The Moffat Museum (24 page)

Dear Sylvie:

How are you? And Ray, how is he? Do you still like it where you live? I like it, and I'll visit you again someday if you want me to. We are all fine. Guess what? Joey went to work today. He got his working papers last Thursday. He goes to work on his bike. Today was his first day. He said he liked it. He is an errand boy in the Yellow Building. Remember where that is ... on Meadow Street in New Haven across the street from the depot? I said, "How do you like it there, Joey?" He said, "Fine." I am going to wait for him at the corner every day for him to come back. I did that today.

I miss you. Oh, the bed seems empty without you. I spread my arms and legs all across it and try to fill it up. Oh, it's going to be cold in the wintertime, without you in it. Sometimes, I can't get to sleep right away. I think, "My! How late Sylvie is tonight at choir rehearsal!" Then I remember you are not coming home.

Guess what! Rufus inherited Hughie Pudge's
Saturday Evening Post
route. He has a big canvas bag and he delivers them and he also delivers the
Cranbury Chronicle.
And he
is also going to sing in an all-boys choir in a big church on the New Haven Green. He gets paid for it. Can you imagine getting paid for singing? Mama says it is the custom. The minister there told Rufus he knows Ray and said to say "Hello."So, "Hello!
"

We got our report cards today for the month of September. You remember they rank you in Room Thirteen? Mae Stevens ranked first. I didn't know she was so smart. I ranked third. Nancy Stokes ranked fifth. Wouldn't it be funny if a dummy like me ever got to rank first sometime? Ha-ha!

Miss Mason, my teacher now, remember? Well, she said to say "Hello." to you. So, "Hello." I picked up Joey's report card from Miss Muller. Remember her? The card said on the bottom of it Final Report, and the teacher had drawn a line across the rest of the report card from upper left to lower right sidewise all the way from October through June. No Joey in school all those months. She wrote on the bottom of it ... you remember the way she writes? So even? She wrote, "Good luck, Joseph Moffat. We will miss you. Your teacher, Miss Anna V. Muller." Joey smiled when he saw it. He put it in his pocket, the one in the inside of his new coat, the coat of the suit he wore to your wedding. Remember? I think he's going to keep it there always unless his pocket gets filled up with the names of places he has to run back and forth to, being an errand boy. Mama didn't have to sign his report card on the back because he isn't going back. But she signed it anyway ... Mrs. Catherine G. Moffat. She said the report card looked funny without her name on it. Joey thought so, too.

Were you wondering about the museum now that Joey has
gone to work? Well, we moved the sleigh back inside the barn. Your easel with the drawing of the fox with the bushy tail is in a new place close to the wall. It looks pretty there. Rufus put his waxworks head ... it's grown a little lopsided ... and all the clothes that Rufus, the waxworks boy, wore in the sleigh, a wintertime scene, a Madame Tussaud statue ... You notice I know how, we all know how, to spell that? Well so, yes. He put himself, his waxworks self, in the sleigh, so if people look through the knot in the wood of the door ... we found the doors and stood them up ... well, the knots make peepholes. People can see there really was a Madame Tussaud waxworks boy, especially if Rufus happens to be standing alongside that person peeping in. Real Rufus outside, waxworks statue inside. From now on our museum is going to be just for us Moffats, our special museum, not one for the entire population. That is the way I meant it to be in the beginning. Remember? It all just started with your old brown bike.

It's late. I hear the boys coming home. I hear Joey's bike bell. He just mailed Lesson One to a school far away. He is learning to be a draftsman. Then he will not run errands all his life. He will draw wonderful plans. Oh, I waved him good-bye this morning. I'll always wave him good-bye. And I'll always wait for him at the corner and wave him "Hello" when he comes riding back. I hope he always says, "Fine," when I ask him how it was there today in the Yellow Building.

Your loving sister,
Jane

Jane showed Mama the letter. "It's not very funny," she apologized. "I know Sylvie likes funny letters so she can say ha-ha a lot. Perhaps I should put a few more ha-has in it?"

Mama read the letter. "You don't always have to write a funny letter. This is a good letter ... full of news, the kind of news that Sylvie will love to hear," Mama said.

Then Mama put the small kerosene lamp in the window in the hall. What a busy day! What a day! Everyone was tired out. Mama kissed them all good night. The boys went upstairs to bed. Jane stood at the foot of the stairs for a moment. She saw Mama go back into the parlor and put the iron rod in the very last notch of the green velvet morris chair. Then, half reclining, she looked out the window, the way perhaps she often did, looking at the room outside, an exact reflection of the room inside. Maybe sometimes she imagined someone coming into that room outside, maybe, half asleep, she might imagine ... maybe ... Papa?

"Good night, Mama," Jane whispered and tiptoed up the stairs to bed.

Eleanor Estes
(1906–1988) grew up in West Haven, Connecticut, which she renamed Cranbury for her classic stories about the Moffat and Pye families. A children's librarian for many years, she launched her writing career with the publication of
The Moffats
in 1941. Two of her outstanding books about the Moffats—
Rufus M.
and
The Middle Moffat
—were awarded Newbery Honors, as was her short novel
The Hundred Dresses.
She won the Newbery Medal for
Ginger Pye
in 1952.