Octagon Magic Read online

  Miss Ashemeade no longer smiled. Her hands rested quietly on the top of the table.

  “There has been such talk.”

  “But Aunt Margaret said they are going to have another meeting to talk about it, and that the people who couldn't go to the meeting could have a lawyer speak for them.”

  “I believe that is so. And you are worried about me, Lor-rie? Yes, I see that you are. Well, we shall see what we shall see. I am not defenseless, Lorrie, not entirely defenseless.”

  Now she was smiling again. “And, Lorrie, if you wish, please come to tea tomorrow. And"—she motioned to the tall desk standing in a darker corner of the room—"if you will bring me paper, pen, and ink, my dear, I shall write a note to your Aunt Margaret. I should very much like her to come also.”

  Lorrie went to get Miss Ashemeade what she wanted, but she hoped as she went that Miss Ashemeade was right, that she had a defense against the thruway. Because—because— Lorrie could not bear that thought. Not this house—this room—to be pulled all to pieces.

  Octagon House Keeps Christmas

  There had been more snow during the night, and in the morning too, while they were in church. But in the afternoon, while Aunt Margaret and Lorrie had tea in Miss Ashemeade's warm red room, the sun came out and made thousands of sparkles across the drifts. Sabina sat before the fire and purred to herself, a song, Lorrie thought, not unlike the one Miss Ashemeade had sung when she worked on the collar.

  She dropped down beside the kitten and stared into the flames, another world all red and yellow trees and—Sabina purred while the fire crackled gently to itself.

  Aunt Margaret and Miss Ashemeade were examining the framed embroidery pictures and panels on the wall. That is, Aunt Margaret moved about, looking at them, asking questions that Miss Ashemeade answered from her chair. There were lots of candles, all lighted, as well as the sun at the windows, so one could see. Lorrie heard the excited note in Aunt Margaret's voice after she had made the circuit of the room and came back to sit down again by the window.

  “—museum pieces!”

  “Perhaps in this day and age. Much has been forgotten. But they were made for pleasure and with pride of talent. They were fashioned because the urge to do so was great.”

  “Carolinian stump work! And those needlework engravings—the samplers! One reads of such things, but they are seldom to be seen. And the tapestries"—Aunt Margaret kept turning her head from side to side—"such needlepoint! It is fabulous. I have never seen such a complete collection—it must date back three hundred years—and such perfect condition!”

  “Oh, thread and fabric wear through the dust of years. But there are precautions one may take, of course. I have reason to care for them since they give me pleasure and I do not go abroad nowadays. But all things pass with the years themselves. Perhaps the time will come when none shall care. And if there is no one to do so, then it is better such work vanish. But this is no day, with the sun bright and the snow all diamonds, to think of that, is it?”

  She rang her bell and nodded at Lorrie. “My dear, I think that perhaps you may help Hallie. Dear Hallie, her baking tins and mixing bowls are to her what my needles and threads are to me, and she so seldom has a chance to show her skill nowadays. I think she has, perhaps, as the saying goes, outdone herself today. Company for Sunday tea is a pleasure we have not had for a long time.”

  Lorrie went to the kitchen. She had peeped within it several times as she went through the hall on her other visits. But somehow she felt shy about entering without Hallie's invitation. Just as she never entered the red room without knocking and waiting for Miss Ashemeade to call, “Come.” Now she stared about her with frank curiosity. Why, it was almost exactly the same as that kitchen where she had hidden to watch Phineas steal the bread and the gingerbread. Only this time there were no preparations of pie making on the table.

  Instead there was a shining silver tray and on it a silver sugar bowl, a cream pitcher, and another rounded container in which teaspoons with flower-patterned handles stood upright. Hallie was at the big range, filling the silver teapot with water from a steaming kettle. She smiled at Lorrie sniffing the spicy odors that all at once made her sure she was hungry.

  “Come to help, Mis’ Lorrie? That's fine. Hallie hasn't got her four arms, or five hands, or a little fairy wand to push an’ pull an’ fly things ‘round for her. You take that cloth now an’ put it on the tea table. They's napkins with it, don't drop them, child. Then, if you'll come back, we'll git along with the rest.”

  Lorrie could hardly believe this was meant to be a tablecloth, it was such fine material and bordered with lace. But she followed Hallie's instructions and then trotted again across the triangle of hallway with the napkin-covered plates Hallie gave her.

  “Hallie,” Aunt Margaret observed, when those napkins were gathered up to show such numbers of small cakes, sandwiches, things Lorrie did not even know how to name, “you are an artist! These look far too good to eat.”

  Hallie laughed. “Now, Mis’ Gerson, that's what they's made for, an’ it gives me a pleasurin’ to have a chance to keep my hand in a-makin’ ‘em all. Mis’ Charlotta, she don't eat no more'n a bird.”

  “I don't believe you have ever watched a bird, Hallie,” laughed Miss Ashemeade, “if you say that. They eat all the time when they can find sustenance. As one grows old the sharpness of one's senses is curtailed. Taste and smell are not what they once were, and then half the pleasure of food has fled. So Hallie is enjoying herself today, having a chance to cater to more appreciative and larger appetites than mine.”

  Sabina mewed loudly, pressing her small body against Miss Ashemeade's wide folds of skirt. Though Miss Ashemeade's dress was made the same as the green one, today it was gray, with a wide collar of cobwebby lace lying on her shoulders. The ends of the lace hung to her waist. On her wrists were wide bracelets of black enamel with small pearl flowers set in wreaths on them. A big pin of the same workmanship, with a whole bouquet of seed pearls on it, fastened the collar.

  Now one of the bracelets turned round and round as if it were made for a much plumper wrist, as Miss Ashemeade gently pulled her skirt from the claws Sabina was daring to lay in its folds.

  “Not so, Sabina. You have tea, to be sure, but in the proper place. We have nothing here to interest small cats.”

  “Come on, Sabina.” Hallie moved toward the door. “You's not forgotten.”

  Sabina scurried past Hallie, heading for the kitchen, and Miss Ashemeade laughed again. “Now there goes one who is certainly not unmindful of the pleasures of the table.”

  Later, when they were walking home in the early winter dusk, Aunt Margaret spoke suddenly:

  “I felt as if I had been caught in a fairy tale when I was in that house. It has an enchantment, Lorrie. Time seems to stand still there—” Her voice trailed off as if she were thinking.

  “They mustn't tear it down!” Lorrie voiced the fear that had been with her at intervals since Aunt Margaret had first mentioned the thruway.

  “We feel that, Lorrie. But in the name of progress more than one crime is committed nowadays. I wonder just who will rejoice when the last blade of grass is buried by concrete, when the last tree is brought down by a bulldozer, when the last wild thing is shot, or poisoned, or trapped. Lorrie—” again Aunt Margaret hesitated “—don't set your heart on saving Octagon House.”

  “But—but where would Miss Ashemeade and Hallie and Sabina go?”

  Aunt Margaret shook her head and did not answer. After a moment Lorrie said angrily:

  “I don't believe it! And I'm not going to think it will happen!”

  “Please, Lorrie.” Aunt Margaret looked at her anxiously. “Hope for what you wish, yes, but you must learn to accept disappointment. Learn all you can from Octagon House, because it has a great deal to offer one who has eyes to see. But it belongs to another day, when time itself moved slower. We believe we have mastered time in some ways, but when one opens one's hand to grasp a new
thing, one has to let go of an old. Do you understand what I mean, Lorrie?”

  “I think so. But I don't believe it is good to put that street through here!”

  “Maybe we don't believe so, Lorrie, but you wouldn't find many to agree with us. Anyway, there is still the meeting and a chance the plan will not go through. In the meantime, Miss Ashemeade has invited us to spend the afternoon of Christmas Day with her.”

  “Really and truly?” Lorrie grabbed at Aunt Margaret's hand and squeezed it as tight as the mitten and glove covering their hands would allow. “Are we going?”

  “Yes. She is being very kind, for she said I might bring the camera and take pictures of some of those wonderful needlework pieces. They can't ever be copied, such work is not possible today. But some of the patterns might be adapted. Though"—Aunt Margaret sighed—"for anyone who has seen the originals, copies will be sorry substitutes.”

  The days until Christmas might have dragged, except there was so much to do. Lorrie was one of the Holly Chorus at school for the Christmas Assembly and went about singing “Deck the halls with boughs of holly” until Aunt Margaret said that she had no objection to carols but they did seem to ooze out of the walls at this time of year and were hard to think by.

  Then she produced tickets for a special Walt Disney movie downtown. And Lorrie asked Kathy and Rob Lockner, and Lizabeth Ross, who was beside her in the Holly chorus, to go. They had lunch at Bamber's and after the movie a sundae at Walker's, with a trip through the Freeman toy shop at the end of the day.

  “Gee, Lorrie, Miss Gerson, that was swell,” Rob commented as they came upstairs.

  “I loved it when the fairy turned them all into animals,” Kathy said. “Thank you, Miss Gerson.”

  Lorrie agreed it had all been super. But back in the apartment she sat down in the first chair to take off her boots, and her face was sober.

  “Too much show, or ice cream, or walking?” asked Aunt Margaret. “I will admit that pushing through crowds is rather trying.”

  Lorrie looked up. “You know,” she spoke half accusingly. “Why—why wouldn't Kathy sit next to Lizabeth? She pushed me in ahead when I was being polite to let her in first. I think Lizabeth knew it too. She didn't talk much after that. It isn't fair! Lizabeth's nice, she's smart, and she's pretty. Kathy was mean.”

  “I don't think Kathy was being mean exactly,” Aunt Margaret answered. “Kathy doesn't see things the way you do, Lorrie. For a long, long time there have been separations between people. That this is not right, we know now more and more. But when people stand apart and do not try to make friends, walls go up between them, and they believe all kinds of untrue things about the person on the other side of the wall. The less they know about a stranger, the more ready they are to believe that he is bad in one way or another.

  “I don't believe that Kathy ever in her life before spent an afternoon with Lizabeth or any little girl of another race or color. So she was feeling strange and did not know what to do, while Lizabeth drew back and did not try any more to be friendly after Kathy had snubbed her. Both of them had a chance to break down that wall a little, but neither made the attempt.”

  “But you tried to have them do it, didn't you, Aunt Margaret?” Lorrie set aside her boots. “That's why you had them look at the stuffed animals together.”

  “Yes. And I think that next time Kathy will wonder if Lizabeth isn't like her after all. They both liked the big fox and the baby owls. When they forgot themselves, they talked about those, remember?”

  “Then you don't think that—that Lizabeth will be mad at me?”

  “Not in the least. And now, I am just a tired old aunt. Do you think you can get me a bite of supper all by yourself as a good, kind, obedient niece should?”

  “One supper coming right up!” Lorrie jumped to her feet. It was about Phineas and Phebe she thought as she looked into the freezer for inspiration. They had not had friends either. Miss Ashemeade had said they had stayed on at Octagon House. Odd—Lorrie paused between stove and table. She had never spoken to Aunt Margaret about the doll house. Yet that was a bigger treasure than all the pieces of embroidery.

  No—the doll house was something else. When had it been made? There was no miniature of it inside the smaller house. That room had only the chair, the painting on the floor, the shelves with their bottles and books, some dried plants hanging in bundles along the walls, and also that secret place where Lotta had hidden Phineas and Phebe.

  Lotta lived in the house. But who else did? Lotta was only a little girl, not much older than Lorrie. Did she have a father and mother? Brothers and sisters? Who had baked the bread and the gingerbread Phineas stole? Was the doll house itself made for the Lotta of long ago?

  There were so many questions. But maybe Lorrie could find the answers to a few of them. Only—again Lorrie stopped to think—she did not want to see the doll house often. Lorrie wondered about that a little. The first time—then she had been exploring as Miss Ashemeade suggested. And when she had had the second adventure, Miss Ashemeade had sent her to find Sabina. She was sure that Miss Ashemeade knew both times about her visits back to that other time. Then, did Miss Ashemeade intend her to have those adventures. Why? And would she have any more?

  Lorrie put down the butter dish she was carrying. She was not quite sure she wanted any more rides.

  The school Christmas program was over and vacation began. Christmas was on Saturday, but Aunt Margaret had to work until the Wednesday before. The Lockners were going away on Tuesday and Lorrie persuaded Mrs. Lockner that she had Christmas presents to finish and wanted to work on them at home. But she dutifully went there to lunch on Monday and helped Kathy wash dishes afterward.

  The next morning the boy from the grocery brought a note from Octagon House. Miss Ashemeade wondered if Lorrie would like to help with Christmas decorations. Aunt Margaret agreed, and by ten Lorrie was tramping along the snow-covered brick walk around to the back door.

  She shed her boots, ski pants, and jacket in the hall. Hallie came to the door of the kitchen with two big bowls in her hands. One was mounded with cranberries, the other had fluffy popcorn heaped high in it.

  “You're jus’ in good time, child, to save old Hallie a couple of steps an’ a minute or two. You take this in.”

  The cranberries were raw, even if the corn was popped. Did Miss Ashemeade mean they were to eat them so? But without asking questions Lorrie took the bowls into the red room.

  There had been changes there. The sewing table was moved back against the wall, the embroidery frame pushed beside it. Another small table stood beside Miss Ashemeade's chair, holding only her needle box, a pair of scissors, and a very large spool of coarse white thread. On the stool where Lorrie usually sat stood a box, its lid thrown back, and out of that Miss Ashemeade was taking small bundles of old, much creased tissue paper and cotton.

  “You are in good time, my dear. Now, do you suppose you can move up that other table? Put the bowls over here, then just set this box on the floor. There, we are quite in order now. What do you think of the tree?”

  It stood there, bare and green and fragrant, between the two windows. And it must have been placed on a box now wrapped with green cloth, for it was not a full-sized one. As if reading Lorrie's thought, Miss Ashemeade shook her head.

  “We used to have a proper tree, tall enough to top all heads. But I did not believe we could manage to trim such a one now. We shall have work enough to dress one this size.”

  She was pulling away the paper and cotton wrappings from things she took from the box, setting each with a gentle touch, as she freed it, on the table Lorrie had moved close to her. There was a row of tiny baskets, some with lids. Next came walnut shells, gilded and fastened half open so that one could peep inside. Lorrie did, to discover that they cradled tiny, brightly colored pictures of flowers, animals, boys and girls. Then there were flat ornaments of cardboard, velvet-covered and edged with gold-and-silver paper lace, in the center of each a larger picture.<
br />
  Miss Ashemeade held some a little longer than others, as if they brought her memories. One of these was a cage of fine golden wire, within it a bird fashioned of tiny shells. And there were more baskets, made of cloves strung on wire with a glass bead inset on every wire crossing.

  “Oh, I had forgotten, almost I had forgotten.” Miss Ashemeade held a small round box on her hand. “Look at this, Lorrie. When I was younger this was a dear treasure.”

  In the box was a set of four bowls, bowls so tiny Lorrie did not see how anyone could ever make them. But the greatest wonder was that in each of those minute bowls rested a silver spoon!

  “So little!” marveled Lorrie.

  “They are carved from cherry stones, my dear.” Miss Ashemeade carefully set aside the box. “See, here are some similar carvings.” She uncoiled a piece of thin cord. Fastened to it at intervals were baskets, only one or two as big as Lorrie's finger nail. “These, and these, are from cherry stones. And that—that is a hazel nut, and that an acorn. This is sturdy enough to hang on the tree. But the bowls—they are too easily lost.”

  “I never saw such things.”

  “No,” Miss Ashemeade agreed, “perhaps you have not. You see, once people made all their own decorations. We did not have the fine glass pieces that were for sale. So we used our imagination and made our own pretty things.”

  “I like these better than the store things.” Lorrie did not touch the peep-show walnut shells, the cord of nut baskets, or any of the treasures Miss Ashemeade had set out. She wanted to, but she did not quite dare.

  “So do I, my dear. But then I have known them for a long, long time and old things grow into one's heart and memory until one cannot lose them, even when one can no longer do this.” She picked up one of the walnuts and smiled down at it. Within a dove fluttered white wings above blue and pink flowers.

  “Now.” She put aside the walnut and picked up a needle case from the other table. “We shall need some long thread, Lorrie, as long as might go around the tree at least once.”