Читать книгу The Good Crow's Happy Shop - Patten Beard - Страница 3

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ONCE a year, Aunt Phoebe came to visit in the city at Jimsi’s house. Aunt Phoebe was Mother’s best friend. Jimsi and Henry and baby Katherine had known her ever so long. They could not remember the time when they did not know Aunt Phoebe. Probably the time dated back to the age of rattles and squeaky rubber dolls when the children were so small that they knew nothing at all about Aunt Phoebe’s Good Crow, Caw Caw.

You see, Aunt Phoebe was a “play aunt.” She did not really belong to the family as everyday aunts and uncles do. She began by playing she was an aunt and almost everything that she did was either make-believe or play or something equally jolly. And Aunt Phoebe’s Good Crow Caw Caw was a play too. It was a happy make-believe that had grown up with Jimsi and Henry and Katherine.

Just how the play about the Good Crow started, nobody was ever able to tell. Even Aunt Phoebe herself could not say. But the make-believe was that Aunt Phoebe knew of a wonderfully delightful bird who was big and black and who liked nothing better than to do nice things for boys and girls.

Jimsi and Henry and Katherine knew well that all this was a lovely pretend. One might believe in it as one believed in fairies or fairy tales that one knows are not at all true—and yet fun to imagine. The Good Crow was a lovely pretend.

Everybody who knew Jimsi and Henry and Katherine, knew about Caw Caw. He appeared most frequently when the great visit of the year fell due and when the expressman had brought in Aunt Phoebe’s trunk and taken the strap off. Then Aunt Phoebe would say, “Oh, Jimsi, Caw Caw sent you a present. He sent one to Henry and Katherine too. I must get it out of my trunk! Come! Let’s see what it is!”

Then Jimsi and Henry and Katherine would laugh and begin to play the play of Caw Caw Crow that would last as long as Aunt Phoebe stayed at their home—no, longer sometimes for the Good Crow often wrote little letters to the children, just for fun.

The presents that came from Caw Caw in Aunt Phoebe’s trunk were not very big presents; they were boxes of crayons or paints or things like scissors and tools to make things. Sometimes there would be a game or a ball or a very nice toy or transfer pictures. The things that Caw Caw Crow sent the children were mostly things to do. One can always find a use for scissors or paints or crayons and things to do, you know.

Maybe, when the children were little, he had begun with giving them boxes of blocks. Now that Jimsi was eleven and Henry nine and Katherine four, Aunt Phoebe’s crow sent them interesting things—not blocks or rubber dolls. He gave them each a plasticine outfit once. Another time he sent them all painting-books. He gave them something to do with their brains and their fingers. That is the best kind of play, don’t you think so?

Well, all the time Aunt Phoebe was at the house in the city, her crow did jolly things for the children. He never really appeared. Jimsi and Henry and Katherine never saw him. He was a lovely pretend like Santa Claus. Aunt Phoebe, who knew more than anybody else did about Caw Caw, declared that he spent most of his time in the Santa Claus Land and that he flew only now and then to the home of Jimsi and Henry and Katherine when Aunt Phoebe was visiting there. He sometimes came at night when the children were sound asleep—exactly as Santa Claus comes. He flew in at the window and very, very often he left wee little letters under the children’s pillows. Maybe he left only a lollipop or a stick of peppermint candy. One never knew when one went to bed promptly and cheerfully what would be under one’s pillow! That was the fun of the play! There was mystery about it. It made fairyland a real everyday-come-true fun!

Some days, if Jimsi or Henry or Katherine had been naughty, there would be a little crow letter that would say:

“Dear Little Friend:

I was flying by the window when you were so horrid and spunky. I don’t like the children who are horrid and spunky. I hope you’ll be different to-morrow.

Good-bye,

Crow.”

After this kind of letter one felt more than ever ashamed.

Maybe the Good Crow would put a different sort of letter under the pillow:

“Dear Little Friend:

It made me glad to see what you did to-day. I like children who eat what is set before them at the table. I send you a lollipop as a reward of merit. Happy dreams.

Good-bye,

Crow.”

One might come home from school and find that Aunt Phoebe’s crow had flown in at Aunt Phoebe’s window during school hours to leave tickets to go to a special children’s performance of Alice in Wonderland to be on Saturday afternoon. Oh, the crow was always doing things that were happy. And, you know, Aunt Phoebe kept him fully informed as to what the children liked best. She knew.

Mother and Daddy and Aunt Phoebe all liked the crow. Indeed, strange to relate, sometimes when Aunt Phoebe was visiting and Mother happened to say that she had admired a certain kind of pretty plant that she had seen in a window down-town, the crow brought the plant and set it in the middle of the dining-room table next day! He left a card with it, of course. The card said, “With love from the children’s Crow.” (Of course, a real crow couldn’t have carried the things that Caw Caw did. Being a play crow and just pretend, he could bring almost anything.)

Oh, I tell you it was jolly! Everybody in the house crowed with laughter over Aunt Phoebe’s Caw Caw. He made jokes; he sent funny pictures cut from magazines; he wrote rhymes and verses that made Mother and Daddy and Jimsi and Henry and Katherine—and even Aunt Phoebe herself—just double up and laugh. One day he left each of the children a big black feather. The feathers were done up in reams and reams of tissue paper. You’d have thought there were BIG presents in the parcels that were waiting on the hall table till Jimsi and Henry came home from school! And then after unrolling and unrolling and unrolling and unrolling out dropped the black feathers. They looked as if somebody had found them in the feather duster but they were labeled, “From Caw Caw’s wing, with love. Keep to remember me.”

Oh, Aunt Phoebe’s visits were such good fun and Caw Caw Crow was so jolly! It was always hard to say good-bye after the two weeks or the month had passed. Henry kept all his crow-treasures—except the eatable ones and those like Alice in Wonderland entertainment tickets. He put them in a drawer with his letters. Jimsi kept hers in a box. As for Katherine, she was still interested in blocks and squeaky dolls made of rubber. Mother kept Katherine’s crow letters till Katherine should grow up to enjoy them all over again some day.

Well, when Aunt Phoebe had gone, the Good Crow play usually stopped unless Mother kept it up or Jimsi or Henry or maybe Daddy tried it. But the crow was never as entertaining as when Aunt Phoebe was around.

Once upon a time, Jimsi got sick. She was really frightfully sick—sick for a long, long time. She had the doctor and then she began to get well slowly. At this time, almost every day in the mail would come a letter from Aunt Phoebe’s Crow telling Jimsi something nice to play in bed. Some days a postal card would come. Some days a pretty book. Some days a bit of doll-sewing. But the very nicest thing of all came when Jimsi was well enough to go out-doors again and not well enough to go back to school. It was a crow letter and it came with a postmark of the town where Aunt Phoebe lived on it. This is what the letter said. (It was written on very wee blue notepaper and written in the tiny handwriting that Aunt Phoebe’s Good Crow usually liked.)

“Dearest Jimsi:

Do you think that your precious Mother would let you come to spend some time in the country with your Aunt Phoebe? She’d be very careful to see that you wore rubbers and didn’t take cold. She’ll see you take your bad medicine and have a peppermint afterwards to take the taste away.

I hope you can come because Aunt Phoebe wants to see you, and I want you to play in my Happy Shop.

Good-bye,

Caw Caw Crow.”

Oh, oh, oh! Hooray!

“Mumsey, I may go, mayn’t I?” pleaded Jimsi. “Oh, I never was at Aunt Phoebe’s! I’ll be good; I’ll go to bed early and I’ll try not to read too much; I’ll take my horrid medicine and I’ll never, never forget to wear overshoes!”

“I want to go too,” urged Henry. “I want to go too!”

“Me too!” echoed baby Katherine. “Me too!”

“Hush!” cried Mother. “I’ll have to ask Daddy, Jimsi dear. We’ll see what the doctor thinks of it. Maybe Aunt Phoebe’s house is the best place a little girl could grow well and strong in. Maybe you can go—but I can’t promise; we’ll see.”

All day long Jimsi went about the house wondering whether she was going to be allowed to go to Aunt Phoebe’s. She and Henry talked about it. “What do you suppose the crow’s Happy Shop is?” they asked each other.

“It’s something ever so nice if it’s the crow,” declared Jimsi. “Maybe it’s a store where the crow buys things.”

“It might be the place where he makes things,” Henry suggested. “Shops are sometimes places where things are made.”

All day long they talked about it. After the doctor had come and gone and when Daddy reached home after business, when the tea table things were cleared away and Jimsi and Henry and Mother and Daddy sat about the lamp in the living-room, they talked about the good crow and the Happy Shop some more. It was decided that day after to-morrow, Jimsi should really go to visit Aunt Phoebe and find out what a Happy Shop was!

Oh, oh, oh! Hooray! Three cheers for Aunt Phoebe and the Good Crow! Hip-hip-hoorah! Hip-hip-hoorah! Hip-hip-hoorah!

That night Jimsi was very happy. She fell asleep to dream of a big black crow who was sitting in a queer little store inside an odd house that was like the White Rabbit’s home in Alice in Wonderland. Of course Jimsi had never seen the crow face to face before but the dream seemed delightfully real and funny. She told Daddy and Mother about it in the morning, and Henry declared that dreams were never true and that, of course, Jimsi wouldn’t see the crow at Aunt Phoebe’s because the crow was all make-believe and there wasn’t any. “We just pretend there is a crow,” he said. “It’s a kind of game. The Happy Shop is prob-ab-ly—(the word is quite a long one for nine years old)—prob-ab-ly another nice new play of Aunt Phoebe’s. There won’t be any real crow there, Jimsi!”

“Oh, I know,” smiled Jimsi. “But it will be a splendid fun of some kind. I can’t wait to find out what it is. When I find out, I’ll write home all about it.”

Really everybody was as interested to know what The Happy Shop really was as Jimsi. Poor Henry had to go off to school. Daddy went to his office downtown. Only Mother and Jimsi were left to speculate upon the subject that day. It was a busy day too for Jimsi had to get ready to go to Aunt Phoebe’s for weeks and weeks while she grew strong in the country. There had to be warm things in her trunk. Some of them had to be mended. It took time. But at last the trunk was packed. (Mother and Henry and Katherine wrote crow letters for Aunt Phoebe and tucked these away inside. Jimsi volunteered to see that they reached Aunt Phoebe’s pillow—somehow.)

And then the day came! Daddy took Jimsi’s bag. There was a big hugging for Mother and Katherine and Henry who couldn’t go to the train because he had to go to school—and then Jimsi and Daddy walked down the street to take the car for the railway station. At the corner Jimsi turned for the forty-eleventh time: “Maybe you can come up for vacation, Henry,” she called back. “I’ll write you all about The Happy Shop.” Just at that moment the car came and they hopped aboard. Before she knew what was happening, Daddy and she were on the train and the train was leaving the city. Slowly the train came out of the dark tunnel that marked its departure from town. Out into open spaces of wide skies and fields it curved along the tracks. And as Jimsi gazed through the car window happily, watching the landscape bright in the sunlight, there flew from a thicket a single big black crow! “Caw-caw,” called the crow. “Caw-caw.” And Jimsi pulled Daddy’s arm—his head was deep in a newspaper—“Oh, look, look!” she cried. “Daddy, there’s the Good Crow!” Wasn’t it fun! Oh, wasn’t it fun! That big black crow had said caw-caw and he was flying in the same direction as Jimsi’s train! Already Aunt Phoebe’s play crow seemed more real than ever. And every moment the train was bringing Jimsi nearer and nearer to Aunt Phoebe and The Happy Shop.