The Time Garden (7 page)

"Wait," said Eliza. "There's something I have to do here, first." So the others waited.

What Eliza did was climb up to the loft and prop a whole stack of moldy hay against the half-open barn door, where it would plop down on the heads of any who tried to enter.

"There," she said, jumping down from the loft. "
That's
taken care of."

And she was none too soon, for a sound of running feet was heard from without, showing that the extra five minutes were up. Quickly Ann rubbed her sprig of thyme. The three children took a deep whiff, and Ann wished.

It was thoughtful of the magic to pick Niagara Falls as the place for them to enter Canada, for none of the three children had ever been there before, and the sight was thrilling. Eliza for one could hardly be torn away from the water's edge, and wanted to go over the falls in a barrel right now. And when the others dissuaded her, she wanted to sit down and have some of the dinner the runaway slaves were enjoying. For Ann had wished it to be dinnertime when they arrived, and so of course it
was,
and the three children were hungry all over again.

But Ann thought they had best be getting back to the house by the sea, for fear the mother of John and Abigail and Samantha would be worrying.

When the three children said good-bye to the three runaways, the ex-slaves fell on their knees and kissed their hands in gratitude.

"Don't do that," Roger told them. "Don't ever kneel to anybody or kiss anybody's hand again. You're free people now."

"Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!" said the ex-slaves.

At the last moment Eliza remembered the red bandanna and tried to give it back to the boy Bono, but he begged her to keep it as a gift, in token of everlasting gratitude, and Eliza was nothing loath.

And again Ann rubbed her sprig of thyme (which instead of getting worn out by all the rubbing seemed to be growing perkier and more bloomy with each splendid wish), and the next moment she and Roger and Eliza found themselves back in the kitchen.

An unpleasant scene was in progress. The success of Eliza's booby trap had been all that she could have hoped for. The sheriff and his helper and the lofty gentleman had burst in the barn door, and the lofty gentleman had been in the lead and had borne the brunt of it.

His top hat was crushed and there were wisps of hay sticking in his side whiskers and tickling him inside his collar and cluttering his fine suit. He was shaking his fist now and hurling threats at everyone in sight.

"Just let me get my hands on those three young scamps!" he was saying. "They planned this,
besides
stealing my slaves!"

"Not at all," said the mother. "We
always
leave the barn door arranged so. It's a special invention for keeping out unwelcome intruders. My little girl invented it. She's very clever." And her eyes smiled at Eliza.

The lofty gentleman whirled on the three children. "So
there
you are!" he said. "What have you done with my stolen property?"

"We haven't done anything with
anybody's
property," said Roger. And he was telling the truth, for how can one man be the property of another?

"'Pears like he's right," muttered the sheriff, scratching his head (which also contained its portion of hay). "Horses was all stabled. Warn't no time to get away on foot. Warn't no place to hide, neither!"

The gentleman opened his mouth to retort. Then he couldn't think of anything to say. He shut it again, and turned to his wife. "Come, Veronica!" he said. "I have seen enough of Yankee customs! We're going back to Virginia this very minute!" And jamming his ruined hat on his head, he stalked out the door. His wife sailed after him, her nose in the air. The child Lily Sue followed, beginning to cry again.

"Oh, stop that sniveling!" the voice of Lily Sue's mother was heard in the hall, followed by a loud slap, and then silence.

Back in the kitchen everyone giggled with relief, even the sheriff. A moment later he and his helper took their leave, with many apologies.

As soon as they were safely gone, the mother ran to embrace the three children. "John! Abigail! Samantha! What happened? Where did you put our three friends?"

"We got them away. They're going to be free now," said Roger, feeling this was as close to the truth as he could come without awkward questions.

"And to think," cried the mother in self-reproach, "that I tried to keep it from you! I thought you were too young to know. But you have proved otherwise. From now on, you may help me with the Underground Railroad as long as the need for it continues. But now back to bed. Even heroes must have their sleep. Put that nasty toad out in the garden first. I can't think how it can have got in the house."

"Can't we take it to bed with us just this once?" pleaded Ann, fearful that the Natterjack might be mislaid and left behind in the nineteenth century (though she need not have worried. All time is the same to a Natterjack).

"Oh very well, this once," said the mother. "Why you should choose such a horrid pet I cannot imagine. Though after all it
was
helpful tonight," she added, with a relenting smile.

The three children went upstairs, Eliza carrying the Natterjack. They put on their own clothes and assembled in the girls' room. Ann rubbed her sprig of thyme.

"There," she said a moment later, poking the sprig back into the flowery bank, where it attached itself and grew again.

"And a splendid time was had by all," sighed Eliza, in tones of satisfaction.

The three children lolled back on the blossomy slope under the sun of a twentieth-century midafternoon. The Natterjack squatted nearby, digesting a leafhopper.

"What I'm wondering," said Eliza, after a bit, "is about the real John and Abigail and Samantha. Where were they while we were there? And did all that happen to them, too, or just to us?"

"Anyway," said Roger almost enviously, "they're going to have a wonderful time from now on, helping runaway slaves practically every night."

"So that's another good turn we did,
besides
helping Bono get to Canada," said Ann.

"One good turn deserves another," said Eliza, "and we did two. We ought to get a specially good adventure next time."

"No bargaining," muttered the Natterjack. "Wait till your next chance comes."

"When'll
that
be?" said Eliza.

"All in good time," said the Natterjack. And it hopped away, leaving them with that to puzzle over.

Later that day Eliza remembered the red bandanna handkerchief and realized she'd left it in her nightgown pocket when she changed clothes, back in eighteen fifty-something. "Darn," she said. "I wanted it for a souvenir." Then Ann called her for a game of hide-and-seek and she forgot all about it.

It was two days afterward, on a morning of rain and northeast wind, that old Mrs. Whiton suggested Ann and Eliza and Roger might enjoy playing in the attic. And they did, for the attic was full of wonderful things like old chess sets and models of clipper ships and bound volumes of
The St. Nicholas Magazine.

It was Ann who wondered what was in the big cedar chest in the corner and it was Roger who figured out how to open it. But it was Eliza who found the red bandanna handkerchief, neatly folded on top of the things inside (which otherwise proved to be dull old extra sheets).

"It's the same one! I know it is!" she cried. "It's got the place where it tore a (little when we tug-of-warred it!"

"Let's ask old Mrs. Whiton," said Ann, and they ran to find her.

"So
that's
where it's been," said old Mrs. Whiton, straightening out the bandanna's faded folds. "I haven't seen it in years. Bono's kerchief, we always called it. It was given to my husband's great-aunt Abigail by a runaway slave boy she saved on the Underground Railroad."

"So you see?" said Eliza, when the three children were alone again. "The real John and Abigail and Samantha
must
have been there all along!"

"Then are they us?" said Roger ungrammatically, trying to puzzle it out, "or are we them?"

"Don't," said Ann. "That kind of thing makes my head ache. It's worse than long division."

"I guess it's all just part of the Mystery of Time," said Roger, sagely.

"And we've only just begun to explore it," said Eliza. "Compared with what's still to come, we haven't seen
anything
yet, hardly!"

And they hadn't.

4. All in Good Time

"I'm disappointed," said Eliza.

"What in?" said Roger, shouting to be heard over the waves, for the three children were sitting on the beach at high tide, several mornings later.

"The magic," said Eliza.

"I don't see how you can say that," said Ann. "It's been just lovely."

"Oh, it's been all right in its way," said Eliza, "so far. Only it's all been kind of nonfiction! Like those books where you get Highlights of History, with kind of a story wrapped around. Or those television shows where You are There. We've had the Revolution and the Civil War. Any day now we'll get around to the election of Calvin Coolidge. There's no variety."

"Variety is the surprise of life," said Ann, who had heard this somewhere.

"Exactly," said Eliza. "Without it all is dead bones."

"We've learned how to use the thyme wishes better," Roger pointed out. "Once we get started we can just keep on wishing it were time for whatever it is we want to wish for next!"

"It'll be simple from now on," said Ann. "All we do is, we look in the garden catalog first and pick out a kind of thyme that sounds like fun."

"Are we to be the mere toys and baubles of mere plant life?" said Eliza. "Suppose the time I want to go to isn't in their old catalog?"

"We could hybridize," suggested Roger, dubiously.

"You mean go to sleep for the winter?" said Ann.

"No," said Roger. "It means crossing two kinds of plants. I think you kind of mix the pollen."

"And then wait around for a year to see what happens!" scoffs Eliza. "
That's
no good!"

"Anyway, there're enough kinds already," said Ann. "There's golden thyme that we haven't tried, and lemon thyme and..."

"Oh, sure," said Eliza, "and learn all about fruit-growing in sunny California! That'll be dandy!"

"You're just out of sorts," said Roger. "You must have got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. Let's throw her in the ocean and wake her up."

So they did, and all argument dissolved in the briny joy of sheer wateriness. But their swim was of short duration.

Old Mrs. Whiton appeared and called from the rock stair. "Children, come in." So they went in, and climbed the steps to find her still waiting at the top. "Hurry and dress," she said. "Today we're going to Boston." And since old Mrs. Whiton's word was law in that house, they hurried to do just that.

Strange as it might seem, it turned out Jack had no engagement with a teenage girl that day. "I might as well come along, too," he said, which was most unusual of him.

As the girls were dressing in their room, Ann had a sudden thought. "Jack's coming," she said.

"I know," said Eliza.

"Well," said Ann, "I was sort of thinking. He almost never does. We almost never have a good time together, all of us. And I was thinking. 'All in good time,' the Natterjack said. This must be it!"

"First one dressed gets to ask," said Eliza.

The race was very nearly a tie. Eliza rushed down the stairs and out into the garden only a few seconds ahead of Ann. Roger appeared, saw where they were going, and followed.

The Natterjack lay upon the sundial, awake but torpid. It didn't seem interested in going anywhere or doing anything, even when Ann explained about the trip to Boston, and Jack's coming along.

Ann's face fell. "Oh," she said, disappointed. "I thought..."

"You said 'All in good time,'" Eliza reminded the Natterjack, accusingly.

"Did I say that?" said the Natterjack.

"Yes," said Eliza, "you did."

"Well ..." It seemed to hesitate. "It would be 'ighly irregular. I 'aven't been off this 'ere acre in 'alf a century. Besides, where would I find the thyme?"

"We could take a supply along," suggested Roger.

"No being carried in pockets, mind," said the Natterjack. "'Orrid close they is, for breathing."

"Don't worry, you'll have every comfort," Eliza assured it.

She and Roger and Ann raced for the kitchen. To wheedle an empty coffee tin from Mrs. Annable was the work of but a moment.

Back in the garden, Ann and Eliza made a soothing nest of thyme clippings for the Natterjack to repose on, in the bottom of the coffee tin. They put in snippets of as many different kinds of the creeping plant as they could find, just in case. Eliza put in any random creeping insects she came upon, too, for fear the Natterjack might feel hungry en route. Roger made air holes in the top of the tin with the can-opener blade of his jackknife. Ann lifted the Natterjack carefully from the sundial and placed it tenderly on its flowery cushion. It relaxed, and almost seemed to smile. Roger fixed the lid on tight.