lady come inside. Gent stayed out. He could fly in an emergency; she could not. The cat still slept beside the Lady by the barn door, but her conversation was all about Gent and life on the pond.

  Bernie said a few eggs should be left for the bantams to brood. The chickens were eager to settle on their eggs. Despite her maternal instincts where Theo the goat was concerned, the Lady ignored hers.

  Abby tried to get a bantam hen to sit on one. It was too large to be comfortable, she couldn’t keep her balance. On an inspiration Ben tucked two duck eggs in the rabbit hutch. Blackie was a full-sized hen. She was delighted to have eggs to brood. She hopped and bustled and took them on as her own. When Bernie added the third, she spread her wings to keep the clutch covered.

  A flock of bantam chicks came, then two ducklings. The Lady was pleased, but she continued to spend her days on the water. Every morning Ben would lift the ducklings out of the hutch. The bantams led their chicks around, Brahms and Coraggio led the baby ducks. They taught them preening, how to drink, the wonderful things to be found in the dung heap, everything about dust baths. Blackie watched and fretted. While she admired Brahms for the way he exercised his musical authority, she didn’t think much of his mothering skills.

  One morning as Ben was lifting the ducklings out of the hutch, Blackie gave a tremendous flapping jump, cleared the opening, and plopped down among her charges. Thereafter the three chickens paraded the ducklings together, the large bronze rooster yelling their advance, the black hen hopping along on one side, two oddly marked ducklings peeping. With Coraggio bringing up the rear, they’d make a long, slow turn around the paddock, visit the dung heap, then head to the pond, where the Lady took over. The three chickens worried at the water’s edge until the Lady brought the ducklings back. Chickens can’t swim.

  On the hottest afternoon in August the tabby down the road carried her two kittens to the barn, first one, then the other, squirming and complaining. One looked like Whittington. They were underfoot in the home where she lived. She had overheard that they were to be taken to the pound. She figured the barn would be better than that. So now Whittington had his own little ones to watch and train. He didn’t have his best friend to himself anymore, but he was too busy to be lonesome.

  As for Ben’s reading, from ten to eleven-thirty every weekday he worked with Coach O. He learned more than reading. The third morning, when he stalled, he threw the book across the room. Coach O sent him home. He thought she’d call Gran. She didn’t. He wasn’t sure when he showed up the next morning that she’d see him. She acted as if nothing had happened. For the rest of the week, though, she kept him until noon to make up the time he’d missed.

  A week later, when he got tangled up shaping letters in the sand tray, he dumped it in a fury. Coach O pursed her lips and said, “Go run twice around the playing field as fast as you can.”

  When he came back in, red-faced and panting, she pointed to the mess of sand. “Clean it up,” she said.

  Thereafter he had to get to school at nine-thirty to run laps before the reading session. “Exercise will save you when you feel like exploding,” she said. “It changes the subject. It’s real hard to get mad at yourself after a good sweat.”

  It worked. Ben didn’t blow up again.

  A FEW NIGHTS LATER, Whittington was out. It was late. Kittens are night creatures too. His two children were rolling on the barn floor, playing in a tangle of old hay bale cords.

  Bales were piled above the kittens. A loose cord dangled. One bale wasn’t stacked tight against the others. It was balanced to make it easy for Bernie to pull it down in the morning.

  The kittens wrapped themselves in the tangle on the floor and fought over the dangling cord. They pulled the bale down. They saw it coming and jumped aside, but it fell on the tangle, snagging one of the kittens. A cord was looped tight around her throat. She lay choking on the barn floor.

  The horses gave the alarm. The Lady rushed over and pecked at the cord. She couldn’t loosen it.

  “Rats!” she yelled. “Help! Rats! Help!”

  The Old One came running. He saw how it was and started to gnaw and pull at the strangling cord.

  Finally he severed it and freed the kitten. She lay panting on the barn floor. The Lady looked her over.

  “She’ll be okay,” she said. “Just lost one of her nine lives. Thanks, rat.”

  “Tit for tat,” said the O
ld One.

  ABBY AND BEN came to the barn twice a day, first with Bernie for the morning feeding at five, then on their own on bikes in the afternoon for the cat’s story. It was hot in the barn but that’s where they wanted to be. Gent stayed out on the water. The Lady came in with her ducklings. The bantams and the chicks were there, the roosters, Theo and his mama, the two horses. Whittington’s kittens watched as he leapt up to his storytelling place. There was a large crowd looking up.

  “At Palermo Dick chartered a caravel to take him east to Constantinople. Although the caravel was newer and sleeker than the Unicorn, they barely made it. A squall in the Dardanelles smacked the ship so hard her masts snapped. The sailors who were trying to furl the sails were swept overboard. The deck was a mess of splintered wood, torn sail, and tangled rigging. There was no sign of the cat. No one saw her go overboard. She’d been on deck moments before. She wasn’t steady on her feet. She could not have with-stood the rush of wind and water that heeled the ship so far over it nearly capsized.

  “Dick combed the wreckage looking for her. There was no trace. In his bunk she’d left two mewing kittens, newborns. Their eyes weren’t open yet. Had their mother been on board, she would have made it to them no matter how injured she was. That’s the way it is with cats. One of those kittens was my forebear.

  “He’d lost Mary and Will, and now he’d lost his cat, but he was too busy staying alive to think much about his losses. He went to the side of the ship and untied the blue silk he wore around his neck. He wiped his face and tossed it overboard as a token for the cat.

  “There was nothing for it but to take his shifts at pumping and help the exhausted crew jury-rig the ship so they could get to port. He remembered one of his grandmother’s maxims, ‘Work is the medicine for despair.’ He worked day and night, taking breaks only to tend the kittens. They weren’t weaned, they couldn’t drink from a dish, they didn’t know solid food. The goats saved them.”