The Four-Story Mistake (5 page)

The second room had a wooden door which was shut. Oliver had a hard time getting it open: it was stuck in its casing as though it had not been opened for a very long time. But he pushed against it with all his weight and finally it flew open and he flew into the room with it.

He could hardly believe his eyes.

This room was smaller than the other, and it was to Oliver as the cave was to Ali Baba: a storehouse full of treasure.

The first things he saw were two sleds propped up against the wall on their hind legs. They were very old, with rusted runners, and one was red, and one was blue. Names were painted on them in fancy letters. “Snow Demon,” said one; and “Little Kriss Kringle,” said the other. They must have belonged to the Cassidy children, thought Oliver. And then he saw the bicycle. Upstairs in the attic there were pictures of boys riding bicycles like this one. The front wheel was taller than he was, though the back wheel was small; and the saddle and handlebars soared loftily atop the front wheel. If only my legs were longer, thought Oliver impatiently, looking down at his short, fat underpinnings; this bike is much better than the kind they have nowadays; more dangerous.

Besides the bicycle and the sleds, there was an old-fashioned tin bathtub covered with rust and chipped paint of robin's-egg blue, and shaped like an armchair with a high back. And there were more Mason jars, with more spiders in them, and a doll carriage made of decaying leather, and a broken coffee grinder, and a cast-iron crib frame, and a set of big books. All the objects in the room were covered with a layer of fine, ashy, white dust. Oliver sat down on one of the books, took another on his lap, reveling in the dust, and began to look at it. It turned out to be the bound volume of a magazine called
Harper's Young People,
published in the year 1887. The book was mildewed, some of its pages were glued together by years of damp, and its green cover had been gnawed by mice, but it exuded the indescribably delicious odor of all ancient books; better still, it was full of the pictures and adventures of the children of that other world which he had already explored on the walls of the Office upstairs. A world where girls wore sashes and long hair, and boys wore long stockings and button boots, and the horses which pulled the trolley cars wore straw hats. In that world there were no automobiles, no airplanes, no streamline trains, and yet the children seemed to be almost the same kind of children there were now.

Overhead Cuffy's feet creaked to and fro across the kitchen floor boards. Outside the morning was clear and golden with Indian summer. But Oliver sat in the dim light of his cellar room; pale and happy as a mushroom in its native habitat.

Hours later his reluctant ear was pierced by the frantically repeated sound of his name. “Oliv-
er
! Oliv-
er
!” cried Cuffy, faint and faraway. He heard her feet hurry across the kitchen floor; the screen door open. “Oliver, come in for your lunch!” called Cuffy. He sat listening and when he heard her feet go out of the kitchen he rose, closed the door of the marvelous room behind him, and ran silently up the steps.

When Cuffy returned to the kitchen she found Oliver there, gazing dreamily out the window.

“Great day in the morning!” she said exasperatingly. “Where in the world have you been? And how in the
world
did you get so dirty?”

Oliver neatly evaded this question by answering it with one of his own. “
Am
I dirty, Cuffy?” he asked, looking surprised.

“I never saw such dirt. Dirt all
over
you, and something that looks like coal dust; and what have you got dangling from your ear? I believe it's a cobweb. Come here while I wash you.”

All through lunch Oliver ate without knowing that he ate at all. A baked potato, two slices of liver, and a large helping of beets (which he detested) simply disappeared from his plate into himself without conscious material assistance on his part. Inwardly he had entered once more the little room that was his discovery, his kingdom. He dwelt longingly upon the thought of the two old sleds, the bicycle, the coffee grinder (which he planned to take apart), and above all the books. Tomorrow I'll go down again, he told himself, and whenever it rains, and when Cuffy takes a nap. But I mustn't go too often. Oliver was wise for his seven years: already he knew that to overdo a thing is to destroy it. I'll keep it secret for a long, long time, he thought. He did, too; for he had great determination, and knew the secret of keeping secrets.

Also he had a kind heart. Six weeks later when Randy had to stay home from school with a toothache he took her down to the cellar and showed her his discovery. It worked better than oil of cloves: Randy forgot her toothache for more than an hour and a half, absorbed in the dusty volumes of
Harper's Young People.

Afterward she and Oliver referred to the secret cellar room by its initials S.C.R. They referred to it ostentatiously and often, much to the outward boredom and inward consuming curiosity of both Mona and Rush, who were not enlightened until the twenty-fifth of December when Oliver showed it to them for a Christmas present.

CHAPTER IV

The Back of the Bus

How Randy loved the cupola! In it she seemed to be detached from the house, and the world, floating aloft on a sea of branches. An army cot, an old rocking chair, and an empty toy chest were all the furniture it contained. Someday she planned to paint the ceiling: blue, with gold stars on it, whole constellations, and a section of the Milky Way. She would have to lie on her back on a scaffolding to paint it, the way Father told her Michelangelo had lain on his back to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Probably she would never get around to doing it, but it was an inspiring thought.

Today she was standing at her own west window watching the road. Ever since lunch she had been standing there, for this was the day when their dear friend Mrs. Oliphant was to arrive in the antique station wagon which she always called the Motor, with a capital M.

The children knew and were fond of the Motor (though it was a difficult car to love), for they had spent the previous summer at Mrs. Oliphant's house by the sea, and had ridden in it often. It was a tall, narrow vehicle fitted with regular four-paned windows that made it look like a greenhouse on wheels, and was further distinguished by a small length of pipe sticking up from the roof chimney-wise to release the evil fumes of the exhaust.

Randy remained at her post like Sister Anne, and at four o'clock was rewarded by being the first to see the Motor rattling conservatively down the drive. It would not be hurried; it was like a self-willed old mule. Nothing in creation could make it alter its pace.

“Here she comes, kids!” shouted Randy, flinging herself recklessly down the ladder steps that led to the Office. The answering thunder of descending footsteps and shouts of joy reached her from the hall stairs. Father burst out of his study; Cuffy burst out of the kitchen; the front door was hurled open and left that way. The station wagon grumbled haughtily to a stop. Mrs. Oliphant emerged and was engulfed by enthusiastic Melendy children.

She was an old, lively lady: tall, dark-browed, and adorned with many furs, many necklaces, and brooches. The whole family loved Mrs. Oliphant. She was kind, and funny, and original: she carried with her the memory of a long life starred with adventures, and you had the feeling that, old though she was, still more adventures lay ahead of her.

“Are you tired, Mrs. O?” said Father. He always called her Mrs. O.

“Not so tired as the Motor,” replied Mrs. Oliphant, looking solicitously at the station wagon. “Now that I've given it to you, I don't think it's going to last very long. You must use it carefully; after all, it's very old. It may give up the ghost at any minute.”

The children stared at the car with the respect due to an elder.

“But in case it
does
give up the ghost,” Mrs. Oliphant said frivolously, “I have supplied the children with other means of locomotion. It would be dreadful if they were forced to miss a single minute more of school. Look in the back of the Motor.”

Oliver got there first. He opened the rear door and leaned in.

“Oh, boy,” he said quietly. “Two-wheelers. Four of them. Oh, boy.”

Rush and Mona and Randy pushed against him, peering into the station wagon. It was true.

“Bicycles!” shouted Randy rather obviously.

“How absolutely di-
vine!
” said Mona. Next to “revolting” it was her favorite word.

All Rush could think of to say was “Gosh!” He searched around in his mind for something more eloquent, and added “Gee!”

“Mrs. O, you shouldn't have!” objected Father. “It's too much.”

But she just waved him away. “You and Cuffy will have to walk, I'm afraid. But that will be good for your figures.”

She put her arm through Father's and looked up at the house.

“Well, Martin,” she said to Mr. Melendy, “it looks strong and comfortable, but rather broad-shouldered for its height, don't you think?”

“That's why it's called the Four-Story Mistake,” Rush told her.

“The what?”
Mrs. Oliphant stopped walking and stared at him.

“That's its name,” Rush told her, and the whole thing had to be explained again.

“It's a nice story, and a nice name,” Mrs. Oliphant decided. “A much better name for a house than the usual kind like Hillcrest, or Bayview, or Casa Loma, or Shangri-La!” She began to laugh as she looked at Oliver. During the whole conversation, as they moved toward the house, he had been walking backward in front of her. Walking is not the word, however. He was hopping, fidgeting, and jumping from one foot to the other, and staring into her face with an expression of agonized pleading.

“What's the matter, Oliver?” said the old lady.

“Please, Mrs. Ollerphant, could we practice now? On the two-wheelers?” he begged.

“By all means,” she agreed. “You children stay outside and practice, and we will go indoors far away from the windows, where it's safe. Remember I am not to be held responsible for any fractures or concussions!”

Rush and Mona had ridden before. In no time at all, after a few preliminary lurchings, they were speeding showily around the circle in the drive, zigzagging across the lawn between the trees, and coasting down the side of the hill.

Randy had a hard time learning. Her bicycle behaved as though it had a life of its own, doing everything to be rid of her. It bucked like a bronco, veered captiously in all the wrong directions, flung itself at trees and walls, and fell on its side in repeated swoons. Randy fell with it every time. At the end of a half hour's patient struggle, her shins were black and blue, her knee was scraped, and she was close to tears. Rush, swooping expertly by, saw her fall for the seventeenth time and took pity on her.

“Look, Ran,” he said, “you get on and I'll hold the bike for you. I won't let you fall. Now,
push
down with your right foot, now with your left. That's it. You'll have it soon.”

And thanks to Rush's help she did have it soon. In a very short time she found herself sailing deliriously along the drive, under her own steam. The wind whistled against her cheek, her battered knees pumped up and down, and the bicycle, its spirit almost broken, carried her smoothly; turning when she wished it to turn, stopping when she wished it to stop. I can do anything! Randy's thoughts were singing victoriously. If I can learn to ride a bicycle I can do
anything!
Learn to fly an airplane, or dance like Baronova, or draw like Botticelli. Drunk with success she tried riding without hands, the way Rush did, and immediately fell off.

Oliver fell a lot, too. But he had taken his little bicycle to the top of a small rise and wobbled down it over and over again until finally he mastered the idea of balancing himself. He was systematic and determined, and learned much faster than Randy. The only trouble was that his legs were so short he couldn't dismount properly; so he developed his own method: while the bicycle was still going he would leap clear of it, allowing it to crash to the earth, wheels still spinning. The method wasn't very good (especially for the bicycle) but the best he could manage at the moment.