Tucker's Countryside (15 page)

“Don't tell me!” burst out Tucker. “Is the kitty getting sick of all the lobster Newburg and chocolate sundaes?”

“All right, all right—that's enough of that,” said Harry. “You've had your share, too.”

“You don't have to go right away, do you?” said Chester rather woefully. “I mean—now that the meadow's been saved, we can all enjoy it together.”

“Well, not this very day,” said Harry. “But pretty soon. I'm beginning to get homesick for neon lights and the rumble of the subway. And the mousiekins here must be worried about his Life Savings.”

“My Life Savings—!” Tucker Mouse clutched his chest. “I'd forgotten all about them!”

“The day you forget your Life Savings!” said Harry in disbelief.

“No, Harry, I had!” said Tucker. “I've been so busy saving the meadow. I wonder if those nasty rats got everything.” He began fidgeting. “Harry, when can we go? When, Harry?”

“When you solve my problem,” said the cat. “You've got to find some way so that Ellen won't be unhappy when she loses her pet. Me, that is.”

“Hmm.” Tucker scratched one ear and wiggled his whiskers. “A very difficult assignment.”

“I hope you can't think of anything for a long time,” said Chester. “September's beautiful in the meadow.”

“So that's it,” said Harry. “You come up with a good idea, and then we go back to New York. In the meantime, come over again tomorrow some time. Mrs. Hadley's baking an apple pie for supper, and I'll try to steal you a chunk.”

“Apple pie—” A familiar look of glazed rapture came over Tucker's face.

“You know something, Harry,” said Chester Cricket. “I think you may be around for quite a while yet.”

“I think we may, too!” Harry Cat laughed.

*   *   *

But it wasn't too many days before Tucker Mouse did think of a good idea. August ended and September began. The green, golden summer was flecked here and there with touches of red and brown. School started for Ellen, and this year the little kids, too, were entering the first grade. Tucker and Chester went over to the Hadleys' every day. Harry always had a little delicacy tucked away for his friends. But the mouse knew that however good a cook Mrs. Hadley was, he and Harry couldn't stay in Connecticut forever. So one morning when they were together in the stump, he told Chester his plan.

Chester shook his head and said, “It's wonderful—if he'll do it.”

When Harry heard the new idea, he burst out laughing. “He's so timid, though—don't tell him till the very last minute.”

For the next two days Harry spent a great deal of time in the meadow. He slept in the stump too, because he wanted Ellen to get used to the notion that he might be getting restless and want to move on. On the third morning, however, when she woke up, there was Harry, sitting on the foot of her bed. “You're back!” she said. “And I thought you were gone for good.”

They had breakfast together. Harry's was cat food, but she gave him a little piece of her fried egg, too. The last thing she always did before leaving for school was to pick Harry up and kiss him on the head. When she did so today, Harry licked her hand and gave a long purr. She looked at him curiously. He was such an extraordinary cat! There were times when she felt as if he knew much more about her than she did about him. Harry purred again, and she put him down. He knew it was the last time she would ever see him.

And so, at last, the afternoon came when Tucker and Harry were to leave for New York. All the animals of the meadow wanted them to stay, but they knew how it was when you'd been away from home a long time. At five o'clock, when the light was long and low and lovely, they were all gathered by Simon's Pool to say goodbye, before John Robin guided the cat and the mouse to the station.

“Is she over in her Special Place?” whispered Tucker to Harry.

“Yes. And she's calling me,” said Harry. “It makes me feel awful! Hurry up!”

Tucker jumped up on Simon's log. “Dear friends,” he began, “before we say goodbye, there is something that still must be taken care of. As most of you know, Harry Cat—who also goes by the name of Kittykittykitty—has been living over at the Hadleys' all summer as Ellen's pet. And she has grown to love him. Who could not?—for to know Harry is to love him.”

“Hooray!” came a shout from the sundries. It was the first and only time in the history of Connecticut that a crowd of fieldmice had shouted “hooray” for a tomcat.

Tucker continued: “Now, in order that Ellen shouldn't be too unhappy at her tragic loss, we've decided that she ought to have another pet. Nobody can ever replace Harry, but somebody is going to try. And that somebody is—” His right front paw flashed out and pointed straight at— “—
you,
Henry Chipmunk!” He jumped down off the log and patted Henry on the shoulder. “Congratulations, Henry—you are now Ellen Hadley's new pet.”

“Me?” the chipmunk asked in a wavering voice. “Why me?” His tiny black nose turned pale.

“I would have volunteered, Henry,” said Chester. “But Ellen likes furry folk.”

Henry began to stammer. “Well—um—there's a very nice skunk named Joe who lives in the woods beyond the cellar—”

“A very nice skunk named Joe is just what Ellen wouldn't want,” said Tucker. “To say nothing of her mother.”

“How about Jim Woodchuck?” Henry pleaded. “He's
awfully
good-natured!”

Tucker solemnly shook his head. “My instinct tells me it's you. So don't try to fight your fate, Henry Chipmunk!”

“But—but—whoever heard of a human being having a
chipmunk
for a pet?”

“You can start a new tradition,” said Tucker. “Become a pioneer—like me and Joseph Hedley!”

“Henry,” said Emily, “after all Mr. Mouse has done for us this summer, I think you should do what he wants.” When an older sister uses a certain quiet tone of voice, there is nothing much that a younger brother can do.

In a group the animals all marched Henry around the pool and into the thickets surrounding Ellen's Special Place. She was sitting inside the circle of birches, calling Harry and hoping that he would come back. Tucker gave the chipmunk one final encouraging pat on the back. “Go on, Henry. Be a hero.”

“I don't know whether I'm going to like living in a human house or not,” said Henry doubtfully.

“My guess is, she'll let you live in the meadow, and come and play with you here,” said Tucker. “But if worse comes to worst—” He shrugged. “—you'll just have to adjust to hamburgers and chocolate sundaes. Go ahead.”

“All right, Mr. Mouse,” Henry panted, “I'm going—I really am going—I'm going right now—”

“So go!” commanded Tucker, and pointed at the girl.

Henry scooted into the open, took one flying leap—and landed in Ellen's lap. She was so surprised she almost fell over backwards. Chipmunks were supposed to be shy, elusive creatures, but here this funny little soul was, sitting on his hind legs right in front of her, as if he wanted nothing more in the world than to make friends. Very gently she reached out her forefinger and stroked his head. And within minutes she had him jumping back and forth over her hand and running around in back of her in a game of hide-and-seek.

“What did I tell you?” said Tucker to Harry. “A perfect match!”

Ellen and Henry played together until it was almost dinnertime. “Will you come back tomorrow?” she said. “I have to go home now.” Henry piped “Yes!” in his shrill little voice. She must have understood him too, because she said, “All right, then—you run along home, too!” For the last time she looked around the meadow for her kitty. He was hiding a few feet away, but Ellen couldn't see him. Resigned, and not too unhappy—a cat had his own life to live, she decided—she went home to tell her mother about this marvelous chipmunk that had run out of nowhere to play with her.

The marvelous chipmunk, meanwhile, was breathlessly describing his adventures to his friends. “Did you see, Mr. Mouse? Did you see? I did it! I did it! I did it! Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy!”

“I knew you had it in you, Henry,” said Tucker.

The chipmunk giggled, a little embarrassed. “You know—it's kind of nice to be petted!”

“Ah Henry, that's nothing.” Harry Cat sighed. “Wait till the first time you have your tummy rubbed!”

But now it was time for Tucker and Harry to leave, if they were going to catch the evening train to New York. The animals escorted them up the hill, and goodbyes were said all around. Tucker had an especially fond farewell for Beatrice Pheasant. He urged her to keep on with her scrounging and advised her to concentrate on that path the human beings were going to build to the foundations of the Joseph Hedley homestead. People being what people are, he said, there were bound to be a lot of interesting things lost, and why shouldn't she find them as well as anyone else? As for himself, he had Mrs. Hadley's colored glass necklace to add to his collection as a memento of his visit to Connecticut. Last of all, the cat and the mouse said goodbye to their friend Chester Cricket. Like all the partings of friends, this one was both sad and happy.

Just as they were about to go down the hill to the road, Tucker stopped and looked backward. A wreath of mist traced the course of the brook, and the gray autumn twilight lay over the meadow like a magic cloak. “Oh, the countryside!” Tucker Mouse heaved a sigh. “Except for the park in back of the library, this is probably the only countryside I'll ever see.”

“Then that's what we ought to call it!” said Chester. “If the human beings can change the Old Meadow's name, so can we! We'll call it Tucker's Countryside! Shall we—?”

All the animals cheered and shouted “Yes!”

And that was how the Old Meadow got its second name. Forever after, with its hills and fields and rushing brook, hidden away like a green heart amid all the houses in Connecticut, it was known to the human beings as Hedley's Meadow. But to the animals who lived there it was known as Tucker's Countryside. And of the two groups it would be difficult indeed to say which one enjoyed it and loved it more.

 

Tucker is a streetwise city mouse living in the heart of New York City with his buddy Harry Cat. He thought he'd seen it all, until he meets a cricket from Connecticut with a special gift.

Read on and follow the adventures of these three friends in the big city in George Selden's

The Cricket in Times Square.

ONE

Tucker

A mouse was looking at Mario.

The mouse's name was Tucker, and he was sitting in the opening of an abandoned drain pipe in the subway station at Times Square. The drain pipe was his home. Back a few feet in the wall, it opened out into a pocket that Tucker had filled with the bits of paper and shreds of cloth he collected. And when he wasn't collecting, “scrounging” as he called it, or sleeping, he liked to sit at the opening of the drain pipe and watch the world go by—at least as much of the world as hurried through the Times Square subway station.