The Rescue Shell
"What I don't see," Portia objected later that day, "is what's so wonderful about finding the combination when you haven't found the safe and maybe never will."
"I don't know myself, to tell you the truth. It's just that it makes the safe seem realer—as if we really would find it. I know that doesn't make sense and it's a dumb way to reason; I guess you'd call it a superstition or a hunch or something, but that's the way I feel."
"It will probably be empty if we do find it, just as Aunt Minnehaha said."
"Maybe," Julian conceded, but he did not sound convinced. He refused to give up the lovely thought of treasure—though for an instant he glimpsed the idea that even if they did find the safe and even if it did contain marvels, it still wouldn't be quite as good as thinking about it and looking for it.
He and Portia were tramping along the soaked drive toward the road to Gone-Away. The rain had stopped, but one felt it had only taken the time to draw a breath or two before it began again. The clouds hung low and wet, and when the small breeze stirred, every tree shook water down.
"I like this day," Julian said. "But I don't see why I do."
The woods looked mysterious and dark, particularly where the honeysuckle had woven its canopies among the branches; the roadside was edged thickly with the green umbrellas of May-apple leaves; and here and there, like a queer bell with a clapper, stood a jack-in-the-pulpit, lonely and alert.
"Indians used to make flour from the roots of those, Aunt Minnehaha says," Portia told Julian. "She said she tried it once and it tasted terrible. She knows absolutely everything about everything that grows: all the plants that you can eat or make medicine of, and all the plants that can make you sick or kill you."
"Well, I know that," Julian said. He had eaten many oddities at Aunt Minnehaha's table; some he had liked: the day-lily buds dipped in batter and fried, the salads made of young purslane and nasturtium leaves; and some he had not: the pigweed spinach, and the boiled milkweed sprouts.