The Moffat Museum (17 page)

About to take off on this expedition, Rufus stopped. Along came his friend Uncle Bennie Pye. Uncle Bennie was famous in Cranbury because, as far as anyone knew, he was the only inhabitant who had been born an uncle. Rachel and Jerry Pye, a girl and a boy about Jane's age, were his niece and his nephew.

Uncle Bennie lived on the other side of town, near Sandy Beach, and he didn't go to the same school as Rufus. But often on Saturday he came over this way to visit Rachel and Jerry, where he was allowed to walk their smart dog, Ginger, heaving and gasping on his hated leash.

Sometimes Jerry and Rachel didn't want to play with their little uncle. They wanted to play with older friends. So sometimes Uncle Bennie, like Rufus, felt a little lonesome on Saturdays and often came to The Moffat Museum. He and Rufus had therefore struck up a sort of a Saturday-morning friendship. Helping Rufus strew petals down on Sylvie at her wedding had cemented this friendship.

To please this occasional visitor to the museum, Rufus sometimes put on his waxworks face and became a Madame Tussaud statue for Uncle Bennie. But then he got tired of being a waxworks person for just one visitor, and without asking Jane or Joey could he or couldn't he, he put an extra sign on the museum. It said in colossal letters: OUT FOR LUNCH.

So now, when Rufus saw his friend Uncle Bennie coming along Elm Street, he sat down again. He moved over so Bennie could sit beside him and not have a huge elm tree obstruct his friend's view of the trolleys as they came along.

They both said, "Hello!" Then they sat in silence getting used to being together again. Trolleys came and went. Sometimes a motorman or a conductor waved at the boys. Many knew Rufus because he had visited the carbarn so often.

"Bennie," said Rufus, "have you ever been to the carbarn?"

Bennie shook his head. "No," he said.

"Well, Bennie," said Rufus, "how would you like to go to the carbarn with me now? It should be on Mr. Pennypepper's annual tour. It's the best place in town."

Ashamed of his ignorance, Bennie said, "I bet it is."

"Well, you want to come with me or not?" said Rufus, standing up.

"Will we be back by twelve?" asked Bennie. "I always have to be back by twelve."

"Sure," said Rufus. "We have the twelve o'clock rule in my house, too. The clock on the Green rings at twelve. We'll tear home then."

The two boys started off. Bennie was only a year younger than Rufus, but he seemed much smaller. Rufus was proud to be the big one of the expedition.
I'm taking Joey's place,
he thought. But he had better do a little explaining.

He said, "Bennie, I'll tell you why the carbarn is so great. All carbarns all over the world are probably great, but this Cranbury one is probably the greatest of all. Way, way in the back of it, in the dark and dusty back of it, on a short track all its own is a little trolley car, one of the closed-in kind, like the Bridgeport Express. But this little trolley car is only about one-quarter the length of a regular closed-in trolley. Just as wide, just as high, has a pole on top for the wires, but it's just plain short. It's not a toy. It could go anywhere, but it doesn't. It just stays there in the barn all the time."

"Not a toy. Just short, just plain short," repeated Bennie.

"Yes," said Rufus. "Me and Joey wish we could buy this little trolley car, wash it ... it's a little sooty ... run it down Elm Street, switch it onto Second Avenue, maybe, and run it up that street."

"That's my line," said Bennie. "The new Second Avenue line ... It gets you there on time."

Rufus laughed. They sang the song together. Then Rufus said, "If we ever get to own it and run it up the new Second Avenue line, Joey and me will let you stand at the steering wheel, and I'll stomp on the pedal and make it go ding-ding-ding when we pass your corner. We'll wave to people we know and people we don't know. They will be astonished at the sight of a trolley that little coming up their street."

"It's sort of like a pet," said Bennie.

"You're right," said Rufus. "It is Joey's and my pet trolley. Joey and me would take turns, him being the motorman, me the conductor, or vice versa," said Rufus.

"What's
vice versa?
" asked Bennie. "Are you a foreigner?"

"Nope. I was born on New Dollar Street.
Vice versa
means one or t'other. This trolley can seat only about twelve. We'd take mainly kids unless, of course, it was someone like Judge Bell. He lives on Second Avenue. We'd give him a ride."

"He's so tall," said Bennie. "Could he fit in?"

"Sure, once he sits down. He has to do that on a regular trolley, too ... has to stoop until he sits down. I told you this is like a regular trolley, just small!" said Rufus.

The two boys were opposite the Green now, nearing Crowley's Department Store. Rufus said, "Bennie. Walk a little in front of me. Don't look in the show window. Joey doesn't like to have people stare at him if he happens to be in it decoratin'."

Uncle Bennie walked past Crowley's Department Store straight as a ramrod and without a single glance at it. It was as though his eyes were focused on an unusual occurrence far ahead.

Rufus paused in front of the show window where Joey was crouching down and arranging pads and pencils and toy pails and shovels, straw hats, many sorts of things, and he was being careful not to get himself stuck in the fresh curls of flypaper he had suspended from the ceiling. He spotted Rufus and raised his eyebrows, meaning what's up?

Rufus pointed ahead at Uncle Bennie striding stiffly on. Then Rufus jerked his head toward the carbarn. This meant was it okay to take Uncle Bennie to the carbarn to see their little trolley car? Joey nodded. It was okay.

Rufus caught up with Bennie in front of Moose Hall. They crossed the street, walked past the ancient graveyard, grass uncut, wisps of pretty weeds, some with pale blue or yellow flowers, growing haphazardly here and there.

But now, here now, was the carbarn!

Before going in, Rufus did a little explaining to Uncle Bennie. He showed him how the switches had to be shunted this way or that so the trolleys would lurch themselves

onto the right track—some to Savin Rock or some, vice versa, to New Haven or Lighthouse Point maybe, which was exactly opposite Cranbury on the other side of the harbor.

Rufus said, "You don't have to go to one or the other of those places. If you didn't want to get off at some street on the way, you could get transfers and take a long trip. You could get all the way to Boston, Chicago maybe, almost never have to pay another nickel ... just one transfer after another and maybe land in Limerick, Maine. Who knows? If me and Joey could only just buy our little trolley, that's what we might do, run it on long trips, not just up the Second Avenue trolley line. Maybe you could come, too."

"Bring my pajamas," said Bennie. "Sleep on a trolley car!"

They stood aside because a trolley was coming out. The motorman adjusted the switch, and the trolley turned down the way the boys had come. The sign in front said: MONTOWESE.

"Might be just the start of its plan to join up with another trolley and head, like you said, for Limerick, Maine," said Bennie, awestricken at all he was learning, and not even in school! Just from his good friend Rufus Moffat!

"Who knows?" said Rufus. "But come on in."

There was a little office facing all the switches outside. A tall man was sitting on a high stool at a slanting desk, notebook in front of him. "He is the boss man of the whole carbarn," Rufus whispered to Bennie. "Tells a car when to go out, sees that another comes in when it's supposed to. His name is on his hat, Captain Moody."

Captain Moody said, "Hello, Rufus. Where's Joey?"

"Workin'," said Rufus. "I brought my friend instead to show him the carbarn. He's never been in it before! His name is Uncle Bennie Pye."

"Okay," said Captain Moody. "Welcome to the Cranbury carbarn, home of the Connecticut Company's finest and best."

The boys laughed and went on in. They walked slowly through it. Rufus wanted to make the approach to the deep, dusky rear last a long time. He pointed out this trolley or that, the closed ones, the open ones. He told Uncle Bennie to look up and see how funny the pigeons atop the dusty dome-shaped glass roof looked from down below.

"Pigeons!" murmured Uncle Bennie. "I'll tell Rachel's father—he's a bird man, you know. Pigeons on a glass carbarn roof!"

"They come in when it rains. The men don't mind. They coo up there in the rafters," said Rufus.

They were way, way in the back now. "Bennie," said Rufus. "Give me your hand and close your eyes. You are going to see something as valuable as anything they have in the Smithsonian Institution."

Bennie gave Rufus his hand. He closed his eyes as tightly as he could. He felt his way carefully with his feet, not to step on an important thing. In a short while they had reached their destination, the dark and shadowy corner where the little trolley car stayed.

"Now, Bennie," Rufus said triumphantly, "open your eyes!"

Bennie opened his eyes, clasped his hands together, and gasped.

"That's it!" said Rufus.

"Oh, gosh!" said Bennie. "Oh, golly!"

"What'd I tell you?" said Rufus. "You like it?"

"Like it!" said Bennie. "I love this little trolley car!"

"Me and Joey, too," said Rufus happily. "We both of us love this trolley. We call it
our
little trolley car. If we could really own it, you could help us a lot. Be the switchman, sometimes. Even sit on the motorman's chair, if Joey would let you. And you know my brother, Joey! He'd let you!"

Uncle Bennie was speechless. To think that all of this could happen on a Saturday morning because he had a friend like Rufus.

Rufus studied Bennie's radiant face. He knew now for certain that he had a real friend who liked the same things that he and Joey liked.

"It never goes out," said Rufus. "Always stays right here. Joey and me pretend we own it, him the motorman, me the conductor. We take turns. We punch tickets, give out transfers. I mean, we have all these in our pockets. Captain Moody gave us a lot of old used ones."

"Ever been inside?" asked Bennie.

"Not yet, but probably someday..." said Rufus.

They stooped down and looked under the trolley, the way two men nearby were doing to their big trolley. They couldn't see much. Outside it was warm and sunny. Inside it was dim and dusky. The two men working on the big trolley carried a lantern so they could get a good look at the underneath part.

But Rufus and Bennie didn't have a lantern and stood up. Because this was Bennie's first visit to the carbarn, he had a great deal to take in, and Rufus saw to it that he saw everything.

Wan sunshine filtered through the rounded glass roof, which may never have been washed except by rain from the day long ago when it had been built. But the filmy sunlight barely seeping through lent a dreamy magic to the golden trolleys within, especially to the little one in the corner, not used, just there to be admired, first by Joey and Rufus, and now by Rufus and Uncle Bennie ... the trolley they longed to have.

They stood on tiptoe to look through one of the windows. The little trolley had only four on each side ... but the boys were too little to see in. "Climb up on my shoulders," said Rufus, "and see what you can see."

Bennie was just about to do this when a workman with a sooty lantern came out from under the trolley he was examining, a closed-in one like the little trolley car. Bennie slid off of Rufus's back and stood close to Rufus in case it was against the rules to look inside the little trolley car.

Rufus knew this man. It was Jim Cullom, brother of Spec Cullom, the iceman. Long ago Joey and Rufus had had conversations about trolleys with him. He was nice. Now he said, "You two fellas want to sit in the little trolley car?"

Speechless, Rufus and Bennie could only nod their heads. The answer was written all over their shining faces.

Jim Cullom opened the door with a special key that could probably open any closed-in trolley in the United States and maybe Canada. He gave Bennie a boost up the high step. Rufus had already climbed in. Jim Cullom went away with his lantern to some other trolley car.

The boys began their complete examination of everything ... all the workings of this perfect little trolley car. It should be a
used
trolley car, not one stuck away in a corner doing nothing. There was its switch so that it could go on any trolley line. It hung on a strong iron hook beside the motorman's seat. At each end of the trolley there was a place for the motorman to sit. His seat was not much bigger than the seat of a bike and was removable. Take it off one end of the trolley and put it on the other. Never have to turn the trolley around. Its front could be its back or its back could be its front.

Wasn't that smart, whoever thought that up?
marveled Rufus. Also in front and in back on the floor there was a brass bell that the motorman could pound his foot on to warn someone to get out of the way. If he got mad at a lazy dog or whatever was holding him up, he could stand up and stomp, stomp, stomp on the bell in the floor.