I yelled to Mr. Everhard, saying, “Come on! They’re safe! Hurrah!” and I started on a fast, wet run toward the old sycamore tree, swerved around it and went on toward the mouth of the cave itself. Just as I got there, I noticed that the door, which as you know had been locked for a few weeks, was open, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but Mrs. Everhard wearing the Swallow Tail butterfly dress I had liked so well that other afternoon when she had borrowed Charlotte Ann. Charlotte Ann herself was standing in front of Mrs. Everhard with one of her chubby hands clasped in hers.
“Come on in out of the rain! Come on in!” Mrs. Everhard said cheerfully. “Mr. Paddler has invited us to come up through the cave to his cabin for a cup of sassafras tea.”
13
BOY, oh boy, I tell you it was a wonderful feeling, which started to gallop up and down my spine and all through me as we two drowned rats hurried to the cave and went inside where it was so quiet we could hardly hear the storm outside.
“We got here just before the storm broke,” she said to her husband—and probably also to me.
I noticed that the rock-walled room was all lit up with maybe five or six candles and there over in a corner sitting at the desk was Old Man Paddler himself, his long, white whiskers reaching almost down to his belt and his white hair was as white as a summer afternoon cloud in the southwest sky.
I noticed also that there were several new, comfortable chairs like the kind people have in their houses. Over on the east wall, hanging from a wooden peg, which was driven into a crack, was a beautiful wall motto, which said, “For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.”
Say, I thought, this is why he has had the cave all closed up for the past few weeks. He had closed it “for repairs” like they do a store in town when they are redecorating it. It was really pretty swell.
“How do you like our reception room?” Mrs. Everhard asked her husband.