Free The Four-Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright Page B

it.”
    â€œOkay,” said Rush, who was hungry, trotting obediently toward the house.
    â€œAnd some cups,” called Mona, “and some spoons! ”
    Then she and Randy and Oliver went looking for the cleanest, purest patch of snow they could find, which was in the middle of the front lawn: untouched, unmarked, it looked as though it had been created to be eaten.
    It tasted very good, too, though rather flat, later on when Rush had brought sugar and milk to mix with it. Oliver ate so much that his alert and responsive little stomach felt strange again, and he retired to the house.
    Mona and Randy gathered up cups and spoons and went back to the house, too. But Rush left them and took a walk up into the woods. It was dusk, but the snow lent a strange radiance to the world. Flakes still fell, melting cold on his cheek, whispering with a feathery sound. There was no sound but their whisper, and his boots crunching softly. Isaac bounded at his heels with a white beard and ear-fringes.
    â€œJust think,” Rush said, “almost a year ago I found you. And in a snowstorm like this.” He leaned down and patted Isaac, who looked up at him lovingly with one cold paw raised out of the snow.
    â€œLet’s go back,” Rush said. The woods were beautiful and mysterious; but suddenly he was cold; he longed for noise, and warmth and light. Isaac understood; he turned with a little yelp of joy and galloped beside his master down the hill toward the bright windows of the kitchen.
    The next day, Sunday, was a great disappointment to them all. During the night, by some strange alchemy, the snow had turned to rain. The spruce trees looked dreary and uncomfortable, like monstrous, wet crows. Only Oliver took any pleasure in the morning, slopping about and digging in the dissolving snow. The rest of them did their chores, their homework, and snapped at each other. After dinner when they started a noisy game of dumb-crambo in the living room Father came out of the study and asked them to go up to the Office. “I can’t even hear my typewriter,” he complained, “let alone my own thoughts!”
    Silent and out of sorts they retired to the Office. By now it was pouring. What is worse than a rainy Sunday afternoon when you’ve eaten a heavy dinner?
    Randy sat down at the piano. She played the piece that Rush had taught her. It was a simple air by Bach, and the oftener she played it the better she liked it. First she played it as if she were very happy, and then as if she were very sad. (It sounded wonderful when played sadly, so she did it several times.) She also made it into a dance; into a thunderstorm, a picnic on the first day of spring, a funeral march, and a witch’s lament. It sounded beautiful to her in all its transformations, she never got tired of it, but after half an hour Mona looked up from her book and said, “If you play that tune one more time, Ran, I’m going to start screaming and I don’t think I’ll be able to stop!”
    â€œOh, all right, if you feel like that.” Randy folded her hands in her lap and sat very stiff on the piano bench. She hoped she looked deeply hurt, and stared coldly at the cutout pictures on the wall above the piano.
    â€œWell, that’s funny,” she exclaimed a moment later, standing up and peering closer at the wall.
    â€œHmmm?” Mona’s voice came vaguely from the distant regions of Castle Blair.
    â€œI said, well, that’s very funny,” repeated Randy remembering to sound offended.
    â€œWhat is?” Rush looked up languidly.
    â€œWhy, goodness! Come here, Rush! Look!”
    â€œI don’t see anything,” said Rush, standing beside her. “Just those same old pictures pasted up. I practically know them by heart.”
    â€œNo, no,” Randy was excited. “See how the paper’s sort of broken along here?”
    â€œIt’s just a crack between the boards,” Rush