Read Online The Old Meadow by George Selden - Free Book Online

fly out of the South to tell us this.” Chester suspected that everyone’s problems were obvious—especially the ones they tried to hide.
    â€œAnyway, Ashley says come now! Mr. Budd’s enough certain that the bird’s on the mend so he’s willin’ to take his afternoon nap. So this is a good time for us to talk. The good Lord willin’ —an’ the creek don’t rise.”
    â€œOh, boy!” said Chester. “One mockingbird.”
    â€œLet’s go!” said Walter.
    â€œYou tell me about it later,” said Simon. “I think I’ll just stay here. I find that some news is more exciting when you hear about it afterwards than when it takes place right before your eyes.” Also, the sun felt like a kind hand whose fingers were strumming, but very gently, all over his shell. “Make certain you tell me everything now.” He yawned, as he fell asleep.
    â€œAnd tell me, too—if I should remember to ask,” said Donald Dragonfly. He flew home, to his twig overhanging the brook. He could always remember that flight.
    *   *   *
    Ashley was perched on Luke’s stool in front of the cabin, enjoying the sun in his own way, like Simon in his. “Hah, y’all!” he caroled to everyone.
    â€œMr. Budd still asleep?” whispered Dubber in a baritone rumble that could wake up a rock.
    â€œAsleep an’ snorin’. We was up all last night again. He kept askin’ me if I could sleep—I kept twitterin’ yes—then he’d ask me again ten minutes later—an’ we went on like that till dawn.”
    â€œYou look all right,” Chester Cricket worried. “And I promise I’ll only ask this once: are you?”
    â€œThis wing here”—Ashley tried to straighten his right wing out, and barely could—“it’s mighty sore. That J.J. packs a wallop—”
    â€œHe better not come within striking distance!”
    â€œNow, Walt, cool off. Topple back there into the creek. In many ways I had it comin’—an’ in other ways, I’m glad it happened. I was showin’ off. An’ it’s all right to show off, but only in front of the folks who want you to show. Like Hank an’ Eller. They want me to do my darndest, hidden up in the leaves of mah oak. But here—I wasn’t just showin’ off, I was showin’ J.J. up.” Ashley shook his head and warbled a tune of confusion. “I’ve learned a lot in these few days.”
    His here-and-there melody straightened out. “There’s a lot I’ve learned. One thing: your human bein’s up here aren’t an itty-bit like our people. Our people back home, I mean. Why, no one back in West Virginia would heave a man out of his cabin.”
    â€œYou know the fix we’re in,” said Chester.
    â€œI think I do. But since that first day, when you explained—betwixt Dubber here an’ the ramblin’s of Mr. Budd, when he nodded off despite himself—an’ sometimes when he just had to talk, an’ I was there, bein’ tended to in his hands—I got the whole picture. It’s pretty ugly.” He sang his uncertain song again. “Especially since those guys with the ties have been comin’ around again.”
    Ashley whistled a question. “Y’all short of land up here?”
    â€œIt isn’t that,” Chester said. “I mean—yes, we are. In this part of Connecticut. But the Old Meadow is something special.”
    â€œI was raised to believe all the earth was special,” said Ashley Mockingbird. “You better had try to tell me more.”
    Chester flicked his antennae. It helped to fix his thoughts. He told Ashley how the Old Meadow had been made a special place. And he tried to explain the Truce, too: “When the meadow got saved from development—from parking lots and gas stations—we animals got together