himself in the third person:
“Gallantly our hero took out the garbage.”
“With saintly benevolence our heroassisted his aged aunt.”
“Modestly our hero bowed to the cheering crowd.”
Georgie Hall was a sixth grader in the Alcott School. Georgie was a quiet and obedient little girl, but when she made up her mind about something important, there was no stopping her. Once she had walked all the way to Washington to talk to the President. She had begun her march all by herself, but by the time her great Children’s Crusade reached the White House, it was sixteen thousand strong. To Uncle Fred, Georgie was like a force of nature.
Henry Thoreau had been dead for years, but in a way he too was a resident of No. 40 Walden Street. Uncle Freddy’s hero was only a bust on a tall stand in the front hall, but the gaze of his plaster eyes seemed to pierce the wall as though he could see all the way to Walden Pond, where long ago the real Henry had written his famous book.
The other piece of statuary was a tall bronze woman on the newel post of the staircase, a majestic sort of light fixture. The word TRUTH was inscribed across her metal dress like a motto, as though she were saying, “Now hear this!”
The rest of the rabble didn’t live at No. 40 Walden Street. They were a flock of noisy kids in the neighborhood: Eddy’s friends Oliver Winslow and Hugo Von Bismarck and Georgie’s classmates Frieda Caldwell, Cissie Updike, Otis Fisher, Sidney Bloom, and Rachel Adzarian. After school they milled around in each other’s houses and messed up their mothers’ kitchens and watched TV in each other’s living rooms and drove their parents crazy.
And then there was the Oversoul. Well, it’s probably silly to call the Oversoul a member of the household, but Uncle Fred could feel it looming over the roof in a kindly cloud. No wonder he was so often carried away by fits of excitement. Notonly did the Oversoul shower him with lofty thoughts from above, but the statuary in the front hall did the same thing, only sideways, as though reaching out to pluck his sleeve whenever he walked by.
Last of all, there was the house itself. Was No. 40 Walden Street really infected with “weirdness buildup”? Or was it filled to overflowing with something else entirely?
4
LEFTOVER MAGIC
Y ES, THERE WAS something else. It was leftover magic.
Uncle Fred was too busy writing his great book to think about it much, but Aunt Alex was aware of it all the time.
In the kitchen, for instance, she sometimes had to clap a lid over her pot of soup to keep sparkles from falling into it from the enchanted air. In the front hall the radiator sometimes rattled as if it were trying to tell her something, and Henry’s plaster lips often seemed to whisper,
Listen, listen
, andthe lamp in the metal hand of the lady on the newel post glittered like a star. Even the laundry on the back porch—Eddy’s pants and Uncle Freddy’s shirts—sometimes danced as if they were alive.
And as for the attic! Once in a while Aunt Alex climbed the attic stairs just to look around and remember, because so many wonders were packed away up there, such as Eddy’s mysterious bicycle and Georgie’s American flag and the snowflake wedding dress and the glowing rubber ball and the windows that once upon a time had flashed and twinkled like a diamond.
All these marvels were out-of-date, stored away and forgotten. But the house itself did not forget, because it was still bewitched—not with a weird decay like mildew, but with something like a healthy flow of blood in the wiring or a rush of water singing in the pipes.
The leftover magic was now so thick that it drenched the walls, made its way through the clapboards, and dripped down on Aunt Alex’s flower bed. Soon her trumpet lilies were hooting softly andher marigolds glimmered in the dark.
Farther and farther spread the spell of the enchanted house, moving underground through dirt and rock, heading northward in the
“Gallantly our hero took out the garbage.”
“With saintly benevolence our heroassisted his aged aunt.”
“Modestly our hero bowed to the cheering crowd.”
Georgie Hall was a sixth grader in the Alcott School. Georgie was a quiet and obedient little girl, but when she made up her mind about something important, there was no stopping her. Once she had walked all the way to Washington to talk to the President. She had begun her march all by herself, but by the time her great Children’s Crusade reached the White House, it was sixteen thousand strong. To Uncle Fred, Georgie was like a force of nature.
Henry Thoreau had been dead for years, but in a way he too was a resident of No. 40 Walden Street. Uncle Freddy’s hero was only a bust on a tall stand in the front hall, but the gaze of his plaster eyes seemed to pierce the wall as though he could see all the way to Walden Pond, where long ago the real Henry had written his famous book.
The other piece of statuary was a tall bronze woman on the newel post of the staircase, a majestic sort of light fixture. The word TRUTH was inscribed across her metal dress like a motto, as though she were saying, “Now hear this!”
The rest of the rabble didn’t live at No. 40 Walden Street. They were a flock of noisy kids in the neighborhood: Eddy’s friends Oliver Winslow and Hugo Von Bismarck and Georgie’s classmates Frieda Caldwell, Cissie Updike, Otis Fisher, Sidney Bloom, and Rachel Adzarian. After school they milled around in each other’s houses and messed up their mothers’ kitchens and watched TV in each other’s living rooms and drove their parents crazy.
And then there was the Oversoul. Well, it’s probably silly to call the Oversoul a member of the household, but Uncle Fred could feel it looming over the roof in a kindly cloud. No wonder he was so often carried away by fits of excitement. Notonly did the Oversoul shower him with lofty thoughts from above, but the statuary in the front hall did the same thing, only sideways, as though reaching out to pluck his sleeve whenever he walked by.
Last of all, there was the house itself. Was No. 40 Walden Street really infected with “weirdness buildup”? Or was it filled to overflowing with something else entirely?
4
LEFTOVER MAGIC
Y ES, THERE WAS something else. It was leftover magic.
Uncle Fred was too busy writing his great book to think about it much, but Aunt Alex was aware of it all the time.
In the kitchen, for instance, she sometimes had to clap a lid over her pot of soup to keep sparkles from falling into it from the enchanted air. In the front hall the radiator sometimes rattled as if it were trying to tell her something, and Henry’s plaster lips often seemed to whisper,
Listen, listen
, andthe lamp in the metal hand of the lady on the newel post glittered like a star. Even the laundry on the back porch—Eddy’s pants and Uncle Freddy’s shirts—sometimes danced as if they were alive.
And as for the attic! Once in a while Aunt Alex climbed the attic stairs just to look around and remember, because so many wonders were packed away up there, such as Eddy’s mysterious bicycle and Georgie’s American flag and the snowflake wedding dress and the glowing rubber ball and the windows that once upon a time had flashed and twinkled like a diamond.
All these marvels were out-of-date, stored away and forgotten. But the house itself did not forget, because it was still bewitched—not with a weird decay like mildew, but with something like a healthy flow of blood in the wiring or a rush of water singing in the pipes.
The leftover magic was now so thick that it drenched the walls, made its way through the clapboards, and dripped down on Aunt Alex’s flower bed. Soon her trumpet lilies were hooting softly andher marigolds glimmered in the dark.
Farther and farther spread the spell of the enchanted house, moving underground through dirt and rock, heading northward in the
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