The Moffats (19 page)

"Oh, pussy, come. Come, pussy," Jane begged.

Boots ran right over to Jane's corner but then, just as she was within a cat's length of her, she backed off to the middle of the room. What a kitten!

"Come, kitty, come, kitty," said Joey in that gentle voice of his that surely Boots would not be able to resist.

Now Boots teetered over toward Joe. She sat down not far from him and stared at him with her big blue eyes. Her little pink tongue was hanging out and she was thoroughly irresistible. Suddenly she began to purr. She was the first one to purr and she sounded like a little engine.

She's going to Joey
, mourned Jane.
Well, of course, I don't deserve her.

But at this moment Boots suddenly turned right about again. She jumped wildly into the air a couple of times, and then, in a series of little sidewise leaps, she landed right in Jane's lap. Tears came into Jane's eyes. "She's mine. She's mine," she cried, burying her nose in Boots's sweet-smelling fur.

So Mask went to Joey and he immediately found many engaging things about this kitten that they had not yet discovered. For instance, he had the longest fur, the prettiest markings, the longest tail, and many other unusual qualities. Moreover, he was the smallest of the four and would need special attention.

At this moment Catherine-the-cat came in. She looked around the room disdainfully. Then she jumped into the soapbox and whirrupped for her kittens. Janey gave Boots one last hug. She already loved this little kitten so much it was almost more than she could bear. She put the kitten carefully back into the soapbox as the other children were doing with theirs. And the choosing game was over.

Joe and Rufus went back to the yard to continue their stilt-walking. Sylvie went into the Grape Room to help Mama with the Tilly Cadwalader wedding dress. Janey went out to the big old lilac bush at the side of the house. What a mixed-up sort of day it had been! This day she had walked under a horse, been a pig about an ice-cream cone, and won Boots, the sweetest of all kittens, though she didn't deserve it.

Sometimes Janey just hated the sight of that old weather-beaten sign—For Side! More and more people were beginning to inquire about the yellow house. Particularly on Sundays when they were out for a stroll in their best clothes.

"Look!" they would say. "Here's a house that's for sale." Then they would walk in the yard and poke their noses into everything as though the yellow house already belonged to them. This made all the Moffats very angry. But what could they do? For instance, take the Murdocks. Of all those who had come to look at the house so far, the Murdocks were easily the most difficult to endure.

Jane felt somewhat to blame for the Murdocks. They might never have noticed the For Sale sign on the yellow house in the first place if it hadn't been for her.

This is the way it happened. One warm Sunday the Murdocks were out taking a walk. They couldn't have chosen a worse time to be strolling up New Dollar Street because that was the very day when Janey felt she simply could not abide the sight of that For Sale sign anymore, and in a burst of temper had picked up great chunks of mud and thrown them with splendid aim right at it. By the time she had finished, you couldn't tell whether that sign said Measles, For Sale, or what! It was a mass of mud stains.

Naturally it didn't stay that way long. Mama came out, scolded Jane, gave her a pail of soapy water and a mop and made her scrub off the mud. It was just at that moment those Murdocks came up New Dollar Street, stopped to see what Jane was doing, exclaimed, "Why, this house is for sale!" and marched right in the front gate.

That had been the first time the Murdocks came. Since then they had a way of appearing at the yellow house at most inopportune moments. One minute there wouldn't be any Murdocks around and everything would be lovely, and the next minute there would be Murdocks all over the place.

They were in and out of the house, all around the yard, tasting a cherry from this cherry tree, examining the currant and the raspberry bushes. They were up on the roof tapping the tin, peering down the chimney. They were in and out of the barns. They were just everywhere, and not just once. Hardly a day in the week went by without all the Murdocks or some of the Murdocks attacking the Moffats with their endless questions.

"We might as well set up beds for them!" Mama grumbled.

Altogether there were only four Murdocks, although they seemed more. There were Mr. and Mrs. Murdock, the father and the mother. Then there were the two children—Milton, who was about Rufus's age, and Letitia—the very same Letitia Murdock who had danced "To a Wild Rose" with Janey at Miss Chichester's dance recital. She wore her hair in corkscrew curls every day—not just Sundays and dancing-recital days.

The important question with the Murdocks was: "Shall we buy this house?"

It seemed they just couldn't make up their minds all at once. "Well, Lottie," Mr. Murdock would say, "how about it? The yard is very nice with all these fruit trees, and we can put improvements in the house."

Then Mrs. Murdock would shake her head slowly, wrinkle up her face with worry lines, and say, "Well, I don't know about living in a house with only one flight of stairs in it. Moreover, isn't it awfully near the railroad tracks?"

Sometimes it was Mrs. Murdock who was all in a mood for buying it. Then Mr. Murdock would shake his head and say, "I don't know about that roof. It leaks in some spots. It'll be a costly job to fix it the right way."

This went on for such a time that the Moffats wondered if it would ever end.

One warm day the Moffats climbed to the top of Shingle Hill for a nice picnic. There they had spent the day picking wildflowers and taking turns looking through Joey's new binoculars at East Rock, West Rock, and the Sleeping Giant. By the end of the afternoon they were very tired. Janey and Rufus could hardly drag their feet the last few steps down New Dollar Street. Then when they finally reached the yellow house, what did they see? Those Murdocks sitting on the front porch waiting for them. It was a sight to make anyone cry. This time they said they had come around to see where they could put sockets supposing they decided to buy the house and wanted to install electricity. Mama unlocked the door for them and then the Moffats fell into the cane chairs on the porch to wait until the Murdocks had finished their electrical survey. Tired though they were, the Moffats couldn't help feeling awed at the thought of electricity in the yellow house.

Naturally the Moffats were all getting very annoyed at the sight of those Murdocks. They wished the Murdocks could make up their minds once and for all. Did they want to buy the yellow house or did they not? If they did, all right. They, the Moffats, would move out. If they did not, let the Murdocks please go away and leave them alone.

In exasperation Mama finally put on her gloves and her hat, went down the street, and complained to Dr. Witty.

"Dr. Witty," she said, "please do something about those Murdocks. Life in the yellow house is being ruined by them."

Dr. Witty nodded his head thoughtfully up and down and said he'd do the best he could. But of course, well, after all—he did want to sell the house and if it had to be to Murdocks, it had to be to Murdocks.

For a while things were better. All the Murdocks didn't arrive every other day. But they did keep coming, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs. Now they assumed a martyred air and stood on the outside and looked and looked. It was still very uncomfortable for the Moffats and the words "Here come the Murdocks!" or "I smell a Murdock!" were a signal for all of them to lock the doors quickly and hide behind curtains and chairs and not answer the doorbell and hope the Murdocks would go away.

Letitia was the most persistent of all the Murdocks. She would never go away. She would ring and ring and ring the doorbell. That evoking no response, she would run around to the back door and knock. You would think she'd wear her knuckles off the way she'd knock! That evoking no response, she would rap at whatever windows she could reach. Worse still, sometimes she would lean the stepladder against the house, shade her eyes with her palms, and peer intently within. Seeing no one about, she would hop down and wail, "Ja-ane!"

This would make Jane, who would be hiding under the yellow couch in the Grape Room, simply furious.

"Oh, why doesn't she go away?" she would say angrily to her doll, Hildegarde.

But the calls for Ja-ane would continue with the persistence of a fly buzzing around early in the morning. Then would follow a long welcome silence.

"There, she must have gone at last," the Moffats would say happily and begin to sally forth from their hideouts, when the whole performance—knocking, rapping, peering, wailing, silence, would be begun all over again by the tireless Letitia.

Finally, after what seemed like hours of lurking in dark places, the Moffats would come forth defiantly, only to find the cause of their mole-like activities sitting on their hitching post sucking a lollipop. Letitia always had candy or something in a little paper bag. Of course, she never dreamed of offering any of these good things to any of the Moffats.