The Wishing Tree Read online

  THE WISHING TREE

  For his dear friend

  Victoria

  on her eighth birthday

  Bill he made

  this Book

  © Copyright, 1964, by Victoria F. Fielden

  All rights reserved under International

  and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  Published in New York by Random House, Inc.,

  and simultaneously in Toronto, Canada,

  by Random House of Canada Limited.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 66-21458

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  eISBN: 978-0-307-79963-0

  v3.1

  Click here to see the original

  To Victoria

  “……. I have seen music, heard

  Grave and windless bells; mine air

  Hath verities of vernal leaf and bird.

  Ah, let this fade: it doth and must; nor grieve,

  Dream ever, thou; she ever young and fair.”

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Dedication

  First Page

  Publisher’s Note

  he was still asleep, but she could feel herself rising up out of sleep, just like a balloon: it was like she was a goldfish in a round bowl of sleep, rising and rising through the warm waters of sleep to the top. And then she would be awake.

  And so she was awake, but she didn’t open her eyes at once. Instead, she lay quite still and warm in her bed, and it was like there was still another little balloon inside her, getting bigger and bigger and rising and rising. Soon it would be at her mouth, then it would pop out and jump right up against the ceiling. The little balloon inside her got bigger and bigger, making all her body and her arms and legs tingle, as if she had just eaten a piece of peppermint. What can it be? she wondered, keeping her eyes tight shut, trying to remember from yesterday.

  “It’s your birthday,” a voice said near her, and her eyes flew open. There, standing beside the bed, was a strange boy, with a thin ugly face and hair so red that it made a glow in the room. He wore a black velvet suit and red stockings and shoes, and from his shoulder hung a huge empty booksatchel.

  “Who are you?” she asked, looking at the redheaded boy in astonishment.

  “Name’s Maurice,” the boy answered. His eyes had queer golden flecks in them, like sparks. “Get up.”

  She lay still again and looked about the room. The funniest thing was, there was nobody in the room except Maurice and herself. Every morning when she waked, her mother and Dicky would be in the room, and soon afterward Alice would come in to help her dress and get ready for school. But today there was nobody in the room except the strange redheaded boy standing beside her bed and watching her with his queer yellowflecked eyes.

  “Get up,” the boy said again.

  “I’m not dressed,” she said.

  “Yes, you are,” the boy answered. “Get up.”

  So she threw the covers back and got out of bed, and sure enough, she was dressed—shoes and stockings, and her new lavender dress with the ribbon that matched her eyes. The redheaded boy had gone to the window and stood with his face pressed against the glass.

  “Is it still raining?” she asked. “It was raining last night.”

  “Come and see,” the boy said, and she came up beside him and saw through the window the black trees with their bare dripping branches in the rain.

  “I wish it wouldn’t rain, on my birthday,” she said with disappointment. “I think it might stop raining today, don’t you?” The redheaded boy glanced at her and then away, then he raised the window. “Oh, don’t do that!” she exclaimed, then she stopped, for as soon as the window rose, instead of rain and black winter trees, she saw a soft gray mist that smelled of wistaria, and far down in the mist she heard little far voices calling, “Come down, Dulcie; Come down, Dulcie.” When she looked through the upper window sash, through the glass, there was the rain, and the black sad trees, but beyond the open sash, the soft wistaria scented mist and the voices saying, “Come down, Dulcie; Come down, Dulcie.”

  “Well, this is the funniest thing!” she said, looking at the redheaded boy, who was digging busily in his huge satchel.

  “It’s because it’s your birthday,” he explained.

  “But nothing like this ever happened before on my birthday.”

  “It might have,” the boy answered, taking something out of the satchel. “That’s why birthdays are. And, on the night before your birthday—” he glanced at her with his queer goldflecked eyes “—if you get into bed left foot first and turn the pillow over before you go to sleep, anything might happen,” he added wisely.

  “Oh, that’s exactly what I did last night,” she said. “But who is that calling me?”

  “Why not look down and see?” the boy suggested, so she leaned out the window into the warm scented mist, and there looking up at her from the ground were Alice and Dicky and George, who lived just across the street.

  Click here to see the original

  “Come down, Dulcie!”

  “Wait for me!” she cried down to them, and the redheaded boy was at the window again. In his hand was a toy ladder about six inches long, and he raised the ladder to his mouth and blew on it, and at once the ladder began to get longer and bigger. The redheaded boy puffed and blew, and the ladder grew longer and longer until finally the end of it touched the ground and Alice held it steady while she climbed down to them.

  “Got up at last, did you, Sleepyhead?” George asked, and Dicky chanted, “Sleepyhead, Sleepyhead!” He was a little boy, and he always said whatever the others did.

  The redheaded boy climbed down the ladder, and bent over and pressed his finger on a little shiny button on the ladder, and the air went Whishhhhhh out of the ladder and it was once more a toy ladder about six inches long. The boy put it back in his satchel. “Name’s Maurice,” he said shortly, looking from Alice to Dicky and then to George with his yellowflecked eyes. “Come on.”

  The mist was like a big tent about them and over them, and a warm little breeze blew through it, smelling of wistaria. They went across the lawn to the street, and the redheaded boy stopped again. “Well,” he said, “how shall we go? walk, or in a motorcar, or on ponies?”

  “Ponies! Ponies!” Dulcie and George shouted, and Dicky said, “Pony! Pony! Want to wide pony!” But Alice didn’t want to.

  “Naw, suh,” Alice said, “me and Dicky ain’t goin’ to ride on no hawss, and, Dulcie, you ain’t got no business with no hawss, neither.”

  “Oh, Alice!”

  “Naw, suh,” Alice repeated, “you knows your mommer don’t allow you to ride no hawss.”

  “How do you know?” Dulcie said. “She didn’t say I couldn’t.”

  “How could she, when she don’t know you’s goin’ to? I reckon we can get wherever we’s goin’ just like we is.”

  “Oh, Alice!” Dulcie said, and Dicky chanted, “Wide a pony, wide a pony.”

  “Alice and Dicky can ride in the ponycart,” the redheaded boy suggested. “You aren’t scared of a ponycart, are you?”

  “I guess I ain’t,” Alice said doubtfully. “Dulcie better ride in the cart too.”

  “No: I want to ride a pony. Please, Alice.”

  “They’re gentle ponies,” the redheaded boy said. “Look.” He reached into his satchel and brought forth a Shetland pony no larger than a squirrel, with a red bridle with little silver bells and a red saddle on it. Dulcie squealed with delight and Dicky tried to climb right up the boy’s leg.

  “Mine! Mine!” George shouted. “First choice: I claim first choice!”

  “My pony,
my pony!” Dicky shouted. “My first choss pony!”

  “Here, youall wait,” the redheaded boy said, holding the pony above his head while its little hooves pawed and scrambled in his hand. “Stand back, now.”

  So they stood back and the boy knelt and set the pony on the ground, and put his mouth to the pommel of the saddle and began to blow. And as he blew, the pony got bigger and bigger stamping its feet and shaking its jingling bridle; and the boy rose to his knees and still puffed and blew, and then to his feet, and the pony got bigger and bigger. At last he raised his head.

  “There,” he said. “Is that big enough for you?”

  “Who’s that un for?” Alice asked quickly.

  “Mine! Mine!” shouted George and Dicky together.

  “No, this one is Dulcie’s,” the redheaded boy said.

  “Then you let some of that air back out,” Alice said promptly. “That’s too big for Dulcie.”

  “No, no!” Dulcie objected. “Look, Alice! See how gentle he is!” She pulled up a handful of grass and the pony nibbled it and shook his head until the silver bells jingled like mad. Then she held the bridlerein and the boy took two more ponies from his satchel, and Dicky chanted, “First choss pony, first choss pony!”

  “How can your satchel hold so much and yet look like it’s empty?” Dulcie asked.

  “Because I’m Maurice,” the redheaded boy answered. “And besides, anything is likely to happen on birthdays,” he added gravely.

  “Oh,” said Dulcie. Then the boy blew up these two ponies and gave the reins to George to hold, and took from the satchel a fourth pony hitched to a little wicker cart, with bells all over it, and Dicky was just wild. The boy blew this one up too. Alice watched nervously.

  “Don’t blow him up too big, now, for me and Dicky,” she cautioned.

  The redheaded boy puffed and blew.

  “Ain’t that plenty big enough?” suggested Alice uneasily.

  “Alice don’t want him any bigger than a rabbit,” George said. “He can’t pull the cart if he’s not any bigger than that.”

  The redheaded boy puffed and blew, and soon the pony and cart were the right size. “You’ll need a whip,” he said, and he reached again into his satchel.

  “Naw, suh,” Alice said quickly, “we don’t need no whip. You can put that right back.”

  But Dicky had already seen the whip, and when the boy put it back in the satchel, Dicky yelled. So the boy gave Dicky the whip, and Dicky and Alice got into the cart and Dicky held the end of the reins in one hand and the whip in the other.

  “Drive first choss pony.” Dicky shouted.

  “Shetland pony, darling,” Dulcie said. “Not first choice pony.”

  “Drive Shetland pony,” Dicky said. Then Dulcie and George and the redheaded boy got on their ponies and they rode down the street.

  They reached the end of the street and passed the last house, and then all of a sudden they rode out of the mist. Behind them they could see the mist like a big gray tent, but everywhere else they looked the trees were green as summer, and the grass was green and little blue and yellow flowers were everywhere. Birds were singing in the trees, and flying from one tree to another, and the sun shone and the three ponies flew along the road, faster and faster until Alice and Dicky in the cart were far behind. They stopped to wait for them, and the cart came trotting up. Alice was holding her hat on and she looked a little alarmed. So they promised not to go fast any more, and they rode on down the road and after a while they came to a small gray cottage. The cottage had roses above the door, and there was a little old man with a long gray beard sitting in the door, whittling a piece of wood.

  “Good morning,” the redheaded boy said politely.

  “Good morning,” the little old man replied politely.

  “We’re looking for the Wishing Tree,” the redheaded boy said.

  “It’s a far ways,” the little old man said. He shook his head gravely. “I don’t believe you could find it.”

  “We’ll ask somebody on the road,” the boy said.

  “There ain’t anybody in these parts that ever saw it,” the little old man said.

  “How do you know it’s so far then?” the redheaded boy asked.

  “Oh, I been to it lots of times. I used to go to it every day almost, when I was your age. But I ain’t been in several years, now.”

  “Why not come with us and show us the way?” the redheaded boy suggested. Alice was mumbling to herself and Dulcie asked,

  “What did you say, Alice?”

  “I says, we don’t want no old trash like him with us, I bet he’s a tramp. I bet your mommer wouldn’t like it if she knowed.”

  “Come on and go with us,” the redheaded boy repeated. The old man looked cautiously over his shoulder into the house.

  “I believe I will,” he said. He shut his knife and put it and the thing he was carving in his pocket. He rose, and peered again around the dooredge into the house. “I guess I better go and show you the way, because—”

  Then the little old man’s wife came to the door and threw a flatiron at him, and a rollingpin and an alarm clock.

  “You lazy old scoundrel!” she shouted at him. “Sitting out here and gassing with strangers, and not a stick of wood to cook dinner with in the house!”

  “Maggie,” the little old man said. His wife reached into the house again and threw a shoe at him, and he turned and ran around the corner of the house. The woman stood in the door and glared at them.

  “And you folks with nothing better to do than keep folks from their work,” she said. She glared at them again and slammed the door.

  “There now, what I tell you?” Alice said. “White trash!”

  “Well, I guess we’ll have to find the Wishing Tree by ourselves,” the redheaded boy said. “Come on.”

  They rode on past the house and along the garden fence. At the corner of the fence somebody called cautiously to them as they passed, and they saw the little old man peering out from behind a row of tomato plants.

  “Is she gone?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” the redheaded boy answered. The little old man came out and climbed the fence.

  “Wait a minute for me, and I’ll go with you.” So they waited for him and he sneaked along the fence to the house and picked up the clock and the rollingpin and the iron and ran back down the road and climbed the garden fence again and hid the things in the fence corner. “So she can’t throw them at me when we come back,” he explained cunningly.

  “You can ride in the cart with Alice and Dicky,” the redheaded boy said. Alice mumbled again, and Dulcie asked,

  “What did you say, Alice?”

  “I says, me and Dicky don’t want that old trash in the cart with us. Your mommer wouldn’t like it.”

  “Why can’t I ride too?” the little old man said in a hurt tone.

  “Let him ride in the cart, Alice,” the redheaded boy said. “He won’t bother you.”

  “Of course I won’t, ma’am,” the little old man said. “I wouldn’t think of it.”

  “Let him ride in the cart, Alice,” they all said.

  “Well, get in, then,” Alice said ungraciously. “But your mommer won’t like it.”

  The little old man hopped nimbly in, and they rode on. “I can whittle things with a knife,” the little old man said.

  Alice sniffed.

  “This is a nice pony and cart you have,” the little old man said.

  “First choss pony,” Dicky said.

  “Shetland pony, darling,” Dulcie corrected. “Not first choice pony.”

  “I used to have a lot of ponies,” the little old man said.

  Alice sniffed again. “Bet you never had nothin’ except flatirons throwed at you in your life.”

  They came to a fork in the road and the redheaded boy stopped. “Now, which way?” he asked.

  “That way,” the little old man answered immediately, pointing. They rode on.

  “What were you carving whe
n we came up?” Dulcie asked. The little old man reached in his pocket and took the piece of wood out, and they all crowded about the cart to look at it.

  “Little puppy,” Dicky said.

  “It’s a lizard,” George said.

  “No, it’s a dragon,” Dulcie said. “Isn’t it?”

  “It ain’t nothin’,” Alice said. “He nor nobody never saw nothin’ like that.”

  “What is it?” Dulcie asked.

  “I don’t know,” the little old man answered. “I don’t know what it is, but I think it’s a gillypus.”

  “What’s a gillypus?” asked George.

  “I don’t know, but I expect it looks something like this.”

  “Why do you call it a gillypus, then, if you don’t know what a gillypus looks like?”

  “Well,” the little old man answered. “it looks more like a gillypus than anything I ever saw.”

  “It don’t look like nothin’, to me,” Alice said. “Not like nothin’ I ever saw, even in a circus.”

  “Did you ever go to a circus?” Dulcie asked the little old man. “Alice has been.”

  “I don’t know,” the little old man answered. “It used to seem like I could kind of remember going to one, but that was a long time ago and now I don’t know if I remember or not.”

  “It’s in a big tent,” George said. “A tent big enough to hold our house. I wish I had a circus tent.”

  “It has flags on it,” Dulcie added, “colored flags flapping on top of it.”

  “I want to go to a circus,” Dicky said.

  “We are going to the next one. Mother has already said we could. Alice is going to take us, aren’t you, Alice?”

  “And a band,” added Alice, “and a elefump big as ten of these ponies rolled into one. That elefump was the biggest thing I ever seen in my bawn days. Lawd, Lawd.”

  “I want to go to a circus, Alice,” Dicky said.

  “So does I, honey. Spotted hawses, and folks spanglin’ through the air … listen: don’t I hear a band now?”