The Four-Story Mistake Read Free

“All he’s thinking about is how much he hates his carrier.”
    Willy Sloper got a taxicab. The luggage was bundled into it and strapped onto it until it looked less like a taxi than a moving van. Randy put on her old brown hat with the elastic that was so tight under the chin she couldn’t swallow. Oliver had a last trace of soot removed from his face with a damp handkerchief, and Mona hid behind a door and put some powder on her nose.
    â€œCome, my lambs,” said Cuffy. “We haven’t much time to spare.”
    All of them looked back as they went out the door, except Rush and Oliver. Rush because he wouldn’t, and Oliver because it simply didn’t occur to him. Behind them the front door closed. For the last time, Randy thought again. It had a hollow sound as it closed on all that emptiness.
    Somehow they fitted themselves into the taxi, but there was little room for free movement afterward. “My nose itches, Cuffy,” Oliver complained. “But I can’t get my hand up to scratch it.”
    As they drove away Randy managed to turn her head and look back. The elastic of her hat bit cruelly into her neck, but she caught a last glimpse of the house. It seemed as if the house looked back at her helplessly with all its empty windows.
    The train ride to the country was not very interesting. Rain blurred the glass so that it was hard to see out; Isaac howled and wailed, to the annoyance of the other passengers and the hot embarrassment of Rush; and Oliver got sick from excitement. He sat very still, looking blue around the mouth, and answering questions with short, cautious answers. Randy and Mona sat opposite him and Cuffy, while Rush (with Isaac’s carrier on his lap) sat beside Willy Sloper like a man of the world and discussed Major League baseball when he could make himself heard above Isaac.
    A diversion was caused by the sudden loud, clear ringing of the alarm clock in Cuffy’s suitcase. The suitcase was on the rack overhead under two hatboxes and a raincoat, so they just had to sit and listen until it ran down. The noise caused Isaac to burst into even more ambitious yelps of protest; and the other passengers stared at the Melendys as if they were a family of typhoid carriers.
    â€œOliver, did you set that clock?” hissed Cuffy.
    â€œI guess maybe I did,” admitted Oliver guiltily. He was in the habit of setting the alarms on all the clocks he came in contact with for the sheer simple pleasure he derived from hearing them go off. But this was something he hadn’t bargained for. It jarred the stomach-ache right out of him. After that he spent a very happy hour and a half traveling back and forth from the water cooler with paper cups full of water.
    Finally when it was beginning to get dark the conductor marched through the car shouting “BRAX-TON. BRAX-ton. Braxton next stop!” And the Melendys went through their usual scramble of getting themselves assembled.
    â€œI see Father! I see Father!” shrieked Oliver ecstatically as the train stopped, and in the next moment they were all hurling themselves upon their highly valued, only parent.
    â€œWhere is the house? Where is it?” cried Oliver, looking about him as if he had expected Father to bring it to the station.
    â€œMiles away,” said Father. “Right out in the country. In a valley.”
    In a valley. That sounded promising; Randy took her place in the taxi. It was much bigger than city taxis and she had room to turn comfortably and look out through the rain-spangled window at the streets of the town. The maple trees were yellow but most of the others were still green; set back among leaves she saw the houses, neat and respectable looking, each with its lawn. She saw two boys in slickers, and a wet horse pulling a wagon, and a cat on a front porch, and dozens of beds of soaked chrysanthemums bowing heavily under the rain and wind.
    By and by there were no more houses: