CHAPTER 10

MONEY TROUBLE

Louis was the best-liked young male swan on Upper Red Rock Lake. He was also the best equipped. He not only had a slate and a chalk pencil around his neck, he had a brass trumpet on a red cord. The young females were beginning to notice him because he looked entirely different from the other cygnets. He stood out in a crowd. None of the others carried anything with them.

Louis was delighted with the new trumpet. All day, the first day he had it, he tried to get it to make a noise. Holding the trumpet was not easy. He tried several different positions, bending his neck and blowing. At first, no sound came out. He blew harder and harder, puffing out his cheeks and getting red in the face.

“This is going to be tough,” he thought.

But then he discovered that, by holding his tongue in a certain way, he could get the trumpet to emit a small gasping sound. It wasn’t a very pretty noise, but at least it was a noise. It sounded a little like hot air escaping from a radiator.

“Puwoowf, puwoowf,” went the trumpet.

Louis kept at it. Finally, on the second day of trying, he got it to play a note—a clear note.

“Ko!” went the trumpet.

Louis’s heart skipped a beat when he heard it. A duck, swimming nearby, stopped to listen.

“Ko! Ko ee oo oooph,” went the trumpet.

“It will take time,” thought Louis. “I’m not going to become a trumpeter in a day, that’s for sure. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I’m going to learn to blow this horn if it takes me all summer.”

Louis had other problems besides learning the trumpet. For one thing, he knew that his trumpet wasn’t paid for—it had been stolen. He didn’t like that at all. For another thing, Serena, the swan he was in love with, had gone away. She had left the lakes with several other young swans and had flown north to the Snake River. Louis was afraid he might never see her again. So he found himself with a broken heart, a stolen trumpet, and no one to give him any lessons.

Whenever Louis was in trouble, his thoughts turned to Sam Beaver. Sam had helped him before; perhaps he could help him again. Besides, springtime was making him restless: he felt an urge to leave the lakes and fly somewhere. So he took off one morning and headed straight for the Bar Nothing Ranch, in the Sweet Grass country, where Sam lived.

Flying was not as easy as it once had been. If you’ve ever tried to fly with a trumpet dangling from your neck and a slate flapping in the wind and a chalk pencil bouncing around at the end of its string, you know how hard it can be. Louis realized that there were advantages in traveling light and not having too many possessions clinging to you. Nevertheless, he was a strong flier, and the slate and the chalk pencil and the trumpet were important to him.

When he reached the ranch where Sam lived, he circled once, then glided down and walked into the barn. He found Sam grooming his pony.

“Well, look who’s here!” exclaimed Sam. “You look like a traveling salesman with all that stuff around your neck. I’m glad to see you.”

Louis propped the slate up against the pony’s stall. “I’m in trouble,” he wrote.

“What’s the matter?” asked Sam. “And where did you get the trumpet?”

“That’s the trouble,” wrote Louis. “My father stole it. He gave it to me because I have no voice. The trumpet hasn’t been paid for.”

Sam whistled through his teeth. Then he led the pony into his stall, tied him, came out, and sat down on a bale of hay. For a while he just stared at the bird. Finally he said, “You’ve got a money problem. But that’s not unusual. Almost everybody has a money problem. What you need is a job. Then you can save your earnings, and when you get enough money saved up, your father can pay back the man he stole the trumpet from. Can you actually play that thing?”

Louis nodded. He raised the trumpet to his beak.

“Ko!” said the trumpet. The pony jumped.

“Hey!” said Sam. “That’s pretty good. Do you know any other notes?”

Louis shook his head.

“I’ve got an idea,” said Sam. “I have a job this summer as a junior counselor at a boys’ camp in Ontario. That’s in Canada. I’ll bet I can get you a job as camp bugler if you can learn a few more notes. The camp wants somebody that can blow a horn. The idea is, you blow a lot of loud fast notes in the early morning to wake the boys up. That’s called reveille. Then you blow some other notes to call the campers to their meals. That’s called the mess call. Then at night when everybody is in bed and the light has faded from the sky and the lake is calm and the mosquitoes are busy in the tents, biting the boys, and the boys are getting sleepy in their beds, you blow some other notes, very soft and sweet and sad. That’s called taps. Do you want to go to camp with me and try it?”

“I’ll try anything,” wrote Louis. “I am desperate for money.”

Sam chuckled. “O.K.,” he said. “Camp opens in about three weeks. That’ll give you time to learn the bugle calls. I’ll buy you a music book that tells what the notes are.”

And Sam did. He found a book of trumpet calls, such as they use in the Army. He read the instructions to Louis. “Stand erect. Always hold the trumpet straight from the body. Do not point it down toward the ground as this position cramps the lungs and gives the performer a very poor appearance. The instrument should be cleaned once a week to remove the spit.”

Every afternoon, when the guests on Mr. Beaver’s ranch had gone off on pack trips in the hills, Louis practiced the calls. Pretty soon he could play reveille, mess call, and taps. He particularly liked the sound of taps. Louis was musically inclined and was eager to become a really good trumpeter. “A Trumpeter Swan,” he thought, “should blow a good trumpet.” He liked the idea of getting a job, too, and earning money. He was just the right age for going to work. He was almost two years old.

On the night before they were to leave for camp, Sam packed all his camping things in a duffel bag. He packed sneakers and moccasins. He packed jerseys that said “Camp Kookooskoos” on the front. He rolled his camera in a towel and packed that. He packed his fishing rod, his toothbrush, his comb and brush, his sweater, his poncho, and his tennis racquet. He packed a pad and pencils and postage stamps and a first-aid kit and a book that told how to identify birds. Before he went to bed, he opened his diary and wrote:

Tomorrow is the last day of June. Pop is going to drive Louis and me to Camp Kookooskoos. I bet it will be the only boys’ camp in the world that has a trumpeter swan for the camp bugler. I like having a job. I wish I knew what I was going to be when I am a man. Why does a dog always stretch when he wakes up?

Sam closed his diary, shoved it into the duffel bag with the rest of his stuff, got into bed, turned out the light, and lay there wondering why a dog always stretches when it wakes up. In two minutes he was asleep. Louis, out in the barn, had gone to sleep long ago.

Bright and early next morning, Louis arranged his slate and his chalk pencil and his trumpet neatly around his neck and climbed into the back seat of Mr. Beaver’s car. The car was a convertible, so Mr. Beaver put the top down. Sam got in front with his father.

Louis stood tall and white and handsome in the back seat. Mrs. Beaver kissed Sam good-bye. She told him to be a good boy and to take care of himself and not to drown in the lake and not to get into fights with other boys and not to go out in the rain and get sopping wet and then sit around in the chilly air without putting a sweater on, not to get lost in the woods, not to eat too much candy and drink too much pop, not to forget to write letters home every few days, and not to go out in a canoe when it was windy on the lake.

Sam promised.

“O.K.!” cried Mr. Beaver. “Off we go to Ontario, beneath the open sky!” He started the car and tooted the horn.

“Good-bye, Mom!” called Sam.

“Good-bye, son!” called his mother.

The car sped away toward the big main gate of the ranch. Just as it was disappearing from view, Louis turned around in his seat and put his trumpet to his mouth.

“Ko-hoh!” he blew. “Ko-hoh, ko-hoh!”

The sound carried—a wild, clear, stirring call. Everybody back at the ranch heard it and was thrilled by the sound of the trumpet. It was like no other sound they had ever heard. It reminded them of all the wild and wonderful things and places they had ever known: sunsets and moonrises and mountain peaks and valleys and lonely streams and deep woods.

“Ko-hoh! Ko-hoh! Ko-hoh!” called Louis.

The sound of the trumpet died away. The ranchers returned to their breakfast. Louis, on his way to his first job, felt as excited as he had felt on the day he learned to fly.