The Moffat Museum (6 page)

Mr. Pennypepper then looked at his watch. "Let those in the rear step forward and survey this remarkable artifact, and let the ones in front, who have had more than ample time to study it, file slowly inside the museum and examine what's next. Remember! Do not touch an artifact!"

"The artifacts! The artifacts!" some children shouted.

Jane's heart pounded with excitement! And it pounded with elation! Thanks to Rufus, the tour so far had been an astounding success! She was proud of Rufus, who, in spite of what Letitia claimed, had not moved his eyes to right or left. The superintendent of all the schools in Cranbury had said so. That was smart of Rufus to make the holes for his eyes so small! For a little fellow who loved to run and climb and be on the go all the time, it was astounding that he had been able to sit as still as a statue all this time! And to be a winter waxworks boy on such a hot day!

Even when Catherine-the-cat, spotting all these people thronging around Rufus in the sleigh, covered by her favorite hand-crocheted rug, sprang from behind the honeysuckle, landed on Rufus's lap, and crawled under the humped-up rug, even then Rufus's hands did not tremble. His eyes stared straight ahead. Even if she had scratched him, he gave no sign.

Letitia could not resist one final remark. On her way into the museum, she said, "
If
that boy in the sleigh is not the live Rufus, if that
is
a waxworks statue of Rufus, where is the real Rufus? Let him come out from wherever he is and stand beside the sleigh!"

Jane said calmly, "This is not a hide-and-seek game where you say, 'Come out, come out, wherever you are!' This is a museum, The Moffat Museum!"

The children behind Letitia pushed her into the museum. They wanted to see the rest and shoved her aside.

They wanted to see the artifacts. "The artifacts! The artifacts! We want to see the artifacts!" more and more children shouted.

"Where are the artifacts?" demanded Letitia Murdock. "Do they fly?"

"All, all, or almost all things here are artifacts," Jane, the explainer, said with a wide sweep of her arms.

"What is an artifact?" demanded Letitia. "Do those flies on pins, when no one is looking, fly?"

Here Joey saw fit to say something. "Art is to fact what fact is to art."

Mr. Pennypepper overheard this remark and nodded his head. "An astute algebraic solution. Q.E.D.," he said sagely.

Once inside the museum, the children were impressed, although they had hoped for more waxworks. Some liked the painting of a fox on Sylvie's easel, and the star dust was a great attraction.

"What is this old thing doing here?" Letitia demanded, pointing to the old brown bike.

Jane said, "Because we all learned to ride on it!"

Letitia also wanted to know about the china head, safe high up on its shelf.

"Is that a waxworks beheaded head?" she asked.

"No," said Jane. "That is a china head of a man that my mother says looks exactly like my father. My papa used to keep his Velvet tobacco in it for his pipe."

Jane carefully took the head down. She did not let anyone touch it, but she said anyone who wanted to could smell the inside of it. There was still the faintest scent of tobacco in it. "It is the most precious thing inside the museum. I have to bring it back inside the house unless someone is here to guard it."

Some liked Jane's miniature gallery, made out of an empty wooden orange crate. She told them that the tiny oriental rugs on its two floors had come as souvenirs in the boxes of Velvet tobacco Papa used to buy and that Mama had given them to her.

Now Letitia was impressed. She poked her head close to the little art gallery. She was careful not to knock over even one little easel. She sniffed. "They do smell like the china head," she said positively. As many as could lined up to compare sniffs, of the rugs and of the head, and agreed. Many vowed that this afternoon they would go to the store and ask if there were any empty orange crates so they could make a miniature gallery, too.

Now everybody had been inside and outside The Moffat Museum. Those who did not have a barn in their backyard wished they had one and could make a museum, too. Mr. Pennypepper was standing on the far side of the sleigh in the scant shade of the honeysuckle vines. He was rocking back and forth from heel to toe, jingling coins and keys, and often surveying Rufus with an appreciative sort of smile. Even Catherine-the-cat, under her cozy little rug, did not move and could have been a waxworks museum cat.

Miss Grymes clapped her hands to gather the children into formation. Mr. Pennypepper took his gold watch out of his vest pocket. He always wore a vest, no matter how hot the day was.

"Hurry the group into line," he said to Miss Grymes. "We are off schedule because of having added another stop to our annual tour. And what a splendid addition it was, a wonder and a delight! Now we must catch up, walk fast, not to keep Mr. Buckle waiting, eager as he always is to exhibit his chicken-bone furniture, another wonder and delight for all of us. Thank you, Jane, and thank you, Joseph." And he tipped his hat to Rufus, the waxworks statue.

Joey thought he saw Mr. Pennypepper wink at Rufus.

Then Mr. Pennypepper started walking down the narrow sidewalk past the house, the line of boys following behind him, then the girls, and finally Miss Grymes, who asked Letitia to walk beside her. She thought she saw a pin in Letitia's hands and suspected, but did not know for sure, that Letitia might stick the pin into Rufus.

Mama was standing on the front porch, half hidden by the hop vines. She was worried. Should she ask them in for tea, or lemonade? She had only two lemons and not many glasses, even jelly ones. Her heart skipped a beat when Mr. Pennypepper paused in front of the porch and addressed her. Taking off his hat and bowing slightly, he said, "Mrs. Moffat. There should be a plaque on your house: 'The Moffat Museum.' In smaller letters you might add, if you want, 'In the rear!' or even say, 'By appointment only!' making certain afterward that all the artifacts are in their right places ... the waxworks statue, for example. Children, say, 'Thank you, Mrs. Moffat,' And thank the museum workers!"

The children gathered around the front porch. They said, "Thank you, Mrs. Moffat. It was great! And thank Joey and Jane and..."

They turned around for one last look at the sleigh and at Rufus, the waxworks boy, in his wintry attire.

"...and thank Rufus, the waxworks boy."

Then Rufus stood up. He waved! "Good-bye!" he called. He held his arm straight out to them and stiffly waved his waxen hand. "Good-bye!" he said again.

"The statue spoke! Rufus, the waxworks statue, spoke!" The children gasped. Then they burst into roars of laughter. They shouted! They clapped! They danced up and down! "Rufus! Rufus! You were great! Oh, what a wonderful waxworks statue boy you were! Hurray for Rufus Moffat, the waxworks boy!"

"The Madame Tussaud waxworks boy!" Letitia added.

Mr. Pennypepper tipped his hat, waved, and started down the street. Then many children, walking backward, went down the narrow path to the street waving and waving to Rufus, who also waved as long as he could see them.

Now Rufus stepped out of the sleigh! "Phew!" he said. He shed one artifact sifter another, carefully removing his wax face and laying it on his mackinaw. No longer Rufus, the waxworks boy, he stood on the seat of the sleigh, clad now only in his cool khaki shorts!

Jane said to him, "Oh, Rufus! You were the best artifact of all." She patted his bare brown knee.

And Joey said, "The best, the very best! I didn't have to say one word. Even if we had had the mighty meteor, you would still have been the best artifact in The Moffat Museum!"

The heat wave had broken. It was a perfect summer's day, and tomorrow would be, too, if the weatherman was right. Jane was sitting on the front porch in the shade of the hop vines, thinking about tomorrow, for that was going to be Sylvie's wedding day. She was to be married at noon in the little granite church on the Green.

As if that weren't enough, Jane had more to think about. She was going to be a flower girl,
the
flower girl in Sylvie's wedding. Jane had never been to a wedding, much less been in one.

Until now she had not had much time to think about what you do being a flower girl. The museum had taken up all her thinking time for many days. "I shoulda thought up the museum
after
the wedding, not before it," she mused.

People who are going to be flower girls should be told a long, long time in advance, say, a month at least, to get used to the idea, but she'd known it for only a few days. Still, you couldn't blame anyone for that. At first Sylvie and Ray Abbot were going to be married without anyone else in the wedding at all. Just the two of them and, of course, the minister. Ray wanted the wedding to be as simple as possible. Finally Sylvie persuaded Ray to let Jane be her flower girl. Now at least one other Moffat would be part of the wedding. And it would still be a "simple" wedding as Ray wished.

The sweet smell of roses, which were bursting into bloom along Mrs. Price's fence to the left of the porch, filled the air. All up and down the street, in almost everybody's garden, roses were bursting into blossom. Jane drew in a deep, long breath. Then she jumped up and plucked one pale pink rose that was drooping over the fence. She sat down again and buried her nose in it to absorb its soft, sweet fragrance.

"O-o-oh, my!" she murmured.

Jane sat there smelling and smelling her rose. She was waiting for Sylvie. Sylvie had missed the great Pennypepper day at the museum, missed the "Ohs!" and the "Ahs!" about her painting of a bushy-tailed fox on her easel, not seen her little brother Rufus being a Madame Tussaud waxworks-boy statue.

Well, Sylvie had plenty to think about besides museums: showers to go to, parties, dances. Now, in a few minutes, she was about to rush home from one of these special affairs to try on her wedding dress.

Jane was waiting for her because she wanted to see how Sylvie was going to look on this last day before her wedding. She wanted to study Sylvie as she came up the walk, try to gather how she felt about becoming the Reverend Mrs. Raymond Abbot tomorrow.

Indoors, Mama was putting the finishing touches on Sylvie's wedding dress in tiny, tiny stitches, all by hand. The dress was spread like a fleecy cloud all over the dining-room table.

Fortunately, Mrs. Shoemaker's silver anniversary dress had been finished. This had given Mama just enough time to concentrate on the wedding. When Mrs. Shoemaker had walked off with her stiff taffeta silver anniversary dress held carefully over her left arm, Mama had sighed with relief. "Let's hope that is the end of that!" she said. "Let's hope she neither gains nor loses one inch until after her big celebration."

"I know," said Jane with sympathy. "You should put a sign on the door: NO MORE SEWING UNTIL AFTER SYLVIE'S WEDDING! We put a sign on the museum: CLOSED FOR WEDDING. And we put Rufus, I mean, waxworks boy Rufus, in the cellar to cool ... his face anyway."

Despite all the time spent on Mrs. Shoemaker's special dress and on Sylvie's wedding dress, Mama had managed, late in the evenings, to make another special dress ... Jane's flower-girl dress. "After all that taffeta, and I don't like sewing on taffeta—makes me cringe if anyone runs a finger across it—well, your dress, then, was a blessing to make." Mama stroked Jane's forehead. How was it that Mama's hands were always so cool? Such a wonderful feeling, that cool hand on her forehead! Like the cool pink rose in her hands now!

Jane's dress was hanging upstairs in her little closet. Jane loved it. It was made of soft pale pink voile, about the same color as the rose she was holding. Mama had sewn a little ruffle of the same soft voile around the hem. Also, she had fashioned a wide pale pink satin sash for the waist. All was soft and pink and pretty. You opened the closet door and there it hung, completely out of the reach of Catherine-the-cat!

Catherine was a terrible problem, especially now in the summertime with screen doors that did not bang shut when you came in and went out. You had to give them a strong yank and be sure they were tightly latched, for Catherine was always lurking somewhere out of sight, and was she crafty! Leave the door ajar even a hair's breadth and she'd pry it open with her big front paw just enough for her to squeeze in; then pounce, if she could, into the middle of whatever Mama was sewing.

The Catherine problem was worse than ever now with Sylvie's filmy wedding dress occupying most of the room. So far, someone had always managed to nab Catherine midway in the air. Practically every member of the family had more than a few scratches.

Then Rufus had a good idea. That was to leave his waxworks blanket, Jane's humpy hand-crocheted rag rug, in the sleigh. Catherine had always loved that rug when it was inside the house on the brown morris chair in the dining room, which she preferred to the green morris chair in the parlor. She'd go to sleep under the hump; you had to be careful not to sit on her. Now she found it quite novel to discover that her private sleeping quarters had been moved outdoors. There she would pretend to sleep, but she really was listening to the birds, twitching her ears and the tip of her tail when she heard one.