Pinky Pye (22 page)

The next morning Rachel and Uncle Bennie could hardly wait to get down to the wharf to meet the early boat. Each had a reason of his own. Uncle Bennie, having been told that his real right mother was coming to pay a visit soon, intended to meet every single boat from now on. His mother was probably going to try to surprise him and not tell anyone on what boat she was going to be. And he was going to surprise her and be at the boat no matter what one she was on.

Rachel was interested in the boats that brought over the newspapers, the morning
Times,
the evening
World.
Jerry pulled her to the wharf in his taxi so she could stay off her foot as Mama had said to do. Rachel thought it was not likely that there would be something in the paper so soon about the owl, but it was possible. And sure enough! There was a long story!

Mr. Bish must have been met in the Pennsylvania Railroad Station by newspapermen, who had then worked all night to get this story written. There it was, right on the front page of the
Times,
with a picture of Mr. Bish and Owlie taken in the railroad station. RARE LITTLE OWL FOUND, said the big headlines. Under the picture it said, "Little owl lost at sea not lost after all." Rachel began the story: "The little daughter of the famed ornithologist, Mr. Edgar Pye, must be given credit for locating the owl of another ornithologist, Mr. H. Hiram Bish."

Heart pounding and unable to continue to read without the entire family around her, she demanded she be taxied home and never mind the customer that Jerry might miss—let Touhy Tomlinson have him.

It was quite a long account. All gathered around to catch a glimpse.

"Get out of my way, Janet," said one twin, for the twins had been at the cottage watching Pinky type. "Let me see!" said Joanne.

There it was! The entire thing, bringing in how the little owl had been blown out of Mrs. Bish's hands on the deck of the SS
Pennsylvania
on the night of the great wind, July the fifth. The account of the watching of Rachel Pye and the cat Gracie was very dramatic; and much was made of Uncle Bennie's pet crickets and grasshoppers, which had saved the life of the owl. There was even something of Pinky's ascent to the eaves, but this they got wrong, so it's lucky that Pinky and Mr. Pye had it all set down right on the typewriter or we might have had it wrong too. The paper said she had been tucked up in the eaves, accidentally, in a sleeping bag! It's lucky we know the truth—the mailbox end of it. And the story did not mention the fish of Mr. Bish, but then why should it? This was not a fish story, it was an owl story.

Rachel cut the story out and pasted it in her scrapbook and impatiently awaited the next day. Her father suggested that she also get the
Washington Post
and see if there was something in it, since the owl was headed for the nation's capital. This paper had to be ordered especially for the Pyes, and it would come a day late. When it came, however, there it was again, practically the same story as had been in the
Times
but with a new picture of the little owl in his new habitat, the zoo, looking as ruffled, fierce, and dismayed as ever.

"Poor little thing!" said Rachel with a lump in her throat. "He really doesn't want to be in a zoo. I bet he was really glad when that seagull brought him back to us. Maybe he signaled the gull to do that."

"He'll get to like it there," said Papa, "with all the other birds. After all, he has never known what it is to be free!"

"Except for that wild ride on the wind!" said Rachel. "That must have been wonderful for him, even if he was scared."

Still Rachel couldn't help crying over all the animals locked up in zoos; and the next day's papers didn't help her to feel better, for there was a picture of the little owl moping in a corner of his cage, his wing in a splint, not mingling with the other birds, not happy at all.

On the next day there was a small story down in the corner that said it was feared the little owl, the zoo's latest acquisition, might not live. It was possible, the paper said, that the owl had had more hardships than it could stand. ("Misses my crickets," said Uncle Bennie gloomily.) The paper also said that the donor of the little owl was very worried and he had asked for but had not yet received permission to take the owl away again, for a short time at least, and try to nurse it back to health.

The next day there was no story in the newspaper nor the next nor the next nor for several more. But one day about a week later there was a story saying that Mr. Bish had been given permission to take his ailing owl back from the Washington zoo and try to restore its health.

The next day when Rachel went with Uncle Bennie to meet the boat, it was already putt-putting into sight and someone was frantically waving from the deck. Since this was the early boat and had few passengers, there happened to be no one meeting it except Rachel and Bennie, so the person must be waving to them. They waved back.

"Do you see that person waving?" asked Uncle Bennie. "Well, I think it is my mother."

Rachel thought it looked like a longer, skinnier person, but she could not tell, for the sun dazzled her eyes.

The person wasn't Uncle Bennie's mother. As the boat swung around and came into the shade of the dock, they could see who it was. It was Mr. H. Hiram Bish. And in his arms, what did they see? Little Owlie in his cage looking as bright and healthy and fierce as he had after his two weeks of special diet of Uncle Bennie's champion crickets and grasshoppers.

Mr. Bish had a beseeching expression on his face. He smiled apologetically and said, "Is your father home?"

They went to The Eyrie, and Gracie, from her lookout on top of the roof, saw the scene enacted below of the return of the man and the bird.

Papa was dozing under the green umbrella. But Mama, who was hanging up clothes, dropped the bag of clothespins, took out two that were in her mouth, and greeted their recent guest warmly. She noted that he did not have his sleeping bag with him.

The owl gave a call. His voice had improved during his stay at the zoo at any rate, and he no longer sounded like a hoarse raven. Papa waked up with a start. "My sainted aunt!" he said, hopping up. He grasped Mr. Bish's hands cordially. He had taken in the situation at a glance, and he knew, probably as well as you and I do, what request was about to be made of him and the Pye family. Out it came.

"Well," said Mr. Bish. "There are some pets that pine away if they are put in zoos, and I am afraid that mine is one of that sort. He has more sentiment than I thought. I am afraid, and the zoo people agree with me, that his life will be very short if I leave him there. So, what better place to leave him than with my brother ornithologist, Mr. Edgar Pye, and his bird, cricket, cat, and dog loving family."

"We could keep him in the eaves again," said Rachel. "He wasn't any trouble last time."

"We have two cats, you know, and a dog," said Mama. "Once Ginger killed a chicken." But Mama knew what the outcome was going to be. She and her family were about to have still another pet, and the name of this pet was going to be Owlie Pye. She saw it coming and said nothing else. After all, she had as soft a heart as the rest of her family and didn't want it to be said of her that she had let a little owl die in a zoo when it might have lived if she hadn't said, "No."

What she said was, "It is destiny ... And I suppose we can put a board across the door into the eaves and keep the cats out."

"Yes, and in Cranbury, he can stay up in Papa's owl eyrie. Since we call Papa's study the Eyrie, it is good to have a live owl in it or what is the sense of the name?" asked Rachel.

"What, indeed!" agreed Papa.

"Well, anyway," said Uncle Bennie. "He is not going to keep on eating my grasshoppers and crickets, that's one thing he ain't."

"Of course not," agreed Mr. Bish. "I'll leave a chopped meat fund for him."

Pinky sat on the sand at their feet. She was looking up at the owl and he was looking down at her. Their eyes were equally round. Pinky made a slight crunching sound.

"No, no," said Rachel. "This owlie is now a member of the family."

"Woe," said Pinky.

And then Mr. Bish, who could not even stay for lunch he was in such a hurry to get on with his expedition, dashed for the boat, which had already given its second toot, leaving the Pyes to make what adjustment they could with his beloved little owl, whom they decided to keep on calling just "Owlie."

"We have Ginger, Owlie, and Pinky Pye," said Rachel.

"G.O.P.," said Papa with a faint chuckle.

"What does that mean?" asked Uncle Bennie.

"Grand old party," said Papa.

"Where's the party?" asked Uncle Bennie. "Where's the cake?"

Well, life settled down fairly normally again for the Pyes. Gracie was happy to have the owl back in the eaves. It added zest and youth to her life to have something to watch again as she basked in the blazing sunshine. And it was interesting to watch Pinky's energetic attempts to open up the little door, which was too well barricaded with a stout board for her to succeed.

Occasionally Papa took the owl in his cage out for fresh air and a ride in his wheelchair. This attracted so much attention Papa said it was too bad he couldn't charge for the show. He really could have charged for the show, what with a sparring and typewriting cat, famous already all over the island, and now with a famous owl who had been written up even in the international press. Some Frenchman, an acquaintance of Mr. Pye's, had sent him a clipping of the story of the owl, the wind, the crickets and all from a Parisian newspaper; and if you don't think that it is exciting to see yourself written up in a French newspaper, then you must be the sort whom nothing excites. It certainly looked very important in Rachel's book of clippings. The Pyes took to calling Uncle Bennie,
l'oncle Benné,
for a while, the way it was in the French paper.

Then life settled down into its regular channel, with picnics and beaching, and the children were very bronzed from the sun except for Rachel, who only freckled; and the grandmother and the grandfather arrived and had to be shown the sights, including the sunken forest and the spot where the famous fish was caught bare-handed. And then summer was over and the days were growing short and all their hearts turned to Cranbury again.

Now the Pyes were home again, in Cranbury; and Rachel and Jerry were sitting on the little square upstairs veranda. A gentle breeze swayed the branches of the giant elm tree that stood beside their tall and narrow house. It was evening and darkness came early now. The Cranbury crickets were singing, and these crickets had a clearer, quicker note than those Fire Island crickets, what was left of them at any rate after Uncle Bennie's catching and Owlie's eating of them.

The return trip had been so arduous that a separate book could be written about it. Have you ever tried to travel a great distance in an old Ford that was given to blowouts (for Sam Doody, their High School Senior friend, had come and got them) with a dog, a little cat, a big cat, and an owl in a cage? I hope not. However, their good friend Sam Doody, even though he was very very tired from the trip and from hearing "The Owl and the Pussycat" recited many, many times, said, "Well, neither of the cats had kittens and that's something, isn't it?" But then he was a senior in school, captain of the football team, and the duster of the church, and he was never upset by anything.

So here the Pyes were then, at home, and hardly able to realize that they had had a vacation at all.

"The first day of vacation is long. The rest is short," said Rachel.

They had come back yesterday, and it seemed as though vacation was a sandwich.

"It's a sandwich," Rachel explained to Jerry. "Life in Cranbury before we went is one slice of bread. Life in Cranbury after coming home is the other slice of bread. And the vacation on Fire Island is the inside of the sandwich."

"Which is better, which is more important?" asked Jerry, hoping to get Rachel into a "which is more important" game. "The bread or the inside of the sandwich?"

"The bread, naturally," said Rachel. "But you wouldn't have a sandwich without the inside. You'd have two slices of bread. So it's all important if you want to call it a sandwich."

"Does it seem to you as though we had a vacation? How long have we been back?" asked Jerry.

"Since yesterday. But it seems as though we have been back forever. It seems as though we never went," said Rachel. "Except of course we know we went," she said hastily lest Jerry think she was a nut and, worse still, call her one as he did sometimes. "We know we went because now we have Pinky Pye and up in the Eyrie we have Owlie Pye."

Ginger was at Jerry's feet and he was resting happily. Pinky was in Rachel's lap and purring so hard her little body was shaking. Papa was standing in the doorway, behind the children, taking slow puffs on his pipe. Then he turned away quietly and went upstairs to his study. In a corner of this room where there used to be only a big old stuffed screech owl, there was now also a real little owl, Owlie Pye. They frequently stared at each other, the real owl and the stuffed owl.