Rufus M. Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Frontispiece

  Rufus M.

  A Trainload of Soldiers

  The Invisible Piano Player

  Rufus and the Fatal Four

  Two Moffats Go Calling

  Eyes in the Pipes

  Money in the Ice

  Rufus’s Beans

  Fireworks and Buried Treasure

  The Flying Horse Named Jimmy

  Popcorn Partnership

  A Bona Fide Ventriloquist

  Better Times Are Coming Now

  Sample Chapter from THE MOFFAT MUSEUM

  Buy the Book

  Read More from the Moffats Series

  About the Author

  Copyright 1943 by Eleanor Estes

  Copyright renewed 1970 by Eleanor Estes

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  First Harcourt Young Classics edition 2001

  First Odyssey Classics edition 2001

  First published by Harcourt, Inc. 1943

  hmhbooks.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Estes, Eleanor, 1906–1988.

  Rufus M./Eleanor Estes; illustrated by Louis Slobodkin.

  p. cm.

  Sequel to: The Middle Moffat.

  Sequel: The Moffat Museum.

  “An Odyssey/Harcourt Young Classic.”

  Summary: The adventures of seven-year-old Rufus Moffat, living with his widowed mother and older siblings in early twentieth century Connecticut, including his encounter with an invisible piano player and his attempts at ventriloquism.

  [1. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 2. Family life—Connecticut—Fiction. 3. Connecticut—Fiction.] I. Slobodkin, Louis, 1903–, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.E749Ru 2001

  [Fic]—dc21 00-38904

  ISBN 978-0-15-202571-7 hardcover

  ISBN 978-0-15-202577-9 paperback

  eISBN 978-0-547-54443-4

  v4.1119

  To Teddy

  1

  Rufus M.

  Rufus M. That’s the way Rufus wrote his name on his heavy arithmetic paper and on his blue-lined spelling paper. Rufus M. went on one side of the paper. His age, seven, went on the other. Rufus had not learned to write his name in school, though that is one place for learning to write. He had not learned to write his name at home, either, though that is another place for learning to write. The place where he had learned to write his name was the library, long ago before he ever went to school at all. This is the way it happened.

  One day when Rufus had been riding his scooter up and down the street, being the motorman, the conductor, the passengers, the steam, and the whistle of a locomotive, he came home and found Joey, Jane, and Sylvie all reading in the front yard. Joey and Jane were sitting on the steps of the porch and Sylvie was sprawled in the hammock, a book in one hand, a chocolate-covered peppermint in the other.

  Rufus stood with one bare foot on his scooter and one on the grass and watched them. Sylvie read the fastest. This was natural since she was the oldest. But Joey turned the pages almost as fast and Jane went lickety-cut on the good parts. They were all reading books and he couldn’t even read yet. These books they were reading were library books. The library must be open today. It wasn’t open every day, just a few days a week.

  “I want to go to the library,” said Rufus. “And get a book,” he added.

  “We all just came home from there,” said Jane, while Joey and Sylvie merely went on reading as though Rufus had said nothing. “Besides,” she added, “why do you want a book anyway? You can’t even read yet.”

  This was true and it made Rufus mad. He liked to do everything that they did. He even liked to sew if they were sewing. He never thought whether sewing was for girls only or not. When he saw Jane sewing, he asked Mama to let him sew, too. So Mama tied a thread to the head of a pin and Rufus poked that in and out of a piece of goods. That’s the way he sewed. It looked like what Jane was doing and Rufus was convinced that he was sewing, too, though he could not see much sense in it.

  Now here were the other Moffats, all with books from the library. And there were three more books stacked up on the porch that looked like big people’s books without pictures. They were for Mama no doubt. This meant that he was the only one here who did not have a book.

  “I want a book from the library,” said Rufus. A flick of the page as Sylvie turned it over was all the answer he got. It seemed to Rufus as though even Catherine-the-cat gave him a scornful glance because he could not read yet and did not have a book.

  Rufus turned his scooter around and went out of the yard. Just wait! Read? Why, soon he’d read as fast if not faster than they did. Reading looked easy. It was just flipping pages. Who couldn’t do that?

  Rufus thought that it was not hard to get a book out of the library. All you did was go in, look for a book that you liked, give it to the lady to punch, and come home with it. He knew where the library was, for he had often gone there with Jane and some of the others. While Jane went off to the shelves to find a book, he and Joey played the game of Find the Duke in the Palmer Cox Brownie books. This was a game that the two boys had made up. They would turn the pages of one of the Brownie books, any of them, and try to be the first to spot the duke, the brownie in the tall hat. The library lady thought that this was a noisy game, and said she wished they would not play it there. Rufus hoped to bring a Brownie book home now.

  “Toot-toot!” he sang to clear the way. Straight down Elm Street was the way to the library; the same way that led to Sunday School, and Rufus knew it well. He liked sidewalks that were white the best, for he could go the fastest on these.

  “Toot-toot!” Rufus hurried down the street. When he arrived at the library, he hid his scooter in the pine trees that grew under the windows beside the steps. Christmas trees, Rufus called them. The ground was covered with brown pine needles and they were soft to walk upon. Rufus always went into the library the same way. He climbed the stairs, encircled the light on the granite arm of the steps, and marched into the library.

  Rufus stepped carefully on the strips of rubber matting that led to the desk. This matting looked like dirty licorice. But it wasn’t licorice. He knew because once when Sylvie had brought him here when he was scarcely more than three he had tasted a torn corner of it. It was not good to eat.

  The library lady was sitting at the desk playing with some cards. Rufus stepped off the matting. The cool, shiny floor felt good to his bare feet. He went over to the shelves and luckily did find one of the big Palmer Cox Brownie books there. It would be fun to play the game of Find the Duke at home. Until now he had played it only in the library. Maybe Jane or Joe would play it with him right now. He laughed out loud at the thought.

  “Sh-sh-sh, quiet,” said the lady at the desk.

  Rufus clapped his chubby fist over his mouth. Goodness! He had forgotten where he was. Do not laugh or talk out loud in the library. He knew these rules. Well, he didn’t want to stay here any longer today anyway. He wanted to read at home with the others. He took the book to the lady to punch.

  She didn’t punch it though. She took it and she put it on the table behind her and then she started to play cards again.

  “That’s my book,” said Rufus.

  “Do you have a card?” the lady asked.

  Rufus felt in his pockets. Sometimes he carried around an old playing card or two. Today he didn’t have one.

  “No,” he said. />
  “You’ll have to have a card to get a book.”

  “I’ll go and get one,” said Rufus.

  The lady put down her cards. “I mean a library card,” she explained kindly. “It looks to me as though you are too little to have a library card. Do you have one?”

  “No,” said Rufus. “I’d like to, though.”

  “I’m afraid you’re too little,” said the lady. “You have to write your name to get one. Can you do that?”

  Rufus nodded his head confidently. Writing. Lines up and down. He’d seen that done. And the letters that Mama had tied in bundles in the closet under the stairs were covered with writing. Of course he could write.

  “Well, let’s see your hands,” said the lady.

  Rufus obligingly showed this lady his hands, but she did not like the look of them. She cringed and clasped her head as though the sight hurt her.

  “Oh,” she gasped. “You’ll just have to go home and wash them before we can even think about joining the library and borrowing books.”

  This was a complication upon which Rufus had not reckoned. However, all it meant was a slight delay. He’d wash his hands and then he’d get the book. He turned and went out of the library, found his scooter safe among the Christmas trees, and pushed it home. He surprised Mama by asking to have his hands washed. When this was done, he mounted his scooter again and returned all the long way to the library. It was not just a little trip to the library. It was a long one. A long one and a hot one on a day like this. But he didn’t notice that. All he was bent on was getting his book and taking it home and reading with the others on the front porch. They were all still there, brushing flies away and reading.

  Again Rufus hid his scooter in the pine trees, encircled the light, and went in.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Well,” said the lady. “How are they now?”

  Rufus had forgotten he had had to wash his hands. He thought she was referring to the other Moffats. “Fine,” he said.

  “Let me see them,” she said, and she held up her hands.

  Oh! His hands! Well, they were all right, thought Rufus, for Mama had just washed them. He showed them to the lady. There was a silence while she studied them. Then she shook her head. She still did not like them.

  “Ts, ts, ts!” she said. “They’ll have to be cleaner than that.”

  Rufus looked at his hands. Supposing he went all the way home and washed them again, she still might not like them. However, if that is what she wanted, he would have to do that before he could get the Brownie book . . . and he started for the door.

  “Well now, let’s see what we can do,” said the lady. “I know what,” she said. “It’s against the rules but perhaps we can wash them in here.” And she led Rufus into a little room that smelled of paste, where lots of new books and old books were stacked up. In one corner was a little round sink and Rufus washed his hands again. Then they returned to the desk. The lady got a chair and put a newspaper on it. She made Rufus stand on this because he was not big enough to write at the desk otherwise.

  Then the lady put a piece of paper covered with a lot of printing in front of Rufus, dipped a pen in the ink well and gave it to him.

  “All right,” she said. “Here’s your application. Write your name here.”

  All the writing Rufus had ever done before had been on big pieces of brown wrapping paper with lots of room on them. Rufus had often covered those great sheets of paper with his own kind of writing at home. Lines up and down.

  But on this paper there wasn’t much space. It was already covered with writing. However, there was a tiny little empty space and that was where Rufus must write his name, the lady said. So, little space or not, Rufus confidently grasped the pen with his left hand and dug it into the paper. He was not accustomed to pens, having always worked with pencils until now, and he made a great many holes and blots and scratches.

  “Gracious,” said the lady. “Don’t bear down so hard! And why don’t you hold it in your right hand?” she asked, moving the pen back into his right hand.

  Rufus started again scraping his lines up and down and all over the page, this time using his right hand. Wherever there was an empty space he wrote. He even wrote over some of the print for good measure. Then he waited for the lady, who had gone off to get a book for some man, to come back and look.

  “Oh,” she said as she settled herself in her swivel chair, “is that the way you write? Well . . . it’s nice, but what does it say?”

  “Says Rufus Moffat. My name.”

  Apparently these lines up and down did not spell Rufus Moffat to this lady. She shook her head.

  “It’s nice,” she repeated. “Very nice. But nobody but you knows what it says. You have to learn to write your name better than that before you can join the library.”

  Rufus was silent. He had come to the library all by himself, gone back home to wash his hands, and come back because he wanted to take books home and read them the way the others did. He had worked hard. He did not like to think he might have to go home without a book.

  The library lady looked at him a moment and then she said quickly before he could get himself all the way off the big chair, “Maybe you can print your name.”

  Rufus looked at her hopefully. He thought he could write better than he could print, for his writing certainly looked to him exactly like all grown people’s writing. Still, he’d try to print if that was what she wanted.

  The lady printed some letters on the top of a piece of paper. “There,” she said. “That’s your name. Copy it ten times and then we’ll try it on another application.”

  Rufus worked hard. He worked so hard the knuckles showed white on his brown fist. He worked for a long, long time, now with his right hand and now with his left. Sometimes a boy or a girl came in, looked over his shoulder and watched, but he paid no attention. From time to time the lady studied his work and she said, “That’s fine. That’s fine.” At last she said, “Well, maybe now we can try.” And she gave him another application.

  All Rufus could get, with his large generous letters, in that tiny little space where he was supposed to print his name, was R-U-F. The other letters he scattered here and there on the card. The lady did not like this, either. She gave him still another blank. Rufus tried to print smaller and this time he got RUFUS in the space, and also he crowded an M at the end. Since he was doing so well now the lady herself printed the offat part of Moffat on the next line.

  “This will have to do,” she said. “Now take this home and ask your mother to sign it on the other side. Bring it back on Thursday and you’ll get your card.”

  Rufus’s face was shiny and streaked with dirt where he had rubbed it. He never knew there was all this work to getting a book. The other Moffats just came in and got books. Well, maybe they had had to do this once, too.

  Rufus held his hard-earned application in one hand and steered his scooter with the other. When he reached home Joey, Jane, and Sylvie were not around any longer. Mama signed his card for him, saying, “My! So you’ve learned how to write!”

  “Print,” corrected Rufus.

  Mama kissed Rufus and he went back out. The lady had said to come back on Thursday, but he wanted a book today. When the other Moffats came home, he’d be sitting on the top step of the porch, reading. That would surprise them. He smiled to himself as he made his way to the library for the third time.

  Once his application blew away. Fortunately it landed in a thistle bush and did not get very torn. The rest of the way Rufus clutched it carefully. He climbed the granite steps to the library again only to find that the big, round, dark brown doors were closed. Rufus tried to open them but he couldn’t. He knocked at the door, even kicked it with his foot, but there was no answer. He pounded on the door but nobody came.

  A big boy strode past with his newspapers. “Hey, kid,” he said to Rufus. “Library’s closed!” And off he went, whistling.

  Rufus looked after him. The fellow said
the library was closed. How could it have closed so fast? He had been here such a little while ago. The lady must still be here. He did want his Brownie book. If only he could see in, he might see the lady and get his book. The windows were high up but they had very wide sills. Rufus was a wonderful climber. He could shinny up trees and poles faster than anybody on the block. Faster than Joey. Now, helping himself up by means of one of the pine trees that grew close to the building, and by sticking his toes in the ivy and rough places in the bricks, he scrambled up the wall. He hoisted himself up on one of the sills and sat there. He peered in. It was dark inside, for the shades had been drawn almost all the way down.

  “Library lady!” he called, and he knocked on the windowpane. There was no answer. He put his hands on each side of his face to shield his eyes, and he looked in for a long, long time. He could not believe that she had left. Rufus was resolved to get a book. He had lost track of the number of times he had been back and forth from home to the library, and the library home. Maybe the lady was in the cellar. He climbed down, stubbing his big toe on the bricks as he did so. He stooped down beside one of the low dirt-spattered cellar windows. He couldn’t see in. He lay flat on the ground, wiped one spot clean on the window, picked up a few pieces of coal from the sill and put them in his pocket for Mama.

  “Hey, lady,” he called.

  He gave the cellar window a little push. It wasn’t locked so he opened it a little and looked in. All he could see was a high pile of coal reaching up to this window. Of course he didn’t put any of that coal in his pocket for that would be stealing.

  “Hey, lady,” he yelled again. His voice echoed in the cellar but the library lady did not answer. He called out, “Hey, lady,” every few seconds, but all that answered him was an echo. He pushed the window open a little wider. All of a sudden it swung wide open and Rufus slid in, right on top of the coal pile, and crash, clatter, bang! He slid to the bottom, making a great racket.