I Know a Secret/Chapter 2

by Christopher Darlington Morley

The Grape Arbor Tea Room

THE visitor lay quite ill for several days. They carried him tenderly to the rabbit hutch beside the garage, where he lay on a lettuce leaf. Rabbits are the most sympathetic nurses, and Binny and Bunny tended him with care, even trying not to keep munching when they were close to him because it made him nervous. Bunny, who is a white lady rabbit with beautiful ruby eyes, was as pretty as a Red Cross nurse in a white uniform. Fourchette had explained the situation to everyone, and they all tried to keep as quiet as possible. The breakdown was really caused by the fact that Escargot had tried to board his first Long Island train just at the time when the rush of commuters was at its thickest. Again and again the bewildered snail had approached the gate where he saw the sign Oyster Bay. This had attracted him because he thought that people travelling on a line associated with oysters would be quiet and reposeful. But each time, as the gate was opened, the hurry of feet had frightened him away. This had gone on all Saturday afternoon and evening; it was not until early Sunday morning that he could get aboard a train. Even then he had to change at Jamaica, which was difficult. He had arrived at Roslyn in a very nervous state.

Mr. Mistletoe, the writer, looking out of his workroom window, was unfeeling enough to—hope, secretly, that Escargot would be ill a long while. For children and animals all kept much quieter on the snail's account than they ever had for the sake of his work. By the rabbit hutch Junior had put up a sign which said

Hospital!
Do not scream
or talk loud

There were ten children and two dogs who did most of their playing just outside Mr. Mistletoe's window. Perhaps that was why Mr. Mistletoe, though only thirty-seven, had four gray hairs by one ear and two by the other. The four gray hairs were by his left ear, which was the one nearer the window as he sat at his writing. But now, out of consideration for the suffering snail, there was a good deal of silence. The four young Mistletoes, the four young Snyders, the two young Cassidies, rode their bicycles and velocipedes elsewhere. Donny, who is rather a noisy dog, turned his face away when the iceman or Masini the grocer or Craft the meat market came to the house. He pretended not to see, so he would not feel it his duty to bark. Donny is a sheep dog who has never seen a sheep. All his ancestors were trained to herd sheep, so naturally he has a strong family desire to do so too. But never having seen a sheep, he does not know just what it is that he misses. He thinks that tradesmen and callers are sheep and wants to herd them.

Louise and Helen and Blythe, the three younger Mistletoes, held a meeting at the Sand Club, a mysterious little summerhouse in the back garden, and elected Escargot an honorary member. Junior got out a special number of the Roslyn Estates News, a typewritten newspaper, to report the invalid's progress. Hops and Malta tried hard not to quarrel. Fourchette kept coming out from the kitchen with leaves of Mr. Masini's best lettuce or spinach to tempt the snail's appetite. Perez, whose bedroom in the garage was just beside the rabbit hutch, sat there in the evenings playing soft encouraging music on his ukulele. At last the invalid seemed to shake off his weakness. His eyes no longer peered timidly from under his shell, but came out and waved boldly and gratefully. He even disputed with Bunny her habit of eating the old sheet of lettuce when she made his bed fresh every morning. He began eating part of it himself. He was getting better.

The illness of Escargot had brought the neighbourhood together in a way nothing had done before. Every morning they would all gather round the rabbit hutch to inquire about the snail, and their interest in him seemed to make them forget any private feuds of their own. You would have been surprised to see them. Pigeons and chickens from Mr. Hopkins's, robins and squirrels from the woods near by, Fourchette and her kittens, Donny and Fritz, even Cap, the big red setter who hardly ever goes off Mr. Hopkins's grounds, all would sit quietly together beside the wire netting of the rabbit run while Bunny made her morning report. Fourchette and Fritz, who were too confirmed enemies to be really friendly, could not pretend any pleasure in their meetings, but they ignored each other with careful politeness. If Fritz ever caught Fourchette's eye he looked quickly in another direction. Fourchette did not forget that Fritz had once killed one of her cousins, and Fritz remembered the scratch she had given him across the tenderest part of his nose. But for the time all were on their best behaviour. Even the chipmunks who live in the wall of Mr. Mistletoe's study, behind the bookshelves, ventured out to join the meetings. Mr. Mistletoe believes that these gay little chipmunks have a kind of night club in the passages between his walls and ceiling. Late at night he hears them dancing: they scamper and skirmish in there, scrambling and pattering to and fro. Light, light are their tiny feet, frolicking in the dry dusty tunnels between the beams. They frisk there like thoughts in the back of the mind. Mr. Mistletoe, as he lies on his couch at night, thinking severely of things he wants to write, has a horrid suspicion that perhaps sometimes they nibble at the electric wires. He wonders whether this could cause a short circuit somewhere, so that some evening he might start up and find the whole house wreathed in flame.

Day by day, as Escargot grew stronger, he delighted them all with his charming ways. His French accent was pleasant to listen to: it seemed to give new and quaint meaning to very simple sayings. His small face was humorous and polite; with shy courtesy he thanked them all for their kindness. Fourchette, who had reached the time of life where she meditated much on the meanings of things, perceived that Escargot was a philosopher. For as soon as he was tired, he withdrew into his spiral cell. What he did or thought about in there, no one knew, but inside that personal fortress he could not be interrupted. How lucky are people with shells, Fourchette thought.

Cats have a love of quiet, and this general truce that accompanied Escargot's illness was a great joy to Fourchette. A secret fear had been troubling her for some time. She had seen Mr. Mistletoe, a man of sudden tempers, looking rather fiercely from his workroom window while the animals were at their pranks. Fritz would bark at the rabbits, the kittens would scream at Fritz, Donny would growl at them all or sprawl his heavy body in the flowerbeds, breaking down the irises and hollyhocks, squirrels would ride up and down the drive chattering on their velocipedes, and in the middle of all this hubbub Mr. Mistletoe would shout furiously from his window for a little silence.

"If this sort of thing goes on," he would yell, "I'll pack you all into the car and take you to the Bide-a-Wee." Fourchette had only a vague notion of what the Bide-a-Wee might be. But she knew, from whispered rumour among the cats and dogs of the neighbourhood, that it was a kind of farm, over on the South Shore, where animals were taken when they became a nuisance. It might be a very pleasant place, but animals have a strong sense of Home and hate to leave any place to which they are well accustomed. So the name became an omen, almost a Bad Word. The most embarrassing thing that one could say to another, in moments of temper, was "You go to Bide-a-Wee!"

So Fourchette's great idea came to her. The animals were all sitting around the rabbit run, and now that Escargot was getting stronger they were beginning again to be a bit noisy. One reason why animals squabble among themselves is that they are almost always hungry; and the sight of the rabbits, perpetually munching, was really irritating. It occurred to Fourchette that if she and Escargot started a tea room, in the grape arbor behind the garage, where the various creatures could always get something to eat whenever they wanted it, it would keep them all quiet and good humoured. Escargot, who was such a restful sort of person, would be an admirable manager for a tea room: and she herself could be waitress.

Bones, dog biscuits, milk, nuts, lettuce and carrot salads, corn for the chickens, a little oats now and then for the rabbits, fish occasionally for the kittens—Fourchette's eyes brightened when she thought of the car from the Roslyn Sea Food Market driving up the hill.

"But how would we pay for the food?" said Donny. "We haven't any of us any money."

"We'll arrange a course of lectures in connection with the tea room," said Fourchette. Just as Donny was a sheep dog who had never seen a sheep, so was Fourchette a well-educated female who had never been to lectures, and there was a vacancy in her life. She knew that whenever Mr. Mistletoe was very hard up he went off somewhere and gave a lecture.

"Here we have Mussoor Escargot, a distinguished foreigner," she said. "People will always pay more for lecturers from abroad. He can give a series of talks."

"I don't think I should be very good at lecturing," said Escargot. "Why don't we all tell stories?"

The animals pricked up their ears at this. For all animals love stories. They get them not out of books but out of the exciting things that actually happen.

"A very good idea," said Donny. "You say the kittens need some education, that's the best way to give it to them. If you'll supply the food, we'll tell Hops and Malta some fairy tales that will put sense into them. They can't ever be more than cats, but at least they'll be cats with some respect for intelligence."

And the chickens, squirrels, birds, rabbits, dogs, frogs, spiders, insects, all the creatures of the Roslyn Estates who were sitting by the rabbit run listening, echoed Donny's idea. So the Grape Arbor Tea Room and Storytelling School was founded.

Now I must tell you just a word about the grape arbor. It was not much of an arbor, only a place behind the garage where a long grape vine trailed down from a tree beyond the fence, and was propped on poles. But the animals all liked that little back-lot because a few years before it had been a regular small jungle of briars and thickets, snakes and poison ivy and violets. So it still had something of the good smell and feeling of a wild place. You go to it by a little path that passes under an arch of lilac and round the end of the garage. Behind the garage is a strip of blue gravel. The wide branches of an oak tree overhang the fence, and it is all quite snug and private. By the grape arbor is the little workroom, built against the end of the garage, where you can go if it rains. The grass is coarse and ragged, but there is a hollow in the ground where the sunshine is very warm and yellow. You feel that you are by yourself, and like it.

So they hurried to sweep and clean the arbor. Perez, always good natured, was glad to help. Fourchette, in a clean apron, made the tea on an oil stove in the workroom, and served meals on paper plates on the ground. Escargot, sitting on a large grape leaf where he would not get walked on, was master of ceremonies. Junior painted a sign for the arbor and typed the menu cards. The news soon went round among all the animals. People got the habit of dropping in about the hungry time of the afternoon. It was understood that the stories told after tea were specially for the benefit of the kittens, but there were amusements for others too. Sometimes Perez, sitting on a little bench under the trees, would play music for the company, or the squirrels would give a climbing exhibition. Once the Gissing Pond Choir, the best singers among all the frogs of the neighbourhood, came up to give a concert. Escargot made a rule that anyone who caused disturbance or argument would not be admitted again. It was a happy time.

Mr. Mistletoe became curious about this congregation of animals behind the garage. He used to see them quietly slipping toward the back lot. He would hear the silken whirr of pigeons' wings as they flew over from Mr. Hopkins's barn, or notice a file of frogs and wild rabbits hopping briskly up the drive. Writers are inquisitive, and many times he went out into the garage and hung about in the hope of hearing what went on. But animals are shy and whenever he was near they pretended they were doing something else. The tales they told would never have got into this book if it had not been for Escargot. How that happened you will learn later. Meanwhile, here are some of the stories.