Mr. Wicker's Window Part 9

The prospect excited him wildly, for he had no companion with whom to laugh and share jokes. Grown people, however gay and kind, were never quite the same. The more he thought of it, the more Chris knew it had to be attempted. He squatted on his haunches, examining the carved wooden figure attentively, and felt convinced that, once alive, the boy would be an ideal and happy companion.

But how did one change inanimate to animate? Chris got up and stole back to Mr. Wicker's door. He heard the magician going up the spiral staircase to his room above, and after changing himself to a mouse to slip under the door and see that the room was really empty, Chris resumed his proper shape and opened the doors of the cupboard at the far end of the room.

On its top shelf was Book Three, a book a foot thick and bound in heavy bra.s.s studded with semi-precious stones in the form of signs and symbols. With difficulty, standing on tiptoe, Chris lifted it down, and placing it on the floor, turned over page after page.

The afternoon, rainy before, increased in storm. Dusk came two hours before its time; thunder snarled in the sky.

At last Chris found it. There were the words, and there the charm.

Certain elements were to be mixed and poured at the proper time. He hurried, memorizing as he closed the book, and hoisted it once more to its high shelf. Looking about, he found the ingredients that had been listed, and in an empty vial poured first two drops of this, and then seventeen of that, and ran to heat it at the fire.

Mr. Wicker began moving about upstairs; the floorboards creaked, and still Chris could not leave until the potion fumed and glowed.

After what seemed an endless time, amid a growing grind of thunder and in the almost darkened room, the phial in Chris's hand gave off an arching rosy glow. Chris, his cheeks hot from excitement and the fire, tiptoed out just as Mr. Wicker's step creaked on the topmost tread of the spiral stair. With infinite caution Chris closed the door silently behind him, and running lightly forward, reached the figure of the Negro boy.

The words came out, interrupted by peals and cracks of thunder. The shop was black except for the paler crescent of the bow window giving onto the street. With a crash of thunder all but drowning out his words, the boy shouted in the emptiness of the shop as he poured the rosy liquid on the figure made of wood.

And then, appalled at his audacity, Chris dropped the phial which splintered on the floor. Watching there in the darkness, he shook so with nerves that he had to kneel.

For in the blackness lit only by the lightning and its own eerie glow, the wood was changing as he watched.

It was as if the stiffness melted. Under his eyes the wooden folds of cloth became rich silk, embroidery gleamed in its reality upon the coat, and oh! the face! The wooden grin loosened, the large eyes turned, the hand holding the hard bouquet of carved flowers moved, and let the bouquet fall. The feet of the boy twitched and s.h.i.+fted in their pointed shoes.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Aghast, Chris remained frozen as the boy moved slowly, and a final _Boom!_ of thunder seemed to split the sky apart. Outside, the rain poured down as if over some skyward dam.

The boy looked down at Chris with a radiant smile and put out his hand.

"I'll help you up," he said to the kneeling boy in front of him. "I am Amos."

And as they turned, the light and the dark hands holding firm, the firelight was streaming from the distant door and Mr. Wicker waited.

CHAPTER 11

From that time on Chris and Amos were inseparable, with the exception of those times when Chris studied alone with Mr. Wicker. Amos, during these hours, soon endeared himself to Becky Boozer, to whom he became invaluable, for he took over those ch.o.r.es Chris had undertaken as his share. These consisted of carrying water, peeling potatoes, or watching the roasting meat in case it should burn. For Chris had less and less time for such jobs, and Amos's laughter and willing happy nature soon made Becky spoil him as much as she did Chris.

Another cot was put into Chris's room, and night after night they would hang out the two mansard windows, watching what went on below until it was too dark to see. Or else they would talk by the light of their candle until they fell asleep.

Chris now knew how lonely he had been until he set Amos free from his wooden shroud, but, warned by Mr. Wicker, he did not tell his new friend that he came from another year as yet unreached by the time they lived in.

"It is enough for a while," cautioned Mr. Wicker, "that Amos get used to being limber and alive. That is change enough from a carved wooden figure. It would only confuse and trouble him to think you do not really belong where you are. So let him be happy. And I shall seal your lips with regard to the secret of the Jewel Tree, for that must be known to no one," and so saying he rubbed a salve over Chris's lips.

"Now tell me what you are to journey after," commanded Mr. Wicker. But when Chris attempted to talk of the Jewel Tree, the words would not pa.s.s his lips but remained in his mouth like a handful of marbles.

"Good," said Mr. Wicker, rubbing his hands. "Not even to me. Excellent stuff, this," he added, turning the tiny case that contained the salve in his fingers. "I got it in India years ago, and this is the last of it. But I hardly imagine I shall need it again. Its use is somewhat drastic, but occasionally wise."

"Mr. Wicker," Chris said thoughtfully one afternoon after his lessons and memorizing were over for the day, "of the three things in your shop window that I liked best, two have been explained. Yet the third, which still interests me, seems to have had, so far, no significance.

I mean, of course, the rope."

"Ah yes," Mr. Wicker agreed, nodding and stretching his feet out toward the fire, "the rope. Very well, my boy, since it has come into your mind again, that means that the time has come for you to discover its use. Go and bring it to me."

Chris ran to get the coiled rope. He experienced almost a shock when he touched it. It had looked harsh and coa.r.s.e to the touch, of rough hemp fibre, but on picking it up, the coils in his hand seemed almost silky. Certainly they were more than usually pliable. Returning to the study, the boy put the rope beside Mr. Wicker's chair. The magician did not move, his feet still stretched comfortably towards the flames.

His dark handsome face was dreamy and remote, and Chris wondered in what faraway place or time his teacher moved. The apprentice sat down cross-legged with his back to the fire, and presently Mr. Wicker took his gaze from the sparks and smoke to look thoughtfully at him.

"You have heard of the Indian rope trick, Christopher?"

"Yes--and no, sir," Chris replied. "I'm not sure how it works."

Mr. Wicker gave a chuckle. "Indeed? Well, let me tell you, my boy, no one else does either. The rope is made to go up in the air, so stiffly that the fakir--that is, the Eastern magician--can climb it. Some claim to have seen the fakirs climb up it and vanish from sight, and the rope disappear after them."

Mr. Wicker waved one hand as much as to say that those who had seen it could believe as they pleased.

"A good enough trick, in its way," condescended Mr. Wicker, "but this rope is capable of so much more remarkable possibilities as to throw the Indian rope trick completely in the shade."

With one of his quick gestures, Mr. Wicker reached down for the rope and was up and out of his chair, all in one movement.

"You shall learn, last of your lessons, a new way of using a la.s.so.

Not la.s.soing--" Mr. Wicker held up a finger to stress his point, "that, too, you shall learn, but how to use this particular rope to make the most of its--shall we say?--qualities."

Mr. Wicker smiled his sardonic smile, though his eyes were snapping as brightly as the fire.

"Now Christopher," he began, running the rope through his long, fine hands, "just push that table and the chairs to the wall, there's a good lad, and we shall get the stiffness out of this rope." Chris cleared the room. "And pull the curtains, my boy," added his master, "for one never knows but that Amos or Becky Boozer might pa.s.s by at the crucial moment. What they do not know," murmured the magician, "is best for them."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

When the room was satisfactorily arranged, and candles had been lit, Chris returned to stand by the fireplace beside his master, who was turning the rope lightly in his fingers.

"Now Christopher, your attention please," said the magician, and his tone was crisp and authoritative. "Imagine that you are in need of a boat, and there is no boat."

With several twists of his hands the rope spun out into the middle air of the room. It moved and twisted like a live thing, and Mr. Wicker, Chris thought, seemed to be drawing the outline of a boat in the air with the moving line. Even as this thought flickered in his mind, the rope formed in mid-air the skeleton of a dingy, and then, mysteriously, the rope added to itself until the bare struts and sides were filled in and there, rocking lightly from the speed of its creation, a small row-boat hovered in the air, as if it were tied up to a dock.

"Go and feel of it, Christopher," Mr. Wicker urged. "Climb in it if you like. I have left the two ends of the rope long enough to make oars, if necessary."

Chris ran over and felt the sides of the boat. It was sound and secure, no doubt of that. He went all around it, pounding its sides, and at last heaved himself over to fall into its center. The boat never stirred, and stamp as he would, the rope bottom and gunwales resisted firmly.

"Gee! Mr. Wicker!" Chris exclaimed. "This is the best yet--except for Amos. Golly Moses!" and as he sat down and took up the two loose ends of rope still remaining, he found that he held not rope ends but two oars. "Even oars!" Chris cried in delight.

Mr. Wicker stood with his hands behind his back, the firelight outlining his black clothes and neat dark head.

"Yes," he said, in a matter-of-fact voice, "Quite so. Now climb out and I will show you some of the other shapes of which it is capable. A ladder," Mr. Wicker remarked as Chris rejoined him, "is almost too simple. We can do that at any time."

Grasping the end of one oar, with movements too fast for Chris's eyes to follow, in an instant the boat was a rope again, coiled over Mr.

Wicker's arm.

"Now!" said Mr. Wicker, and his eyes twinkled with mischief. The rope flew out again, but this time took a strange outline--the outline of an elephant.