Spiderweb for Two - A Melendy Maze by Elizabeth Enright

because I don’t ever, ever want to go through that mess of pokeweed again.”
    Miss Bishop was nice. She did not question or exclaim at this peculiar information. “Come with me,” she said. “I’ll let you out the front door and you’ll be on the road; it goes west. When you start back, you can just come back along it, past my house and down to the next road. Then turn right, and you’ll be home in no time.”
    Her little parlor was cozy. The pictures on the walls were thick as barnacles, and everything had a cover on it: the upright piano, the round tables, the backs and arms of chairs. The windows were covered, too, with many plants that had fancy blossoms shaped like pocketbooks and earrings.
    â€œCan I come back again?” said Oliver. “I want to look around,” he added candidly.
    â€œPlease promise to,” Miss Bishop said cordially. “I’ll show you the collection of pressed flowers that my grandma made, and the moss-gardens I keep all winter. I’ll make Sammy do his tricks for you.”
    They went out the front door and along the path to the front gate. Beyond it Oliver noticed that the mailbox, like several others in the region, was planted in a milkpail full of earth. The name Bishop was stenciled on its side.…
    Oliver turned suddenly. “Miss Bishop!” he cried. “Is a bishop what you’d call a prelate?”
    â€œIs a—why, yes, Oliver, I think so. Why?”
    â€œPart of this errand for my sister—gee, thanks a million!” said Oliver, rushing through the gate. Then he returned. “Someday I’ll tell you all about it. Okay?”
    â€œOkay,” said little Miss Bishop, smiling at him.
    He was hot on the scent, all right. Thirty yards farther on he was not at all surprised to find a tin sign nailed to the trunk of a large oak:
    Â Â Â Â  Drink Crown
    Â Â Â Â  The beer without a peer.
    Yes, he was hot on the scent; but it was starting to get dark, now, and where was the nymph? Where was the garden with the purse of gold? When he came to the Addisons’ mailbox he was surprised. They never entered that farm by the front entrance, always approaching it by a shorter way: the back road that brought them up by the barn and outbuildings where business was always going on between men, horses, cows, pigs, machinery, and chickens. Oliver loved that farm and its activities. He was not used to the front entrance with its wire gate, neat white-legged mailbox, and two huge soft maples. Already, in the house, the lights were on. Someone was moving to and fro in the kitchen. Oliver felt lonesome all at once and a little discouraged; it was too late to go on searching. He had failed. Sighing, he walked up the path to the farmhouse door and knocked; he might as well stop and say hello, anyway.
    Daphne Addison opened the door, releasing a smell of cooking and a lot of noise.
    â€œWhy, Oliver! Hello. Come on in.”
    She was a nice girl, Daphne; calm and rosy-cheeked and pleasant.
    â€œI just was going by—” said Oliver.
    â€œFor heaven’s sake, whatever for? This time of day? It’s just about suppertime.”
    He followed her into the kitchen where Mrs. Addison was busy preparing the meal, weaving her way between the blocks and toy cars with which Alexander, the four-year-old, had littered the floor, and speaking encouragingly from time to time to Mitchell, the newest Addison, who was standing in his playpen, morosely sucking the railing. All around the pen lay toys and cooking utensils of which he had wearied.
    â€œLook who I found at the front door, Mama!”
    â€œHello, Oliver; stay and have some supper with us. I’ll phone Cuffy.”
    â€œWell, thanks, I guess I better not. I’ve been gone all day.”
    â€œWhere’ve you been?” inquired Daphne.
    â€œJust walking around, I guess you’d call it,” said Oliver uneasily.
    â€œWalking