"In Maine? But why? I mean, what made you go off so suddenly, without saying goodbye or anything? If you knew how worried we've been about you..."
"Well, I told Homer how it was. I had this crazy notion I only had a few more days to live. Did he tell you? And there was something I had to get done first."
"I know. There was someone you had to meet..."
"Someone?" Teddy looked puzzled. "No, not someone. There was something I had to see—my whiteheaded eagle."
"Your whiteheaded...?"
"My whiteheaded eagle. You know, our national bird. It was the only bird Henry Thoreau saw that I didn't have on my lifetime list. I just had to see it. So I went up Annursnac Hill one day, feeling pretty poorly..."
"Yes, I remember. Tom saw you that day."
"That's right. And I saw it."
"You saw it?" said Homer. "What, you mean you saw your eagle?"
"That's right. He came dropping out of the sky far, far away, just as the sky cleared. I knew it was him as soon as I saw the speck. I hardly even needed my glasses. He just hung there in the sky, banking in a circle over my head. Then you know what he did? He veered off and headed in a straight line to the northeast, like an arrow flying to its target. Heading straight for Maine. And it seemed to me like it was Henry himself, beckoning to me, telling me where to go. It was like he said that Maine was where he'd like to have died, not in a stuffy room somewhere, but out in the open woods, in the forest, with nothing but Indians and the wild creatures of the woods around him. S-so I ran down the hill, climbed in my flivver and took off up north. Didn't even stop to pack my clothes."
"And then you didn't die, after all."
"No, I began to feel revived as soon as I got up past Bangor. I bought some provisions and a little equipment and headed for the wildest part of the woods. And you know what happened? It occurred to me that, now I'd seen all the birds Henry saw, I might as well tackle the plant life. And I got so busy doing that, I forgot what day it was, and before long May 6th was gone by without my even thinking about it. And I got a darned good list. I saw spotted touch-me-not, and spikenard and several kinds of orchis and the hog-peanut. And I made me some lily soup, the way Henry did when he was there."
Teddy's clothes were green with rough usage, but he had just mended them and here and there a bright new staple flashed. Homer remembered the staples he had found on the monument at the bridge, and he asked Teddy about it point-blank.
"Was I at the bridge that day? Yes, as a matter of fact, I was. I was paddling around waiting to see if the bluebird would come back to make one more try for her hole, when I saw Ernie there at the bridge, and went over to speak to him, to put in another word for throwing out those golblasted letters. I pulled my canoe up and went up to him. But I never got a chance to say anything. He was huffy, wanted to know if I was the one who had sent him a note making an appointment to meet him there. Seems he'd gotten an anon-anonymous note, offering him a lot of money for the letters, and he was mighty suspicious, thinking it might be one of the members of the Alcott Association trying to put one over on him. You know, get him there with the letters and then get them away by force. But he was too cagey for us, he said. He'd hidden the letters where nobody'd find 'em, and there they'd stay until someone came along with a real offer or a genuine promise of publication. I said, heck, it wasn't me sent him the note. And then I left, and got back to my birds and forgot all about Ernie."
"Didn't you hear the shot?" said Homer.
"Yes, and I paddled up close enough to use my glasses and see a lot of folks and a p-policeman standing around Ernie Goss, who was lying on the ground. And I knew I'd be better off out of sight, since I must have been the last one except the murderer to have seen him alive."
Teddy looked down at his bouquet of swamp nettle, and turned to Mary bashfully. "Here," he said. "This is for you."
Homer decided reluctantly that he had better tell Teddy what the situation was, so he broke the news gently, and asked for his congratulations. Teddy looked a little crestfallen and stuttered badly trying to say something nice. But then Mary exclaimed over the swamp nettle, and Teddy got quite enthusiastic telling her its botanical name and how the Indians had used it to swat flies. After a while he left, looking cheerful. After all, he had all the flora in Concord to find and catalogue, and it might take him years.
Mary smelled her flowers and wished she hadn't. She made a face and laughed. "Did you notice? Teddy's stuttering is better."
Homer looked at her sentimentally. "And your color's coming back. You know what? Your cheeks are like red roses."
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Homer..."
"Look, if a person's cheeks happen to be like red roses it's merely a fact of scientific observation to point it out. I've tried a whole lot of other flowers from time to time, and none of them was right. It's red roses they're like."
Down by the river where the green grass grows,
There sat _____, as pretty as a rose.
Along came ______ and kissed her on the cheek.
How many kisses did she get that week?
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven...
*60*
He is moderate. I am impetuous. He is modest and humble. I am forward and arbitrary. He is poor but we both are industrious. Why may we not be happy? —Mrs. Amos Bronson Alcott
Tom, Homer and Grandmaw were colliding with each other in the kitchen, clearing away Sunday dinner. It was Mary's first day home. Struggling awkwardly with her crutches she got the tablecloth off the table and stumped to the front door and shook it out. Then she stood and smelled the fresh air. The ragged leaves that were left on the old elm by the road were turning a rusty yellow. There were leaves growing even from the trunk and along the lower reaches of the limbs, like hairs in an old man's ears. Miraculously the storm had spared it, although it had taken nine young apple trees behind the house. Mary folded the tablecloth again and made her way laboriously to the kitchen to put it in the drawer.
"If you ask me," said old Mrs. Hand, "I could get along a whole lot better all by myself. What did you people all have to grow so big for? You're all over the place. Why don't you all get out of my way and go off somewhere?"
"Can I come?" said Annie.
"Me, too!" said John.
"No, not you children. Freddy has to go to bed and I need the rest of you to wipe."
"Okay," said Homer. "But don't you let that John lick the dishes clean."
Tom, who didn't want to sell his apples on a flooded market, went off to truck them up to the town of Harvard, where there was a big storage warehouse. Homer helped Mary out to his car and lifted her into the front seat. "We'll take an old-fashioned Sunday afternoon buggy ride," he said.
First they drove down Fairhaven Road to Alice Herpitude's house, and looked possessively out of the car window at its modest white clapboards. "Maybe Teddy will build us a nice birdbath for a wedding present," said Homer.
"He'll make a charming neighbor, anyway," said Mary.
Then they headed back across Route 2 to the center of town, and up into Sleepy Hollow cemetery to Authors' Ridge. "Do you think Henry would mind a couple of quiet neckers on a Sunday afternoon?" said Homer.
"Not as long as they kept things pretty transcendental," said Mary.
"Don't forget, if Howard Swan was right, Henry was no slouch himself when it came to romance."