Several weeks went by. Out of doors, Nature ran riot, splashing leaves with extravagant reds, oranges, and yellows, then driving them to the ground with blustering winds and rains in the ancient cycle. Now the naked branches stood exposed and forlorn, awaiting the onslaught of winter, and we in the Cottage drew closer to our fires and counted our blessings.
Up in the east wing, I was seeing good progress with Goldilocks. She no longer hid when I entered her room, but ran instead to the chair where I habitually sat to read to her, and imitated my gesture of patting the place beside her. Her appetite for stories of all kinds seemed endless. Her flashes of temper and of taking fright continued, but I expected very little of her as yet, thinking it important to first establish a bond with her. To aid in this effort, Mrs. Vaughn insisted that I be the one to present to Goldilocks the new toy we had sent for from town, a golden-haired doll, very like the child herself, and dressed in a miniature sailor suit and Lilliputian shoes. I watched Goldilocks’s face light up as she opened the box, and beheld the little figure within. As a measure of the progress she had made, she looked up at me and signed “please.”
“Yes, dear,” I said. “You may have her to keep. She is just for you.” The little girl’s eyes spoke her wonder and gratitude. Her first instinct was to run with it behind her hiding chair, as if fearful that I might change my mind and take it away. There she alternately examined every inch of the doll and its clothing, and hugged it to her chest with both arms, smiling incandescently. How often that happy image comes to me now, in the quiet hours. Would that I could always have kept that shining smile on her innocent face, but I had no such magic.
My work with Teddy continued to be a source of satisfaction and even amusement, his sweet nature and quick perception rewarding my efforts many times over. The difficult task was to avoid laughing at his occasional mischief, for in truth I was delighted to see such evidence of spirit.
But then there was Nurse. For weeks I had seen no sign of her other than her sleeping form when I went into the nursery to wake Teddy. I let myself believe that my problems with her were in the past. It didn’t seem to have penetrated her sensibility, however, that her presence was no longer needed in the schoolroom. By the end of a fortnight, she began wandering into the schooloom at odd times, planting herself immovably on her old chair and watching my every move with an aspect as malignant as the plague.
At first I cordially voiced my objection, reminding Nurse that Mr. Vaughn had decreed that it was not necessary for her to tire herself further by spending time in the schoolroom. When I suggested this, however, the furry face screwed up into an expression of such tragedy that Teddy immediately ran to her side and smothered her in a small bear hug.
“I ain’t causing no trouble! I never done nothing!” she sobbed, gulping and sniffling to great effect. “I just wanted to be with my little Teddy. An’ all I hear is I ain’t wanted and I must go away, when there ain’t no other place for me, an’ no one else who loves me on this here earth!”
It struck me that, though the performance was clearly manufactured, the old badger might be telling the truth: in all likelihood, her sullen visage was not welcomed anywhere else, and I had no trouble believing that there really was no one else to love her but Teddy. Her impact on him was exactly as she had calculated: he looked up at me with tear-filled eyes and said, “Please can’t she stay, Miss Brown?”
“The lessons must not be interrupted,” I insisted, trying to hold my ground.
Teddy immediately agreed, and Nurse sniffled loudly while writhing around uncomfortably in what might have been a nod of assent. In the end, Teddy’s love for the cantankerous old badger was stronger than my polite objections, and so it came about that Nurse was with us again. She typically arrived midmorning, in varying states of sobriety, and was sure to make her presence felt with a loud belch, or a noxious passing of wind, before settling down in her poisonous little corner. There she lurked, exuding malice, making messes with little wads of paper and dead flies. The remarkable exceptions were when I praised Teddy for performing particularly well at his tasks, or when he took some work of his to show to her. Then a transformation took place: her evil old face cracked into a smile, and she’d say, “That’s my duck! What a clever one he is!” and the little bear’s eyes shone.
It seemed that she was now content just to be in the schoolroom with Teddy, where she could sit quietly and kill me with her looks. And yet, for all her hostility, I thought I observed her in unguarded moments to betray a hint of interest in my lessons. On several occasions when I was verbally examining Teddy on some short words, I noticed that she started to call out the answer, then cut herself short, and camouflaged it with an exaggerated sneeze. Could it be that Nurse could not read? Pondering this, I realized that I had never seen books in the nursery. It occurred to me that Nurse was learning to read along with Teddy. This thought gave me pause. I wondered if my teaching her to read could possibly change her behavior toward me: whether opening the world of books to her might actually improve her character, or whether she would just use the ability for composing poison-pen letters and ransom notes.
One day, after the lessons were done, and I was having tea in my room, I received a note from Mr. Vaughn asking whether I might play the accompaniment for the men’s choir that night. If so, I would be escorted by himself, Mr. Bentley, and Fairchild to the church at the appointed hour. My heart skipped a beat upon reading this epistle. I dearly wanted to be of some practical use in the cause for which they were fighting, and I was excited by the spark of danger present.
An hour before sunset, I met the others at the door and we departed silently. Mr. Bentley fell in next to me, and I smiled up at him, hoping he was walking beside me on purpose, but Mr. Vaughn soon consulted him about something, and Mr. Bentley moved to his side to speak with him. I confess, I listened in on their conversation. In truth, I longed to know more of what the men’s choir was trying to do. Though I was full of questions, I was loath to make a pest of myself, so I thought it better to keep quiet and see what transpired.
When we arrived at the church, the others were waiting for us, having taken their places in the choir loft and passed around the hymnals for good show. I was asked to play the pianoforte while the gentlemen spoke among themselves, so that anyone approaching the church would hear the music. I started with the first hymn in the hymnal, “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” and began to play. Mr. Vaughn called the meeting to order, and gave a quick summary of their recent activities before opening up discussion on conditions in town, and suggestions for their future exploits. A short black bear stood up and reported that many of his longtime human customers, friends and neighbors, were forsaking his grocery store, taking their business to a human greengrocer clear across town. Several raccoons then complained that they had been denied credit at the general store, and that their favorite fresh fish restaurant, where they had been regulars for years, had last night seated them next to the kitchen, and that nobody had waited on them until all the other diners were finished. Finally, an elderly man, introducing himself as Mr. Weatherby, began to talk about the village newspaper, the Town Crier, and the way it was twisting and revising the news. I soon deduced that he was the editor of that paper. He objected to Mr. Babcock, the new owner of the paper, and grand high chief of the Anthropological Society, ordering him to run articles that maligned the town’s Enchanted citizens, firing up old resentments, pitting neighbor against neighbor—articles that had little or nothing to do with the truth. Mr. Vaughn then introduced a case in point, the article calling that young bear I had seen in the Post Office a vandal, and praising the boys who beat him up. He asked me to stop playing briefly and tell the true story, which I managed to do, though I was so nervous to be the center of so much attention that my voice quavered.
“They’ve no shame at all!” I heard one bear say as I went back to playing the hymns.
“How can we stop it?” others began to ask.
“We can’t, but maybe we can beat Babcock at his own game. Mr. Weatherby,” inquired Mr. Vaughn, “what if I asked you to work for me? With you as our editor, we can set up our own printing press, have our own newspaper, tell people what’s really going on. We can work out of my basement if we’ve nowhere else. I’ll be the backer.”
“I would be pleased and honored to become your editor, sir,” said Mr. Weatherby. “If we can publish our own paper, we can shed some light on the ugly facts!”
There were cheers and cries of approbation. “And we’ll deliver them!” cried one, and the others quickly joined in. “We’ll all deliver them!”
It was an exhilarating moment, and I happened to be playing “Take Up Thy Cross” when the weasel watching at the door gave us the signal that someone was coming. My heart seemed to do a somersault, and I lost my place as I realized that this was where the intrigue really began. Reverend Snover gave me a reassuring smile, and I tried to focus on the page in front of me, knowing that these men were counting on me to play my part, and I must not let them down. “Page 160!” I called out, and everyone started humming along, frantically flipping pages, joining in with the words when they found the place. By the time the door opened and Chief Constable Murdley walked in, there was some semblance of a choir singing, with Reverend Snover conducting, and me silently thanking Papa for all those years of piano lessons. Constable Murdley made himself comfortable in a back pew and settled down to listen, leaving us to wonder why. Did he still harbor suspicions about the men’s choir, after all, or did he just like music? If it was the latter, he was doomed to disappointment. I played all four verses with the choir limping along in something like three-part harmony, and then Reverend Snover shouted out the next hymn number and we went through the whole process again with “He Leadeth Me, O Blessed Thought” and “Rise Up, O Men of God.” Still, Constable Murdley sat and listened, and Reverend Snover stopped the proceedings a few times to correct some minor points, or to encourage the tenors or baritones to sing out, apparently for a touch of realism. I admired his panache, a little surprised to find such a talent for subterfuge in an elderly man of God. I myself was making enough nervous mistakes to cast doubt on the whole endeavor, but no one seemed to notice. I could feel the perspiration dampening my brow as the charade went on for another half hour. At last Constable Murdley stood up and ambled out the door appearing satisfied with himself. Breathing a sigh of relief, I played on until the watch weasel signaled that the constable was well out of range.
“Now, then,” Reverend Snover commenced. “Where were we?”
“The new printing press,” put in Mr. Vaughn. “I’ll order the machinery delivered with all possible speed. It may be a month or more before we’re set up and ready to print. In the meantime, if Mr. Weatherby would look into hiring or training whatever staff he will need, the rest of us can be on the lookout for likely stories, stories that the Town Crier would never print. We will give our citizens the plain truth.”
“The Plain Truth! A great name for our paper!” called out an enthusiastic badger, amid cries of agreement.
Mr. Vaughn smiled and nodded. “So it is. So it is.” And so it was decided.
The meeting was soon over, and it seemed to me that, despite Constable Murdley’s interference, the men’s choir had gone from a discouraged group of martyrs to a hopeful band of mutineers in the course of the evening.
“Until next time, friends,” said the reverend. “Keep your eyes and ears open and your lips closed. And look out for one another. God go with you.”