“They don’t wantcha, Lemmy,” Gus repeatedly assured him. “Yuh needn’t be so scarey.” But Gus didn’t fathom the duplicity of the ’Dopters—they hatched up all sorts of schemes to make you feel easy and then got you unawares. Likely as not they knew all the time that he was the littlest boy in the Home who could hang by his heels, and that he could hold his breath longer than Gus—and, though it was a secret, that he had a pet toad named Nippy in the broken wall where it was green and wet. They seemed to know everything—the ’Dopters.
The thought of these things made Lemmy’s heels fly faster. He whisked behind the spirea bushes and drew from underneath the widespreading branches a short ladder which he had constructed laboriously from the odds and ends of dry-goods boxes. He set up the rickety support and climbed nimbly to the top of the high, broad wall, where the low elm trees hid him from view. He drew the ladder up carefully after him, and with a breath of relief stretched himself at full length, safe from the ’Dopters for a little while at least. It was comfort to have such a place where he could hide, unless the ’Dopters came at mealtime, when no one could escape. He would not soon forget the time when Lucy Simmons was dragged away just as she had started to eat her piece of blackberry pie. She never came back to finish it. One could never be really safe from the ’Dopters. There was no let-up to looking out for them. And there would always be ’Dopters as long as the Outside remained. Lemmy was afraid of the Outside. He liked to look at it from the top of the wall; it appeared fascinatingly full of mystery, but it always terrified him. There was no place really safe, even bed. Lemmy sighed and squinted through the fluttering leaves at a bit of cloud. After a while it would be getting pink, as it did when supper time came—baked potatoes and milk, and maybe jam from the long, dark shelves in the vegetable cellar. Lemmy’s thoughts flew to the empty barrel in which he intended to hide when winter came on and the elm leaves fell to the ground. It would be hard to get by Mrs. O’Gorman, who was always puttering about the basement with a pad and pencil, muttering unintelligible things under her breath. Perhaps the linen closet would be safer, only they might come when Gerda and Lou were putting away the ironed things.
Lemmy’s speculations were interrupted by a deep “Ho-ho-hum” from the other side of the wall. The exclamation had a luxurious sound, as if some one was treating himself to a good rest. Lemmy peered over the edge of the wall, and gave a little gasp.
There on the bench beneath was some one who had undoubtedly stepped out of book covers. He was a big man, a very big man, with a brown skin lined with fine wrinkles which told all sorts of things without his saying a word. His hair was gray, but he looked somehow very young and up to anything lively. His old trousers were turned up, and his coat with its big buttons, flung wide apart, disclosed a faded blouse. From his belt dangled a heavy chain, and from his pocket the end of a jolly colored handkerchief. His cap had the look of a cap which had been through things. Slowly and comfortably he stretched his long arms, and as his sleeve slipped back Lemmy caught sight of a tattooed bird, green and blue and red, above his left wrist. And then he flung his head back, and his blue eves twinkled up at Lemmy without a sign of surprise.
“A-hoy, mate,” he called companionably.
“A-hoy, Cap’n,” returned Lemmy, laughing in delight.
“How’s the wind?”
“Southwest,” Lemmy gave back promptly. “And that’s what stirs the water up all purply pink—”
“Right-o—” The Cap’n slapped his knee in approval.
“Wind that makes the lake look like that must come from a place where a fellah could find out about magic,” Lemmy speculated.