For Richard
For Richard
The Mystery of the Deserted Village
Ronnie was in the hayloft sliding down the piles of newly-stacked hay when he heard the car drive up into the yard and come to a stop. Spitting a mouthful of hayseeds from his lips and tongue, he ran over to the open doors and peered down into the yard.
The car was shiny and new, a big black sedan with white-walled tires. A man in a business suit carrying a briefcase climbed out of the driver’s seat and headed briskly for the front door of the house.
Ronnie knew who he was and why he was here, and his heart sank. Why did the St. Lawrence Seaway need a piece of the Rorth farm land, andwhydid it have to be just that part where the deserted village lay?
Of course he really knew the answers to his questions. What he meant was—why did it have tohappenthat way? Why did the land have to be so low that when the dam was built and the waters of the St. Lawrence River began to pile up behind it, the deserted village would be flooded?
He thought of Grandfather and Father in the parlor talking with the man and he wondered about what they were saying and how it would all turn out. The last time Mr.Evans had come in his black sedan Grandfather had gotten very angry and Ronnie had heard him shouting and thumping his cane on the floor.
Ronnie went over to the opening in the loft floor and, grasping the ladder, climbed quickly down to the bottom. It was darker below, and for a moment the boy had trouble seeing his way. He heard Beatrice stamping in her stall, and smelled the sharp, pungent odor of fresh manure.
His bare feet padded across the hard earth floor as he moved toward the barn door. A moment later he was out in the glaring sunlight, the full heat of the afternoon striking him on his bare shoulders and back.
He saw his brother Phil lying in the hammock beneath the grape arbor.
“Hey, Phil!” he called. “That man’s here again.”
Phil opened his eyes lazily. “What man?” he asked indifferently.
Ronnie squatted down beside him. “The man from the Seaway, of course. I just hope Grandfather gets hopping mad again and gives it to him good. Nobody’s got a right to just come along and tell a person he’s got to sell his land. Nobody!”
Phil closed his eyes again and started the hammock swinging.
“Of courseyoudon’t care one bit, Philip Rorth!” Ronnie continued. “I think Grandfather was right. He said you’re not arealRorth! ’Cause arealRorth’s got fighting blood and a love for his land, and most of all he wouldn’t let the village go without a fight.”
Phil opened his left eye and squinted up at his brother.“All the fighting in the world’s not going to save the village, Ronnie, ’cause when the government wants something, it gets it.Period!”
Ronnie turned away in disgust. What could he expect of Phil? His brother had never gotten excited about anything, and he probably never would.
He headed toward the other side of the house, partly because it was shady there, but mostly because he knew the parlor window was open and he might be able to hear what was going on inside.
He passed the woodshed and swung around the corner of the house. Almost immediately he heard Grandfather’s voice. “Why, young fellow, do you know this land’s been in the family close onto a hundred and fifty years? And you come along, and without so much as a how-do-you-do, tell me I got to up and off it? Hah! Well, I’ve got a lawyer, too, to protect my rights!”
Ronnie settled down in the shade near the lilac bushes. He really wasn’t eavesdropping. He’d been wanting to weed the lily-of-the-valley bed for some time now, and this was a perfect time to do it with the sun on the other side of the house. He grabbed hold of a ragweed and started to pull it, but he stopped tugging after a few seconds so he could hear what Mr. Evans was saying.
“Mr. Rorth,” the man said, his voice like a whisper compared to Grandfather’s, “Mr. Rorth, I wish you’d try to understand. We—”
He didn’t get any further because when Grandfather was angry he didn’t usually give anyone else much time to talk. “I don’t understand, eh? Well, young fellow, I understandjust fine, and just don’t you bother giving me any more of that hogwash about how wonderful it will be when big ships can come sailing down the river from the ocean to the Great Lakes, because that doesn’t touch me one bit.”
Ronnie heard his father’s voice next. “Father,” said Mr. Rorth, “it doesn’t do a bit of good getting yourself all upset like this. The Seaway Authority has told us that the water level of the lake formed behind the dam will cover the section of land where the deserted village is, and for this reason it will have to be purchased. There isn’t a thing we can do about it. Our lawyer has told us that himself.”
“More hogwash! Sometimes I think that lawyer is working for both sides and against the middle.”
The weed came loose from the ground with a suddenness that sent Ronnie reeling backward. Before he could catch himself he had crashed against the side of the house. When he looked up, there was his father peering at him from behind the screen. “Ronnie, what are you doing out there?”
“I—I’m weeding the lily of the valley,” he managed to stammer.
“Well, you’d better weed it some other time. Now go somewhere else.”
“Y—yes, sir.” Ronnie wandered away toward the front of the house. He felt ashamed for having been caught snooping, and he was peeved at himself too. He wanted to hear what happened next. He hoped and prayed that there could be something that would save the village.
Almost without thinking, he headed across the dirt road that led out to the paved highway and then he entered the apple orchard. The blossoms had faded already, and in theirplace were clusters of tiny green knobs with big whiskers on the ends.
A few minutes later he left the orchard and stood for a moment at the top of the bluff, looking down into the tight little valley where the buildings of the deserted village lay half hidden among the hemlocks and spruce and maples and oaks. Great-great-grandfather Ezra Rorth’s father had built the village, and had chosen a beautiful location. The brick and stone buildings were nestled comfortably in the deep ravine. A cobbled road ran through the center of the village, and Goose Brook raced along its rock-strewn course down to the St. Lawrence.
Every time he stopped to look at the village from up here on the bluff, Ronnie thought of Grandfather. When Ronnie was hardly old enough to walk, his grandfather had brought him here. For many years after that the old man and the boy had walked together down the cobbled road in the late evenings, and Grandfather had told stories of the days when the village was alive with people, and the glass furnace belched smoke day and night and Rorth glassware was known almost around the world.
Now, as always, the village drew Ronnie like a magnet. He raced down the face of the bluff, whirling his arms about like propeller blades to keep his balance. At the bottom he stopped. Now that he was here, he couldn’t decide just which part of the village he wanted to visit. He could swing on the wild grapevines in front of the gristmill, and maybe take off his trousers and go sailing feet first into the millpond. Or, he could have fun climbing around on the pile of rubble that remained from the old bakery building.
He decided to visit the old, padlocked, boarded-up buildingwhich had been the office of the Glassworks back in Great-great-grandfather Ezra’s days. He started down the path, keeping his eyes open for any big toadstools he could splatter against a tree trunk. Then he spied Bill.
His best friend was coming through the trees from the opposite direction. Ronnie put his fingers to his lips and whistled shrilly.
“I was just coming over to your place,” Bill greeted him. “Where are you headed?”
“No place special. Thought maybe I’d climb around on the old office building roof and maybe get a look at that swift nest down the chimney. You figuring on something else?”
“Nope.”
They started down the path together. “You know, Ronnie,” Bill said as they came to the cobblestone road through the middle of the village, “you know, I’d sure like to get a look inside that building sometime. How come your grandfather keeps it all locked up with shutters on the windows?”
“He’s had it open once or twice.”
“I’ve never seen it open.”
“I guess that’s because he hasn’t opened it up since we were big enough to remember,” Ronnie said.
“My pa was talking about it the other night. He said it’s supposed to be haunted. You believe that, Ronnie?”
Ronnie thought it over. “Maybe, maybe not.” He wouldn’t let Bill know how he really felt. Grandfather never seemed to want to talk about the building, so perhaps therewassomething that he wanted to hide. Of course, Ronnie had heard the stories from others, about how hisgreat-great-grandfather Ezra had killed someone in the office building and had robbed the Glassworks of money. No two people told the same story, and Ronnie had decided not to believe any of them.
“I’d sure like to get inside,” Bill repeated.
The old office stood back from the cobblestone road. Two giant sentinel pines towered over the roof, dwarfing the building and the sapling hemlocks and pines that crowded close to its sides.
“Race you to it!” Bill yelled suddenly and started down the narrow path from the cobbled road.
Ronnie knew he couldn’t outrun Bill with his longer legs, but he’d sure try anyway. Gasping for breath, Ronnie reached his friend, who had dropped to the ground and stretched himself out in a nest of last year’s leaves just in front of the padlocked door. Ronnie threw himself down beside Bill.
They lay there for a few minutes catching their breaths. Then Bill got up and began to hunt around on the ground. He found a rock and brought it over to the door.
“What are you aiming to do?” Ronnie asked.
“I can smash that lock easy,” Bill answered.
Ronnie pulled himself to his feet. “Forget it. We were going to climb to the roof and look down the chimney at the swift’s nest—remember?”
Bill looked at the stone in his hand and then into Ronnie’s face. “O.K.,” he said, letting the rock drop to the ground. “Some other time, maybe. But, by golly, I sure want to see what’s inside.”
“Grandfather said there’s nothing much. And he knows because he’s hunted through everything.”
Bill had shinnied up a young sapling and was pulling himself carefully onto the roof. “What was he looking for?” he grunted.
Ronnie started up after him and by the time he reached Bill’s side he had conveniently forgotten to answer the question. They mounted the slope together and then edged their way down the other side where the chimney was located. Bill had no trouble peering down into the chimney flue, but Ronnie had to stand on his toes to do it.
“See anything?” Ronnie asked.
“I can make out the nest. See it, over there toward the back? I think there are eggs in it.”
“Yes,” Ronnie agreed. “Looks like three of them.”
They watched for a minute or two more and then lost interest. Instead, they sat down on the edge of the roof, with their legs hanging dangerously over the side.
Off in the distance, Ronnie could see a stretch of the St. Lawrence River and a smudge of smoke from a river boat, now already out of sight.
“A man from the Seaway’s at the house talking with Dad and Grandfather,” he said suddenly.
“The Seaway’s dickering with my pa, too,” Bill said. “Pa says it’s the best thing that ever came to him. They’re going to pay him five hundred dollars an acre, and most of it’s no-good swamp land. ’Course, it’s different with you, Ronnie. I know it’s the village that’s going.”
“I wish there was something I could do.”
“Pa says there’s not a chance.”
“I know. Grandfather won’t say it, but he knows he’s licked.”
“Sure is a shame, because they don’t really need that partwhere the village is. Not for the main steamship lanes, anyway. But just because it’s bottom land and will flood up, it’s got to go.”
“Goose Brook will be swallowed up, too.”
“Too bad your great-great-grandfather didn’t build the village on high ground. But then, I guess they used the stream for power to turn the wheels for the gristmill.”
Ronnie nodded. “I sure as shooting wish I could just pile up a heap of ground along the river to keep the water out. Then they wouldn’t want the village land.”
He was looking at the narrow gap where Goose Brook tumbled between the two bluffs that formed the margins of the valley. Why, it wasn’t more than seventy-five or a hundred feet across, and if it were filled in, the water behind the new Seaway dam could rise as high as it needed to without flooding the valley.
Ronnie almost lost his balance and plunged over the edge as the thought struck him. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “I’ve just gotten the coolest idea you ever did hear of. Now why in the name of common sense didn’t I think of it sooner?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Bill answered, “seeing I haven’t got the slightest idea of what you’re talking about.”
“Well, come on and I’ll show you!” Ronnie exploded. Then he scrambled up the roof and back over the other side, and swung himself into the sapling like a monkey let out of its cage.