The Wish Giver (4 page)

One wish—that’s all Thaddeus Blinn had given each of those who’d sat in his tent. Polly wondered if the story she’d heard about Rowena Jervis talking to a bunch of trees had anything to do with the wishing.

If there was any way out of the predicament, it’d take somebody smarter’n Polly herself to find it. But where was there anyone with enough Yankee cleverness and common sense to—

Then a little gasp came from Polly’s lips. Perhaps there was a way, after all. If only…

Quickly Polly got to her feet. She started at a walk, but her feet moved faster and faster, and soon she was running as fast as she could—running toward where the lights of Coven Tree were blinking on in the twilight.

A
s soon as her folks brought her home from the Church Social, Rowena Jervis scurried up the stairs to her room. She placed the red-spotted card from Thaddeus Blinn in the ebony box on the table by her bed and looked at the big calendar on the wall.

The following day—Sunday—was circled in red. Right across the number Rowena had printed a name in big block letters:

HENRY PIPER

“Henry’s coming,” she sighed to herself. She heard the back door slam downstairs as her pa went out to the barn to see to the livestock. There was a buzz of voices in the kitchen. Sam Waxman, the hired boy, was due to clean up the cellar, and Mrs. Jervis wanted to be sure he did the job right.

Rowena was annoyed. She wanted to talk to her mother alone, not with Sam around. She’d put the thing off as long as she could. If the idea she had in mind was going to work out, she had to see Mama about it right now. Tomorrow would be too late.

She went downstairs, resisting the urge to slide down the banister. That was for children. At fifteen, one had to be more dignified.

Her mother and Sam were seated at the kitchen table. Mrs. Jervis mumbled something to Sam. “Yes’m,” he replied, and his thick shock of red hair bobbed about as he nodded his head.

Tall and gangly, Sam seemed to be mostly arms and legs, stuck somehow onto his long stick of a body. But he could do a man’s work around the farm. He took his meals with the Jervises and lived in a little room out in the barn.

Rowena wasn’t at all fond of Sam. Sam was seventeen and had a way of speaking his mind that she found annoying and sometimes downright rude. Sam was just a bumpkin—so unlike Henry Piper.

“Mama?” she said softly.

“Yes, Rowena?” her mother said. “What is it?”

Sam got to his feet. “I’d best be going out and
help Mr. Jervis in the barn,” he said, “so’s you two can talk alone.”

“Sam Waxman, you stay put,” replied Mrs. Jervis firmly. “Clifton said he could do without you for two days while you cleaned the cellar. And I mean to have it done right this time. Anything Rowena’s got to tell me won’t take long. Now what is it, girl?”

“Well, I…” she began. “Mama, Henry Piper will be coming to town tomorrow.”

Mrs. Jervis sighed deeply. “I suppose so,” she said. “Twice a year, just like clockwork, the Neverfail Farm Implement Company sends that Henry Piper around with his catalog. And your father ends up with more seeders and cultivators and hay forks than he could use around here in a month of Sundays.”

“Mother,” said Rowena, “Henry would never sell anybody something they didn’t need.”

“No? Well, you just watch him at his peddling sometime. Flirting with the farm wives and grown daughters, and chucking the babies under their chins. Talking about the far places he’s been to and the things he’s seen. And all to sell his tools and machinery. I tell you, Henry Piper could charm the socks off a snake. Well, he’ll
only be here for three days, and I give thanks for that blessing.”

“Mama, don’t talk so! Henry’s just so sophisticated and worldly that it takes a very special kind of person to appreciate him.”

Mrs. Jervis scowled at her daughter. “Rowena, you sound almost like you think you’re in love with that boy. You’re far too young to be even considering such nonsense.”

“I’m fifteen, Mama. In only seven more months I’ll be sixteen. And I…I…”

“Oh, get on with it, Rowena. What was it you wanted to ask me?”

“Well…you know Henry always stays at Miz Ballentine’s rooming house when he’s in town.”

“Yes. Where else would he put up?”

“I…I was wondering whether he might stay here this time.”

Sam let out a snort that a horse would have been proud of. Then he started chuckling behind his hand.

“Sam Waxman, you stop that this instant!” Rowena put her hands on her hips, and her eyes glittered angrily.

“Rowena, you
have
got a thing for that fella, ain’t you?” said Sam.

“No, I don’t—”

“Yes, you do too. Remember Sunday dinner last fall when he came by? Maybe you didn’t think I noticed the two of you holding hands under the tablecloth. And them things he was telling you!”

Sam tried to copy Henry Piper’s manner of speaking. “Oh, St. Louis and Boston are fun,” he mimicked. “But New York City! Now there’s a place where everything is going on at once.”

Sam took Rowena’s hand. “Rowena,” he crooned in a mocking whisper, “we’ll walk the streets at three in the morning, and it’ll be just like noon, with lights all over the place. Just imagine you in your best dress, sashaying down Broadway on my arm, the two of us looking up at buildings five times as tall as the highest pine in Coven Tree. Then eating in fine restaurants where we’ll be served any kind of food you can imagine. Oh, Rowena! My dear one!”

Sam kissed Rowena’s hand with a loud smack. She jerked her hand away quickly. The words had sounded so lovely when Henry had said them. And here was Sam, making fun of the whole thing.

“Sam Waxman, you stop it at once!” she
snapped. “I’ll have no more of this.”

“And I’ll have no more talk of Henry Piper’s being in this house for three days making calf eyes at you, Rowena,” said her mother.

“With all that walking around the city at night, how does Henry manage to get any sleep?” Sam went on.

“If you say one more word, Sam, I’ll—”

“Have done, the both of you!” ordered Mrs. Jervis. “Henry’s not staying here, and that’s flat.”

Rowena flounced out of the kitchen and back upstairs to her own room. It just wasn’t fair, she thought, flinging herself onto the bed. Bad enough Henry’s coming to Coven Tree only twice a year. The least Mama and Daddy could do was let him stay here where she could see him as often as she liked.

Rowena lay on her stomach, imagining how grand it would be if Henry’d settle in Coven Tree. Then she could see him every day. She closed her eyes and pictured him, all fine and neat in his striped suit, with his black hair slicked down.

Then the picture changed. It wasn’t Henry she saw in her mind’s eye anymore.

It was Thaddeus Blinn.

I can give you whatever you ask for
, Blinn’s
sign had said. Rowena knew what she wanted. She wanted to see Henry a lot more often than a few days twice a year.

She opened her eyes. There, just inches from her face, on the bedside table, was the ebony box. She opened it and took out the red-spotted card. Then she got up, went to the closet, and put the card in the pocket of her best dress.

“We will see what we will see,” she said to herself, “as soon as Henry gets here.”

The next day, after church, Rowena was out in front gathering some flowers when she heard a shout from the road.

“Hello, the Jervises! Is anyone about?”

Henry Piper! With a glad little cry, Rowena ran toward the gate, calling his name. “Oh, I…I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said.

“I couldn’t stay away, lovely lady,” replied Henry with a deep bow. “I came here first thing, as soon as I got off the train.”

Rowena thought she might faint from pure joy. Then she heard a voice behind her.

“You came here first thing, huh? Then how come you ain’t got no bags with you except that little case with your catalog and order slips in
it? Naw, you got yourself fixed in at Miz Ballentine’s first. Got all freshened up. Your hair’s still wet.”

Ohh, that Sam! Rowena could have killed him!

“Sam Waxman, ain’t you got anything better to do than stand gawking while two old friends get reacquainted?”

“Yep. Reckon I do.” Sam looked Henry up and down. “It won’t do for me to stand here talking. That’s Henry’s department—talking.” And off he walked toward the barn.

“Never mind Sam,” Rowena said sweetly. “You come inside, Henry. Perhaps you can stay for dinner.”

“Perhaps I can, my dear. I have a whole new line of machinery I want to talk to your father about.”

Rowena pouted prettily.

“And later, maybe you and I can have a few words together—alone.” When Henry said “alone” that way, Rowena’s innards felt like they were filled with butterflies.

Henry stayed the whole day. He spent most of the afternoon in the front parlor with Mr. Jervis, talking about machinery. It wasn’t until that evening that Rowena got Henry to herself. They
sat on the big back porch, watching the last of the sunset.

Rowena was of two minds about Henry. She was, of course, delighted to have him there. But she was already thinking ahead to the time two days hence when he’d be leaving Coven Tree.

“After tomorrow I have some time off from school,” she said hopefully. “And on Tuesday, Susannah Haskill is giving a party. I thought perhaps you could…I mean, we could…”

But Henry just laughed. “Silly goose,” he replied, tweaking her nose. “What would the Neverfail Farm Implement Company think if they found their best salesman going off to parties instead of tending to business?”

Rowena sighed. She was sure Henry liked her. If only he’d come right out and
say
so.

“Almost dark,” Henry said. “I’d best be getting back to Miz Ballentine’s.”

“Can’t you stay just a little longer?” Rowena pleaded.

“I expect your pa would like you inside and me gone. I’ll just cut across the backyard. Until tomorrow, Rowena.”

And without waiting for a reply, he stepped off the porch.

Two more days, and then Henry’d be gone again for another six months. Rowena couldn’t bear the thought of it. From the pocket of her best dress she took out the card she’d placed there yesterday. She pressed her thumb firmly against the red spot and made her wish:

“
I wish…I wish Henry Piper would put down roots here in Coven Tree and never leave again!
”

The spot on the card suddenly felt warm against her thumb.

Henry had disappeared into the darkness. In the still night air Rowena heard a rustling sound. It was accompanied by grunts and groans and heavy breathing, and it seemed to be coming from the thick grove of trees back where the lawn ended and the fields began. At first Rowena thought it might be some wild critter who’d gotten tangled with a tree limb.

But then she heard the voice. It was little more than a whisper: “Consarn it! Rowena, come help me!”

Rowena seized a lantern from the porch, lit it, and held it in front of her as she crossed the backyard to the grove of trees. They grew in a circle, and their tangled branches made it hard
for her to enter. Finally she forced her way in and held the lantern high.

There stood Henry Piper, mumbling angry words. He was bent over, and at first Rowena thought he was pulling up his sock. Then she saw it was the ankle itself he was yanking up on.

“Henry?” Rowena gasped. “What are you doing, lurking about here? I thought you’d be halfway back to Miz Ballentine’s by now.”

“Keep your voice down, Rowena. I…I don’t want anybody else to come out here and find me in this fix.”

“Fix? What fix, Henry?”

“It’s my feet. They seem to be stuck to the ground. And I can’t move either of ’em, no matter how hard I try.”

“
H
enry, are you spoofing me?”

But Henry wasn’t playing any joke. He stood in the center of the circle of trees with both feet planted firmly together on the earth. From the look on his face, Rowena could see he was plain, deep-down scared!

“I’m stuck, I tell you,” he said in a quavering voice. “It’s like I was glued to the earth. You’d better get me loose right quick, Rowena Jervis.”

Rowena knelt and looked carefully at Henry’s feet and ankles. They didn’t seem to be caught in any trap. She grasped his right leg and yanked up hard. Nothing happened.

“I’ll get Daddy,” she said. “Maybe he—”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Henry replied. “If word of this gets out, I’ll be a laughingstock
in the whole county. I’ll be finished as a salesman. You just keep your mouth shut and get me loose. Try wrapping your arms about me and lifting.”

Rowena got behind Henry and threw her arms about him. For months she’d yearned to have her arms around Henry Piper. But not when something like this was happening.

She heaved upward. For all the good it did, she might as well have been trying to haul a full-grown tree out of the ground.

“It…it isn’t working, Henry.”

“Then do something else,” he ordered.

“Rowena!” It was Mr. Jervis, calling from the back porch.

“Yes, Daddy?”

“Are you out there with Henry Piper? That young jackanapes never did say good-bye.”

Rowena was about to say yes when she saw Henry scowling at her. “No, Daddy!” she called back. “I’m alone. I’ll be right in.”

“Don’t you dare let on to your father that I’m out here,” Henry whispered through clenched teeth. “I never felt so foolish in my life.”

“I won’t tell. But I must go inside. Can I do
something to make you more comfortable, Henry?”

“I’m chilly. I need a coat or something.”

“I’ll just go in the house and…”

“No! Your pa will get to wondering. Get something from the barn.”

The only thing Rowena could find was an old horse blanket. She wrapped it around Henry. “That should keep you warm,” she said. “Tomorrow I’ll be out first thing and bring you breakfast. Or maybe you’ll get free in the meantime.”

Henry sniffed at the blanket and wrinkled his nose. “Phoo!” he exclaimed. “This old thing stinks of hay and horse sweat. Haven’t you got anything cleaner?”

Rowena glared at him. “You said you didn’t want me to go into the house, Henry.”

“Then I suppose it’ll have to do.”

Rowena ran off toward the house, while Henry clutched the smelly blanket close about him and tried to stop the chattering of his teeth.

Rowena didn’t sleep much that night. She was too jittery and upset—and a little scared—by what had happened. Henry Piper, stuck to the ground—had ever there been such a thing be
fore? By morning she was so logy and puff eyed that her mother wondered if she was sick.

“No, Mama. Just a bit tired.”

As soon as she could, Rowena sneaked out to the grove of trees with a doughnut from the breakfast table. Henry stood there, shivering in the blanket.

“I brought you this, Henry,” said Rowena.

“A doughnut,” he sneered. “If it wasn’t for coming to see you, I’d be down at Miz Ballentine’s right now, eating ham and eggs. All you’ve got is an old doughnut. Well, I don’t need it.”

“You’ve got to eat, Henry.”

“I feel like I’ve been eating all night. Only the food came up from my feet instead of down from my mouth. What in tarnation has happened to me, Rowena?”

“Henry, I really think I should tell somebody—”

“You just keep that mouth of yours shut, young lady!”

“Henry Piper, you never in your life talked to me like that before,” said Rowena. “But…well don’t start worrying. We’ll get you free. Let me find you something to sit on.”

“I’ve got every right to worry,” Henry replied.
“And as for sitting, I can’t do it. My knees won’t bend. I’m stiff from the waist down. Never mind a chair. Just get rid of this smelly blanket.”

“All right, Henry. But then I have to go to school. I’ll come back, soon as I can.”

“You’d better,” said Henry sternly. “I’m stuck on your property, so you have to look after me until I get loose.”

Rowena walked out of the grove of trees. Suddenly she turned and stuck out her tongue at the spot where Henry was standing.

The school day passed almost like a dream—or a nightmare. Afterward Rowena ran all the way home, hoping to slip in the back door without anybody seeing her. But Mama was in the kitchen.

“Sit down, Rowena,” said Mrs. Jervis. “I want to talk to you.”

Rowena put a hand to her lips. Had Mama discovered…?

“Did you pass the grade school on your way home?” Mama asked.

Rowena shook her head. “I took the short cut. Why?”

“Clara Fessengill came by today, and she said
Polly Kemp was croaking like a frog in school. I thought you might have heard—”

“Oh, Mama, you know Polly. She’d do anything to get attention.”

“No, Clara said it was like Polly couldn’t help herself. As if croaking had taken the place of talking.”

“Clara Fessengill’s an old gossip…” Rowena began. Then she suddenly closed her mouth, and a little shiver ran up her spine.

“Excuse me, Mama.” Rowena darted through the back door and out of her mother’s sight. Polly Kemp, acting strangely—Polly who’d sat right next to her in Thaddeus Blinn’s tent. What was going on?…

In the midst of the circle of trees she found Henry just as she’d left him. No, not quite the same. “I seem to be losing my voice, too,” he told her in a harsh whisper. “You’ve got to get me loose.”

“But how, Henry?”

“Maybe you can pry me free. Get that long branch there.”

Rowena got the branch.

“Now bring it over here.”

Rowena did as she was told.

“Can’t you move any faster, Rowena?” Henry wheezed. “Now slide the end of it under my foot. No, you ninny, not that end! The other one. Goldurn you, Rowena, stop being so infernally dumb!”

Could this be the same Henry Piper she’d thought was so marvelous only yesterday? “I’m doing the best I can,” she said.

“Well, your best isn’t all that good. Now get a piece of wood—not that one, dad-blast it,
that
one! Stick it underneath the pole. Take it easy there. It feels like you’re tickling my foot.”

Rowena was too upset by all the orders Henry was spouting at her to wonder how he could feel tickling right through the sole of his shoe. “Now push down on the pole,” Henry went on. “Push harder, you silly…oww! What are you trying to do, cripple me?”

“You told me to pry, Henry. I’m prying. I can’t keep things straight when you’re giving me all those orders at the same time.”

“You’re just like all the rest. Not enough sense to boil water.”

All the rest? All
what
rest? Rowena wondered. But before she could ask Henry, she heard another voice behind her.

“Rowena, I thought I seen you in here, and…what the dickens!”

Sam! With a guilty start Rowena turned to face him.

Sam scowled at Rowena. “Have you and Henry been sneaking—”

“No! It’s not like that at all.” Suddenly it was important to Rowena that Sam understand what she and Henry were doing in the grove. “Henry’s feet got stuck to the ground somehow, and—”

“Yeah, I’ll bet they did,” muttered Sam. “Well, I’ll pry him loose in a hurry.”

Sam put his whole weight on the lever. Henry’s cries of pain were oddly muffled, as if they came from a distant valley.

“Hush up, Henry,” said Sam. “D’you want to get loose or not?”

Finally Sam had to give up. “I guess you’re right, Rowena,” he said. “Henry’s stuck fast. It’s eerie. I never saw the like before…. Do your folks know about this?”

“No, and you ain’t gonna tell ’em, either,” said Henry.

“Don’t you be giving me orders, Henry,” Sam said. “Now, if we’re going to get you loose, we
first have to see what’s holding you down.”

Sam took out his jackknife and knelt at Henry’s feet.

“Sam, you be careful,” Henry said. “It’s scary enough, just being stuck here. I don’t want to get cut, too.”

“Hmmm. That’s odd,” said Sam.

“What’s odd?” asked Henry.

“Your shoes. Leather’s all cracked. It looks for all the world like bark on a tree. And the bark goes clear up to your ankles. Well, I’ll soon cut you loose.”

Sam thrust the knife blade under Henry’s right shoe.

“Aaarrghhh!” Henry’s scream wasn’t very loud, sounding like he had a blanket wrapped about his head. But Rowena gasped in alarm.

“You hurt me, Sam,” Henry whimpered. “You cut my foot with your knife.”

Sam looked up. “Henry, I swear I was digging way down below the sole of your shoe and—”

“Sam, look at that!” cried Rowena, pointing. “That red stuff on the blade of your knife. It looks like blood.”

“Blood!” shrieked Henry as loud as he could. “My blood!”

“But how could…?” Sam began. Then he started digging below Henry’s shoes with his fingers. It was slow going, but finally the earth beneath Henry’s right heel had been scraped away.

“Look there, Rowena,” said Sam. From the bottom of Henry’s foot were growing…

“Roots?” Rowena asked, astonished.

“Roots,” Sam replied.

“You mean Henry is rooted to the ground like a…a
tree
?”

“It seems so. And if we cut those roots, it’d be like stabbing a knife into Henry’s body. It might even kill him.”

“Don’t do it, then!” moaned Henry. “I don’t want to die!”

“But what could have caused Henry to grow roots and…?” Rowena began. Then she started trembling and shaking all over as she finally understood the thing she’d done to Henry Piper.

Roots! Rowena had said the word before, just a short time ago. Last night on the porch—she’d
pressed her thumb onto the spot on the wish card and wished…wished that…

…Henry Piper would put down roots here in Coven Tree and never leave again!

“Oh, Sam!” Rowena cried as tears filled her eyes. “Ooohh, Saaam!”