Spiderweb for Two - A Melendy Maze by Elizabeth Enright Page A

around? All day? You?” Daphne was astounded. “Whatever for?”
    â€œOh, just for a change,” said Oliver rather airily.
    â€œI never heard of such a thing!”
    â€œSo then I came across your mailbox without knowing I was going to, so I just decided to, you know, drop in and see how you all were. How are you, Mrs. Addison?”
    â€œWhy just fine thanks, Oliver.”
    â€œHow are you, Daphne?”
    â€œWell, gee, I’m all right.”
    â€œHow are you, Alexander?”
    â€œHunh? I’m okay.”
    â€œHow’s Mitchell?”
    â€œTeething,” said Mrs. Addison. “He’s getting a tooth with four corners and it hurts him.”
    At that moment Dave came bursting in. He was the eldest of the Addison children and Rush’s good friend. He had been milking, and smelled of cows.
    â€œHow are you, Dave?”
    â€œAble to take nourishment, thanks, Oliver. Anxious to take it in fact. How are you, Oliver? Boy, are you ever a wreck! What have you been doing, throwing ink at yourself?”
    â€œI got into a bunch of pokeweed,” Oliver said.
    Dave lifted Mitchell out of the pen.
    â€œHi, Bottle Boy, what’s the news at the front?”
    Mitchell, in his little red overalls, changed at once from a small somber onlooker to a loud, jovial baby, leaping like a salmon in Dave’s arms.
    â€œWell, I better be going,” Oliver said reluctantly. (The Addisons were having homemade biscuits with their supper.) “Cuffy will be wondering—”
    Daphne and Dave, still carrying Mitchell, accompanied him to the front gate.
    The sun had set, leaving a stain of crimson and yellow at the horizon; above, the sky was apple green, darkening at the zenith to a powerful blue and set with a few large early stars. The two great maples, stripped of leaves, made complicated silhouettes against the pale green sky; and from the end of one long swooping branch something hung and swung, like an empty sock.
    â€œWhat’s that?” said Oliver, pointing.
    â€œAn old oriole’s nest,” said Dave carelessly.
    A pocketful of gold, thought Oliver, stopping dead in his tracks. He remembered the orange-yellow flash of orioles in June. He turned to Daphne solemnly.
    â€œIs Daphne the name of a nymp?” he asked.
    â€œAn imp? It certainly is not!”
    â€œNo, a nymp. You know, with wings and all. Grecian.”
    By this time, in his frantic need to know, he had begun to leap up and down on the garden path like a demented brownie. The Addisons thought he had gone crazy. He saw the total bewilderment in their faces and ran back to the farmhouse and stormed into the kitchen.
    â€œMrs. Addison, is Daphne the name of a nymp?”
    â€œA nym—oh, a nymph. Why, yes, Oliver. It is—or was. The nymph who was turned into a laurel tree. In Greek mythology, remember? Why?”
    But Oliver, his manners thrown to the four winds, was whooping his way out of the house.
    â€œDave! Dave! Can you get me that nest? Please can you? Please? I just have to have it!”
    â€œFirst tell me why?” demanded Dave, not unreasonably, and Oliver was forced to launch into the same lame explanations that he and Randy had given to Cuffy and Mr. Titus and the others.
    â€œOh, so that’s why they were so interested in that nest that day—” Dave stopped short.
    â€œWho? Who was interested in it?” Oliver implored, but Dave just shook his head.
    â€œListen, brother, if it’s a secret I’m not going to spoil it. Here Daphne, you hold Mitch. We’ll have to get up to that thing somehow, and a ladder won’t do; there’s nothing to lean it against; the branch stretches out from the trunk too far. We’ll try a table.”
    Oliver helped him locate and carry out a small table; still not high enough. In the end they had to put a chair on the table and a box on top of that.
    â€œIf I break my neck the treasure’s mine,