“Smell this,” — Anna Murray coming out on the porch.
“Throw it out,” — Albert Murray, nose in paper.
“Throw out a whole carton of cottage cheese?”
“Don’t throw it out then,dammit!” Albert bellowed.
Inside their house, Vlad and Elsa Beth’s four-year-old daughter, Bella says softly, “Abbert and Amma are fighting again.” A slight and sallow child, resembling her father. Not precocious. She has her ways, what child has not? And the mere way she has of standing in a doorway with a wry, dry look on her small face makes her parents wonder how the doorway ever existed before Bella came to stand in it.
Her parents do not directly reply. They consider their options. “The rents in quaint old Bewdley City are out of sight,” sighs Elsa. She was once a strawberry blonde, but since Bella was in utero, Elsa’s hair has darkened to a light brown. Her face, with its slight suggestion of a double chin, looks very thoughtful. She is a talented painter and she is very nice.
Not long thereafter came Uncle Mose’s letter.
Uncle Mose wrote: “Moses Stuart Allenby is looking around for a sponge to throw in. I am tired of robbing widows and orphans, and I’m going to make you kids an offer. Elsie Bessey knows I’m quiet and clean in my habits. Mostly I sit in my room studying subversive publications like The Wall Street Journal, play a little jazz on my gramophone, take walks and watch birds. Want to relax at home, but must have a home, and have no desire to sleep on your sofa. So here’s the offer: All around small towns are perfectly suitable houses which never appear on any real estate lists because they are too old and unfashionable. Beware of Grecian pillars, cost another fifty thou and who needs them? Here are the magic words: A quick sale for $25,000 cash. Your local land agent will blench and swallow nervously. Then he will run around like a roach in rut season. You’ll be surprised how fast he comes up with something usually thought unsaleable. Old, old houses are solidly built or they wouldn’t have survived to be old, old. Uncle Mose was a farm boy, built and repaired many a barn and old house before leaving on the milk train to the city. Uncle Mose will leave lovebirds alone to bill and coo, and will often baby-sit little Bella, teach her to play poker and dance the hootchie-cootchie.”
“There’s the house, Professor, to the right,” said realtor Bob Barker with a toothy smile.
The words formed in Vlad’s mind: That house wasn’t even built in the 19th century. He saw a small replica of Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage, with squared wooden pillars, lacking even a lick of plaster, holding up the verandah’s second story. Not Grecian at all — just an old, old house that George Washington never slept in.
“Let’s go in, if you folks are ready,” Bob Barker said. They were ready. “Got to tell you honestly that this house is almost devoid of your modern conveniences. No electricity,no telephone, but no problem there, the lines run right past the place. It’s well-water, but the pump is inside the house. There is just merely one bathroom, and it empties into a ciss-pool. Watch out for the far end of the porch, got a rotten place there.” The key kept in a niche in the sill was modern. That was perhaps the only thing which was.
“I love it, I love it,” said Elsa Beth. “I love it, I love it,” said she.
Uncle Mose came two days later.
“My God, Uncle Mose,” said Vlad, “what is that you’ve got with you?” It was grey with reddish lights in its pelt, and it was huge, and it panted at them and lolled its tongue. “It’s big as a cow!”
Bella said, “That’s no cow, that’s a big dog.”
“You’re right little Belly. A St Hubert Hound named Nestor. Fine with kids, but burglars watch out! Where’s some iced tea? Where’s our new house? Settle down Mose,” he advised himself. Moses Stuart Appleby had been rather tall and his shoulders still hinted at broadness. He was, as always, immaculate. “I’m all packed and weighed and ready for freighting, soon as I’m sure. Ready to go? I’m ready to go. Let’s fill a big thermos with iced tea, Elsie Bessy.”
They stopped in town for him to mail a letter, and an aged black man rose to confront them in clothes washed threadbare-clean. “You the folks buyin’ ol’ Rustler house nigh the river?”
“Was that its name, Russel? I didn’t know that,” said Vlad. “It’s on old River Road, though. Yes.”
The old man nodded. His skin was gray and his eyes were glazed with age. “That’s it. I born here, call me Pappa John. Can I pleased to give you folks some kindly advice? They is three warnings. Firstly, get you a cat. They hates cats. Nextly, keep you a fire. They feared o’ fire. And lastly, please folks, never get between one o’ them and the wall.” He nodded his ancient head. Vlad, understanding not one word, thanked him and went on into the post office. And then the town sped by. and a country lane, with old oak trees dripping Spanish moss.
“There it is.”
Uncle Mose looked and said nothing, until they went up on the wide verandah which ran all around the house. “Hey, look there. A tree. A lilac tree. Some old-time housewife planted a lilac bush, and now it’s grown taller than the house. Well, let’s open her up.”
Faint broom tracks showed that some attempt at house-cleaning had been made more recently than the planting of the lilac bush. Faint tremors and echoes in the old, old house. How old? Maybe in the title-deed. Maybe not. Were the Russels that old Pappa John mentioned the original owners? What was Uncle Mose doing? Uncle Mose was leaning over with his ear against the wall. Catching Vlad’s questioning eye, he gestured for Vlad to do the same. At first Vlad heard something like the sound of the sea in a seashell. After that came fainter and odder sounds. A rustling… a far-off clicking.
A breath lightly brushed his neck and Vlad jumped. It was Uncle Mose; “Hear anything?”
“Rats, maybe.”
“Rats don’t rustle. Rats don’t click. We’ll put out some rat-traps, then we’ll see.”
Attempts, rough and rude enough, had been made to keep the old house in order. In one room the ancient roses of the wall-paper bloomed faintly, almost evoking a ghostly perfume. Elsewhere the walls were papered only with yellowing, tattered newspaper. In one large closet, “Whew, kind of musty in here,” said Vlad.
“Whew is right. Worse than that.”
“Dead rat under the floorboards, or inside the wall?”
Uncle Mose shrugged. “Old houses, Lord, how they retain. Maybe the moldy diapers of a baby who died a hundred years ago. Well, no problem. Open all the doors and windows, have the place scrubbed down from attic to cellar.”
Back home, and effusively greeted by the great hound Nestor, and by Bella fresh and pink-cheeked from her nap. They had drinks. They discussed the house. They all agreed they loved the house. Discussion had reached a pleasantly high level when there was a piercing scream.
Tonight at the Murrays’ it was Anna’s turn to scream.
Vlad hastened to speak. “Say, why don’t we have a cook-out somewhere? A picnic?”
“Oh, good!” said Elsa. “Hey! why don’t we have it at the new house?” Then Elsa had her great and wonderful idea: “Why don’t we sleep out there tonight in sleeping bags? To celebrate, I mean.”
“All in favor, say Aye,” directed Uncle Mose, and he insisted that everything was to be his treat. And they got lots of everything.