Thomas Tryon - The Night of the Moonbow

“Harpo!” Tiger exclaimed with pleasure, stretching out welcoming arms.

“Good evening, Mr Abernathy,” said Harpo, wagging his shaggy head. He spoke in a deep, solemn voice, and sported a bow tie along with the famous Eddie Foy derby. “I don’t believe I’ve met the dark-haired young lady,” Harpo declared, his pink tongue hanging out moistly from under his whiskers. “Is she a new girl in town?” Sally, as dark as Honey was fair, giggled.

“Please be so kind as to introduce us,” Harpo went on, and managed cleverly to doff his headgear.

Getting into the spirit of the thing, Tiger performed the social amenities from his bed. “Sally, this is Harpo the Talking Dog. He can perform twenty tricks in twenty minutes, or ten tricks in ten, take your pick. Harpo, shake hands with Sally.”

“Hullo, Sal,” said the dog and shook hands in a friendly way. “How’s tricks? Say, is she in the movies?” he asked Tiger.

“No, she is not in the movies,” Honey replied.

“Would she like to be? I know a guy in Hollywood.” The girls giggled.

“And I see the Belle of Moonbow Lake has returned to grace our shores once again,” the dog went on sauvely. “I would like to say on behalf of all the other dogs in the neighborhood that we are very pleased to see her again. We’ve been leading a dog’s life since she’s been gone.” Honey laughed outright. “Why, thank you, Harpo. You’re so complimentary. Especially for a dog.”

“Oh, we dogs know our onions, girls,” Harpo returned, and laughed. “Being nearer to the ground, we can spot a well-turned ankle with the best of them.”

“Oh, Harpo, you’re making her blush!” exclaimed Sally as Honey clapped a palm to each cheek.

“If so, it is the blush the sun provides the peach,” replied the dog majestically. Then, so intriguing did the hairy visitor find the gathering inside that he clambered over the sill and bounded into the room. In two more bounds he was up on the bed, keening with pleasure and joyfully licking Tiger’s face.

“Harpo, you get right down from there this minute!” Honey jumped up and clapped her hands; in another moment Leo followed Harpo in over the sill, hurried to the bed, seized the dog around its middle, and hauled it bodily from the covers. With the animal’s jumbo-sized head blocking his view, its four paws- sticking straight out, its animated tail swinging like a clock pendulum, Leo energetically wrestled it toward the doorway – where something impeded further progress.

“I thought we said no dogs in here!” came Wanda’s stern voice as, pushing him backward, she marched into the room and confronted the gathering. “Isn’t that what we said, boys and girls?”

“Yes – only-” Blindly Leo engineered an awkward circle, trying to get his bearings.

“Only nothing!” Wanda retorted with mock fierceness. “Out! O-u-t, out! All dogs, all boys with dogs. Now. This minute. This very instant, Leo Joaquim, or you’ll rue the day, I promise.”

So the hairy object of Tiger’s affection was banished from the premises – not far ^however: Harpo took up a position outside the window, tongue still hanging a-pant, earnestly cocking his head, the model of canine rectitude. Meanwhile, Wanda cleared out her place of work, dispatching Tiger’s visitors to their respective cabins, Honey and her friend Sally back to Three Corner Cove.

The two girls were on the path when Honey, having spotted Leo on the point, waited for him to catch up, while Sally went on ahead to the cottage.

“Well, Leo,” Honey began as he came up to her, “how are things?”

“Okay.”

“Just ‘okay’?”

“Well, sort of – only-”

“Only what?”

Leo blushed, stumbling for words.

Pretending not to notice, Honey put her hand in her pocket. “Would you like to see some of my snapshots from the Cape?” Without waiting for a reply she took them out and one by one handed them over: the bridge at the Cape Cod Canal (Honey arm-in-arm with Sally Berwick); several shots of the beach (Honey in her yellow bathing suit building a sand castle; Honey with a lifeguard); the lighthouse at Nauset Heights (Honey on her bicycle)…

The exhibition got no farther. Suddenly the screen door at the cottage flew open and Peewee came racing across the porch and down the steps, an orange Popsicle melting in his fist.

“Peewee – here’s Leo,” his sister called. “Come say hello.”

The boy shot Leo a fierce scowl. “I can’t talk to him, he’s a spud,” he said, and ran on toward camp.

“Gosh, what’s been going on around here while I’ve been gone?” Honey asked. “Why are you and Peewee on the outs? You used to be such good pals.”

Leo ran his tongue around inside his mouth. “It’s nothing. Peewee’s just-” He shrugged.

Honey laughed. “Young; I know. Master Harrison has a lot of growing up to do, I’m afraid.”

“Is that Peewee’s name? ‘Harrison’?”

“Yes. Isn’t it ridiculous?” Her expression sobered. “I was real sorry to hear about what happened to your model village. After all your hard work. I know how disappointed you must be. However could such a thing have happened?”

Leo didn’t see any point in hashing the matter over again, so he let it go at the “frayed-rope” story, though he wasn’t sure Honey bought it, any more than he did.

“Honestly, I don’t know what this place is coming to,” Honey said. “Everyone always has such a good time, really. But this summer – well, it’s almost over.

Doesn’t seem possible, does it? Labor Day’ll be here before we know it.”

Sally’s round, jolly face appeared at the sink window, where she was pumping water (she was making lemonade). Honey drew Leo aside for a more personal word.

“I’ve been telling Sal about your music,” Honey confided. “I said you were just about the best violin player I’d ever heard.”

“You did?”

“I certainly did. I can’t wait till you’re famous and I can tell my children I knew you when.”

“I’ve been wanting to thank you,” Leo said shyly.

“For what?”

“For the postal card.”

“Oh, that. I wondered if you ever got it. I love sending postcards. I send them to all my friends. Some collect them.”

Leo was deflated by this news. Others got cards, too. “Will you keep yours?” she asked. He nodded, eyes cast down to his toes.

“Good. And sometime, when you go somewhere, I want you to be sure and send me one. For my collection. Okay?”

“Okay,” he murmured.

The quietness was suddenly rent by a shrill blast on a whistle. “Oh, gee, I think you’re being paged-”

Leo looked up to see Reece standing on the infirmary porch with his whistle.

“All right, camper, let’s hop it,” he called through cupped hands.

Honey gave Leo’s hand a brief, encouraging squeeze. “You’d better go.” She ducked inside; Leo had no choice but to return the way he’d come.

Reece was waiting at the head of the path, a disapproving frown on his face. “What were you doing over there?” “Talking.”

“About what?” “Just – talking, that’s all.”

“About me, I bet. Weren’t you?”

“No. We weren’t. It was something else.”

Using the palm of his hand, Reece propelled Leo along the path in front of him.

“Where’ve you been all afternoon?”

“I was with Tiger.”

“You keep away from the infirmary. I don’t want you going there. Tiger’s not feeling well, he doesn’t need spuds like you bothering him.”

“I wasn’t bothering him. He said he was glad I came.” “He’s just being nice. That’s the way Tiger is.”

“We’re friends. I’m going to visit his house this fall. He’s going to have me stay overnight.”