The Night of the Moonbow

The Night of the Moonbow
PART ONE: The New Boy
Prologue

Who, having heard it firsthand from the lips of Pa Star buck, could ever forget the famous tale of the moonbow? Who could account for its fatal charm, or explain of what singular enchantment the story was concocted? An aura it had, certainly; a unique kind of sorcery – but of what was it made? What caused it to happen? Why did it cast such a spell over everyone, this magical moonbow that no one at Moonbow Lake had ever seen?

In truth, until that fateful night when the last council fire was held in the pine grove, no one in that northeastern corner of Connecticut could recall ever having seen the spectacle, a silver rainbow of the night arched across the shimmering waters of the lake, a span of friendliness and Christian fellowship, as Pa described it, pointing up the moral of the Moonbow Tale.

Why, then, did the campers keep telling one another that one day, someday, the moonbow would appear? Perhaps they wished for it to be real because it gave them something to hope for; the moonbow was dreams come true, the impossible made possible, the infinite finite, a boy’s reward for being a boy. This summer it would come, they said, or this – or next, surely; wouldn’t it?

And when, in that final camp season of 1938, it did come, how was it possible that there, at Camp Friend-Indeed, where the summer sang among the trees, where no Moonbow boy had ever raised his hand against another, hatred,- rank and profound, should have shown its face? Someone with a bucket of paint and a brush should have daubed an X on the door of Cabin 7, the cabin called

Jeremiah, for it was there that the red-speckled death had first appeared, to pass among the boys, spreading contagion, until one by one it claimed them all, poor luckless boys of lucky Cabin 7.

What had it been? Some momentary moonbow madness? A bad dream? So Pa Starbuck often thought in those dolorous after-years when, having been relieved of his long tenure as founder-director of the camp, he had come to eke out what time the Almighty had allotted to him in a squalid, sun-parched suburb of Miami, where whichever neon moons that rose above the withered palm trees behind his stucco bungalow were merely the bitter reminders of his sorrows.

Perhaps it was only a dream, thought the Reverend wistfully, bathed in the silver glow of his Philco television screen, the kind of dream that is born of moonbow magic, gossamer and gone. He sighed again and told himself the Lord knew he had tried – He did, didn't He? – he had, hadn’t he?

The afternoon the new boy arrived, a scorcher for that early in July, the Red Sox were playing the Braves. Tiger Abernathy, captain and star catcher for the Sox, shouldered his Louisville Slugger and stepped on to the plate, tapped his bat, waited as the pitcher wound up and let fly, then took a mighty swing at the ball. Dusty Rhoades, the Braves’ first baseman, missed it altogether, and Oggie Ogden, the outfielder, leaning sideways with outstretched glove, also came up empty-handed, and there went the ball smack through the back window of Ma Starbuck’s office. A shattering of glass was briefly heard, then the victory cheer as Tiger beat it to home plate for his third run that afternoon.

Hap Holliday, the camp athletic director, marched up and congratulated the boy. “But did you have to break Ma’s window?” His laugh was bluff and hearty as he clapped Tiger on the back.

Slewing the bill of his cap from back to front and shading his eyes, Tiger grinned up at the coach. “I guess I didn’t have to, but it sure helped, didn’t it?”

Hap nodded. “Now maybe we’ll get some action around here.” His beefy red face covered with sweat, he wiped his brow as he scanned the baseball diamond, which lay close between the dining hall and the old farmhouse whose rear quarters served as the camp office. For years the coach had been lobbying to have the ball field moved farther away from both buildings, but nothing had come of the idea. A few more broken windows and maybe Rolfe Hartsig, the camp’s benefactor, would see that the new field should be the next object of his largesse.

As players and spectators a-like abandoned the field for the hike down to the lower camp, Tiger blew out his cheeks emphatically and rubbed his scalp under his cap. “Well, I guess if we want our ball back I better go get it from Ma. Dump, I’ll see you back in Jeremiah,” he called to his cabin-mate Dump Dillworth, busy storing their team’s equipment in the shed.

“Let me talk to Ma,” Hap suggested. “I can get around her if she’s going to be mad.”

“I can get around Ma good as anyone.” Tiger knew his onions when it came to Ma Starbuck. He started off, then stopped. “Can I have my knife back?” The hunting knife was one of Tiger’s most treasured possessions; he had won it two years before in the competition for best all-round athlete; Rolfe Hartsig had provided the prize, a Bowie knife purchased at Abercrombie amp; Fitch in New York.

Hap handed over the knife in its leather sheath, then collected his golf bag and favorite driver and headed off to whack some balls on the lower playing field, while Tiger dutifully trotted toward the farmhouse, a ramshackle structure whose sides seemed to slant toward each other as much for comfort as for support. Approaching it, he circled a clump of lilac shrubs, then mounted the red sandstone block that served as the office stoop, on both sides of which grew ragged clusters of sunflowers.

He opened the screen door to find Ma with broom and dustpan, sweeping up the broken glass. Jezebel, Ma’s prized Persian, reclined the length of the windowsill, where a fatigued sanseveria held up its mottled blades in the arid soil of a majolica planter. Under a monochrome of The Angelas, hanging askew on the wall, Harpo, a limp-haired canine of dubious pedigree, opened an eye to glance at Tiger when his name was spoken, then, eagerly banging his tail on the floor, scrambled noisily to his feet, made his way to the boy, and began licking his bare legs.

“Hey, Harp, hey, boy, good fellah,” Tiger said, burying his face in the dog’s neck.

“Oh, honey, don’t kiss Heinz-y, he hasn’t been washed this week. He gets so dirty, too.” Though the dog was called “Harpo,” Ma sometimes referred to him as “Heinz-y” because, she said, he was fifty-seven varieties. “And then some,” she always added.

“This your ball, Tiger Abernathy?” she demanded, hands on hips and trying to look fierce. “I don’t think you know your own strength, Mr Charles Atlas.”

‘I’m really sorry, Ma. Here, let me do that.” He took the broom from her.

Grateful for his assistance, Ma lowered her considerable bulk into the swivel chair behind the large rolltop desk that was her pride and joy. The ancient chair, its high back upholstered in cracked leather and studded round with brass nail-heads kept eternally polished by the friction of her plump thighs against them, protested loudly as she took possession. She leaned her face, plain and hard-worked but serene as a full moon, on a worn hand, and peered through the thick lenses of her glasses at Tiger as he swept up. What was a windowpane? she asked herself – it wasn’t the broken glass that worried her, not with 120 campers pulling the tricks that 120 campers could pull; what worried her were the broken arms and legs and cracked heads.

“You sure play a swell ball game, Tiger,” she said admiringly.

He looked up at her, eyebrows raised in silent question. Ma had to restrain her amusement. “Sure, me and Jezzy ben watchin’ you most of the afternoon. Say, what d’you suppose that smoke is over yonder?” she wondered, swiveling to peer past the window shade.

“Maybe it’s Injun smoke,” Tiger said with a straight face, down on his hands and knees now, meticulously pinching up the last bits of glass the broom had overlooked. . “Tiger Abernathy, you’re a caution! Why, you couldn’t find a Injun within a hundred miles of Moonbow Lake. Looks like it’s cornin’ from the old Steelyard place. I just hope nobody’s lightin’ fires over there.”

She watched as Tiger, the smallest boy in the intermediate unit, but a winner for all that, clambered onto a chair to have a closer look. It wasn’t likely anybody’d be stupid enough to build a fire at the Haunted House in broad daylight, but, then, you never knew what those crazy Rinkydinks might get up to. Though the existence of the Rinkydink Club, a motley collection of the camp’s older boys, was kept hidden from Pa Starbuck, Ma was not fooled; she knew they held secret meetings down in the cellar of the house, where they smoked Lucky Strikes and talked about “doing it,” in defiance of camp rules, not to mention the ghost that roamed the premises and was reputed, from time to time, to have been “seen.” If Tiger gauged matters correctly, however, the smoke was coming not from the Haunted House but from Indian Woods, where a work detail of “fire-builders” was policing the Seneca campfire area for that evening’s initiation rites. Tonight, being the end of the first two-week camp period,. would see the first all-camper council fire and torchlight parade, when the newest members of the Seneca Lodge would be initiated. Yesterday, at a special meeting, seven inductees had been chosen for the honor.

Reassured, Ma returned to the papers she had been perusing before Tiger’s line drive interrupted her, while Tiger finished his task. Presently, he shook the dustpan into the tin wastebasket beside her chair, then asked for his money envelope.

“Coop’s not open, honey. You can’t have your money envelope less’n store’s open, you know that.’

“I want it so I can pay for the glass.”

“So’s he can pay for the glass,” Ma repeated to no one in particular. “Tiger Abernathy, there’s not another boy in camp would come in here of his own accord and offer to pay for a smashed windowpane. You aim to break that record as well?”

He waited while she riffled with plump fingers through the alphabetized money envelopes standing in the Thom

McAn shoebox she used for filing purposes. Her eyes, always troublesome, were bothered by the afternoon sun streaming through the back window, and she reached for her green celluloid eyeshade, the sort that gamblers and railway baggage-masters favor. Ma had her own homey style. With her broad, maternal bosom, made for comforting boys, her graying hair that hardly knew which way to grow, her round, puffy cheeks, untouched by the artifice of makeup, her firm little chin, and the slip straps that always showed through the tops of her dresses, she was every camper’s “Ma.”

Still waiting as she searched, Tiger added helpfully, “I’m the first one, Ma. Ab, remember?”

“Shucks, and don’t I know it. Abernathy, Brewster – here you are.”

Tiger winced at the name; nobody, except at his peril, ever called Tiger “Brewster,” not even the teachers in school. The last guy who tried had had the wind butted out of him by Tiger’s granite-hard head and been sent sprawling.

Ma flicked the envelope out of the box and handed it over. With tanned, grubby fingers, Tiger pinched the clasp, lifted the flap, blew, and peered inside.

“How much do you figure the damage’ll be, Ma?” he asked.

“Well, lessee, glass ought to be ’bout a quarter, don’t you think?”

“How about the putty and the glazier’s points?”

“Hell’s bells, what do I know about putty or them other doodads? You slap a quarter there on the desk and we’ll call it square.”

Her chair swiveled with a screech as she turned to face her desk again. The cubbyholes of the old rolltop were stuffed with an array of envelopes and papers, and more of the same littered the oaken surface, along with ledgers, open and shut,- and a cast-iron spindle piercing a sheaf of pink laundry slips. A blocked-out campers’ chart, showing the allocation of bunks in the cabins of the various units, stood out amid the jumble. Ma’s desk was, so to speak, the central switchboard and nerve center of Friend-Indeed; from it were disbursed all payments, all orders and announcements, practically all the comings and goings of the entire camp.

“Before you go, Tige, I need a word with you.”

Glancing past the pale, balding spot on the top of her head, Tiger saw she was staring intently at the chart.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

Ma shook her head. “There’s this new boy coming tomorrow, is all” – she rummaged through the papers on her desk – “the one replacing Stanley Wagner, you know.”

Tiger knew. This summer Howie Bochman, one of their regular cabin-mates, had been lost to the Jeremians as a result of having contracted a case of infantile paralysis, a blow that had been compounded by Howie’s replacement, the unfortunate Stanley Wagner. Unfortunate because Stanley’s presence in Cabin 7 had not worked out. He had been, in a word, a spud, and the entire camp still smarted from the embarrassing and shameful episode that had ended his brief stay at Friend-Indeed.

“Not good camper fodder,” had been the judgment of Reece Hartsig, Jeremiah’s counselor, and no one had disagreed. A bedwetter (at fourteen!), a crybaby, and incurably homesick, Stanley had proved the wimpiest camper anyone could recall ever having come to the lake. Demerits had rained like hailstones upon Cabin 7 for Stanley’s sundry errors and malfeasances, and the camel’s back had been broken when, after a visit by a select group of campers to the Castle, a crystal paperweight had been discovered missing, in consequence of which Ma’s friend, Dagmar Kronborg, had declared her home and its “trophy room” off limits for the remainder of the season.

The paperweight had eventually turned up hidden at the bottom of Stanley’s suitcase, and after an official meeting of the Sachems’ Council, the camp’s governing board, the culprit had been “sent to Scarsdale,” which meant nobody in camp was allowed to talk to him for three whole days; then, having survived this trial, the next day Stanley had simply gone up in smoke, his parents spiriting him away with neither farewells nor apologies, and leaving behind only the yellow-stained length of canvas in his bunk. Now that bunk would get a new canvas, and a new boy in it, and all the Jeremians were looking forward to his coming.

Ma found what she was looking for, an already opened letter. Tiger, who knew better than to read over a person’s shoulder, waited until she looked up; her face was suddenly dyed emerald as a sunbeam pierced her eyeshade.

“Name’s Leo,” she said. She adjusted her spectacles -“Leo – Joakum? I guess that’s how you’d say it.” “Where’s he from?” Tiger asked.

“Saggetts Notch.” She gave him a glance. “Fact is, he comes from Pitt.”

“The Institute?” Tiger was surprised. “An orphan?”

Ma nodded. “Dr Dunbar and the Joshua Society folks arranged it.”

Tiger mulled over this unexpected news; he didn’t know any orphans that he could recall. Ma held up the three pages of script and explained. The letter had been written by one Elsie Meekum, an assistant to Edwin Poe, supervisor of the Institute, and that gentleman’s liaison with Dr Dunbar, the president of the Friends of Joshua.

“It’s a sad case,” Ma said, her face expressing sympathy for the plight of this Leo Joakum. “We must be sure he has a good time. Try to see he fits in, so he doesn’t end up like-” Though she left her sentence unfinished, Tiger knew she was thinking of Stanley.

He put the question uppermost in his mind. “Does he play baseball?”

Ma was vague on this point. “I don’t really know. I should think so, though – most boys play baseball, don’t they? He plays on the violin, anyways – the lady says he’s a real – real what?” She consulted Miss Meekum’s lines. “Yes – ‘prodigy,’ she writes. Mercy, we could be getting our own Bobby Breen.” She laid down the page with the others. “I expect he’ll find it a bit strange at first, so I’m counting on you to show him the ropes, you and Bomber, in particular. Maybe you can hang him some netting so he don’t get eaten by mosquitoes.” She fixed him with her eyes, large and round as a raccoon’s behind the magnifying lenses. “I’m depending on you to be good pals to him. See that the other boys treat him right. They’ll follow along if you lead ’em.”

“Yes, ma’am. But-”

Further comment was cut off by a slice of Ma’s hands. “Buts are for goats, dear. You just do as your old Ma asks, hm? It’s important for Pa that this boy gets a nice stay. And for Doctor Dunbar, too.”

“Yes, ma’am.” But Tiger was having private doubts. What the Jeremians needed was a boy who would add to their cabin’s luster – a boy who could take over as shortstop for the Red Sox and swim a good Australian crawl, and do all the things a good camper could do – not some orphan who played the violin and needed a nursemaid.

Ma’s chair screeched again as she turned in it and heaved herself up. “Wisht somebody would oil this darn old thing.” Walking gingerly, for her feet troubled her greatly, she went into the next room where someone had turned the radio on full blast.

“Now, now, honeybunch,” she said, “that ain’t no way to play the raddio. Turn it down before we wake the dead.” Through the open doorway Tiger glimpsed Ma’s daughter, Wilhelmina-Sue, settling herself and her doll into Pa’s Morris chair. Tiger smiled at her, but she just sat with her chin resting possessively on the top of the doll’s head, staring glumly at nothing. It wasn’t easy getting Willa-Sue’s attention, ever. Halting of speech, she was a “late” child, and the butt of many a camper joke. Thirteen now, she was still in fourth grade and couldn’t do simple sums; but, although mentally feeble, she was remarkably precocious in her physical development, her greatest attraction for any camper being the size of the newly developed lumps under her dress.

Tiger wiggled his fingers at her but received no more response than he had before, and, giving up trying to amuse the girl, he turned away; his eye happened to fall on the paperwork scattered across Ma’s desktop. The letter about the new boy lay open before him, and he was unable to resist the opportunity of glancing at what it contained.

… Mr Poe and I both felt it was important that you and Reverend Starbuck be fully apprised of the circumstances, he read, upsetting as they may seem – but what is so upsetting in life that we cannot seek God’s succor in time of need f You will quickly comprehend what a tragic story is Leo Joaquim’s. We naturally trust these transcripts of the notorious case will be for your knowledge only, and that you will safeguard the enclosed information from prying eyes. We would not see the boy further wounded through the cruelties of unthinking He read no further, for the groaning floorboards gave warning that Ma was coming back in.

“S’long, Ma,” he said, tugging his cap down and opening the screen door. The moment he stepped outside Harpo was whining and scratching at the screen. The dog nosed the door open and licked Tiger’s hand, begging to accompany him down to the lower campus.

“Can he come with me?” Tiger asked.

“Why not? I suppose he’s more your beast than mine. But you best send him back up for his supper,” Ma said. “And if anybody says anything, you just tell ’em Harpo followed along on his own.”

“Ma, you’re a peach.” . “That’s me, dear, fat and ripe and lots of fuzz.”

When Tiger and the dog had gone, Ma sank back into her chair. No sooner was she settled than the cat roused itself, arched its back, and noiselessly slipped into her lap, where it began kneading her bosom with its paws and purring like a motor. “Yes, pussy, yes Jezzy,” Ma crooned, stroking its fur.

Setting the cat against her thigh, she retrieved the letter and scanned its last lines again. We pray, Miss Meekum had written, Leo will find a safe berth there, and make the sort of friends the Friends of Joshua boys are famous for.

With a smile Ma picked up the quarter Tiger had deposited on the desk and returned it to his envelope, which she replaced in its proper order at the head of the box. When this minor task was seen to, and after adjusting her eyeshade against the light, she poked around until she found a fresh file folder, then wrote out a label: “Joaquim, Leopold,” and slipped the boy’s medical reports and other documents into it. It was only as she folded the letter to include it in the file that she noticed something written on the back of the last page – a postscript from Elsie Meekum:

So awfully sorry – have just checked bus times and find there’s no bus for Junction City on Sunday. Will have to send Leo Saturday afternoon.

Now, there was a fly in the ointment. Ma pondered matters. If the boy was coming today, that meant he was bound to arrive on the five o’clock bus from Hartford. She must get cracking so she could arrange with Henry Ives to meet him at Four Corners with the jitney. Henry could deliver him straight to Cabin 7, where Tiger would be on hand to look after him.

She returned the letter to its envelope, and placed it in the folder, which she set aside. From the back of the shoe box she took a fresh “spending” envelope like Tiger’s and across the top she

began the name. She wrote: LEO then stopped; what was that last name? She had reference to Miss Meekum’s letter, then added: JOAQUIM

“Joakum,” she murmured to herself as she wrote, “Leo Joakum.” She slipped the envelope back in the box, then laughed to herself. The envelope was empty, and likely to stay that way. In such times as these, who had spending money for a poor orphan boy? She opened her pocketbook and extracted three quarters – all the change she had. She had intended it for some new hair ribbons for Willa-Sue, but there were better uses for money than fripperies. She closed up the envelope and reinserted it in its place among the others, then took the file folder and, pulling open the yellow varnished cabinet, filed it between “Jackson, Jerome,” and “Jones, Bertram.”

The clock chimed the quarter-hour and Ma’s chair squeaked again as she started; Jezzy hit the floor on four light feet. It was nearly powwow time. She must see to Willa-Sue’s supper. She hung her eyeshade on its hook, and was about to shut the drawer when, her fingernail flicking along the row of tabs, she recalled Miss Meekum’s admonition. Taking the new boy’s folder, she opened the door of the old pie safe she used for “important personals.” The safe had a lock against snoopers. She placed the folder among the documents, shut and locked the door, then fed the key

under her ink-stained blotter with its advertisements from Bloom’s Stationery Emporium in Junction City, Est. 1926.

The string of six cabins making up “Harmony,” the intermediate or junior unit of Camp Friend-Indeed that stretched between “High Endeavor” (seniors) and “Virtue” (cadets), were spread out along the line-path leading to the council ring in the pine grove at the lakefront and the Teddy Roosevelt Memorial Nature Lodge, heart of the lower camp. Modest nine-bunk dwellings of brown-creosoted, tongue-and-groove siding set on blocks, identical in shape and size, each with its porch in front and clothesline beside or behind, the cabins had been built twenty years before to replace the original canvas tents, and had instead of solid walls sets of hinged side flaps that opened the entire structure up, bringing the outdoors inside. Each cabin had its name and number carved on a varnished pine plaque over the door: “Ezekiel – 6,” “Jeremiah – 7,” “Hosea – 8,” “Isaiah – 9,” and “Obadiah – 10,” and from the porch of each, through the red and brown tree trunks, could be seen the gleaming lake and waterfront, its boat dock and swim dock, the canoe racks, the diving float with its thirty-foot tower and board, and, out on the point, the cluster of High Endeavour cabins.

A dozen feet in back of Jeremiah, between the chrome-pipe faucet and wash rack that the cabin shared with Hosea and Ezekiel, stood “Old Faithful,” the geyser-like drinking fountain that was the social center of the Harmony unit, and farther along the path was the “Dewdrop Inn,” as the six-hole privy was called – another social hub.

Among the cabins, the late-afternoon sunshine filtered through the dark pine branches that formed a shady canopy overhead. Languorous, desultory talk and low, easy laughter emanated from the bunk racks in which campers reposed, at the lazy end of another summer’s day. The heat had died, the locusts had stilled their noise, the air was cool, with just a bit of breeze. Yet, the tranquil harmonies of the late afternoon were all but lost on the boys of Jeremiah, who were come together in a moment of ferocious ecclesiastical endeavour.

“ Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy Joshua Judges Ruth First Samuel Second Samuel First Kings Second Kings – um – Ezra…”

“Chronicles, you forgot First Chronicles, Second Chronicles, then Ezra-” Monkey corrected.

“Shit, Chronicles,” Eddie said, socking his forehead in frustration.

“Yeah, shit,” echoed Peewee Oliphant.

“Aw, can it, twerp,” ordered Monkey. “Who said you were allowed to swear? You want your mouth washed out with soap?”

“Heh heh.” Young Peewee eyed Monkey warily from under the tan felt brim of the Tom Mix ten-gallon hat that was his preferred headgear. As the youngest boy at Friend-Indeed, Peewee Oliphant, age seven, was tolerated in Jeremiah cabin only by virtue of the fact that he was camp mascot. His father, in addition to being Friend-Indeed’s doctor, kept a summer cottage adjacent to the infirmary in Three Corner Cove, and since his romper days Peewee had been doggedly attempting to follow in the footsteps of the older boys.

Furrowing his brow in concentration, Eddie took it from the top again. Come Monday, he would have to stand up in Bible-studies class and recite the books of the Old Testament without a mistake, so for the past quarter of an hour Monkey Twitchell had been coaching him.

“Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy Joshua Judges Ruth First Samuel Second Samuel First Kings Second Kings First Chronicles Second-”

“Ohhh mi-iiii Gaawd!”

This time it was the Bomber who interrupted the recitation, staring in lubricious disbelief at the copy of the King James Version of the Good Book open on his broad lap. “Listen to this, you guys, willya? This’ll whack you out! Sex – sex in the Bible!”

“Sex in the Bible?” Monkey repeated blankly. Such things were not possible, not even in this modern world of marvels.

To prove the truth of his dubious statement, the Bomber read for them the verses he had just stumbled across: Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins Wow! they exclaimed. Tits in the Bible!

“Wait, wait, that ain’t all!” He read more: This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes. I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs therof; now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine-/

“See what I’m tellin’ ya? This here’s the Bible and this guy’s woggin’ on this dame’s tits!”

Eddie, who had been lounging on his bunk, sat up, his eyes bugging with astonishment. “Boy, have we been missing somethin’! Who is this guy, anyways?”

“I think it’s Solomon.”

“Solomon?” Dump’s voice, changing this summer, climbed an octave. “For cripes’ sakes, if he’s supposed to be so wise why can’t he tell the difference between dates and grapes?” Baptized Donald Dixon Dillworth, Jr, Dump, who had the glasses and perpetually concerned expression of a serious scholar, bore his name heriocally. His studious side, however, did not keep him from regularly lining out home runs for Red Sox.

“Aw jeez, willya listen to the guy?” The Bomber chortled. “Grapes or dates – if it’s tits, what’s the diff? Tits, man, big friggin’ tits – and they’re in the Bible!”

This much was true, although Pa Starbuck would have perceived the Bomber’s interpretation of holy writ to be distressingly literal. Bomber Jackson had chanced upon the verses while leafing through the New Testament in search of Romans 5 (on mortal sin and atonement) – his assignment for the same Bible-studies class. If either he or Eddie should fail in his recitation on Monday morning he would earn demerits for Jermiah, a fact helping to account for the boys’ zealousness in their pursuit of ecclesiastical knowledge.

The talk now turned to a consideration of sex closer to home, however; to wit, the sundry eroticisms of Gus Klaus, occupant of Hosea cabin, next door.

“Gus was doin’ it again last night,” the Bomber observed with relish. He put aside his Bible, brought out his torch and began whittling on it, making ready for tonight’s council fire.

Of the five campers, only Peewee did not know what “it” was, but, anticipating ridicule, he forbore to ask, hoping to deduce the answer from the general discussion.

“How couldja tell?” inquired Eddie Fiske, dangling his legs over the edge of his bunk. Red-haired and freckled, with a mouth as wide as a slice of pie, Eddie had the sort of pale, liverish-looking skin that would peel all summer.

“I seen him. Seen his sillarett.” The Bomber pantomimed furious onanistic activity, to the hilarity of Monkey and Eddie. Dump, who was inclined toward prudishness, and didn’t care for the endless stream of sex-talk that flowed in and around every cabin in the camp, didn’t think it funny.

“Gus has sex on the brain,” declared Monkey. All bony ribs and hyperkinetic, Monkey Twitchell was well nicknamed: there was a simian quality to his small narrow face, large ears, and bright, swiveling eyes. And Monkey was right about Gus Klaus, who this year had arrives at camp with a sheaf of typewritten pages – the letterhead bore the legend “For Better Plumbing Kali Klaus” – containing the racier portions of James T. Farrell’s Studs Lonigan, assiduously copied out for Moonbow reading fare. “If he doesn’t watch out,” Monkey added, “he’s gonna get warts.”

“Or grow hair on the palm of his hand,” Eddie stated.

“Or go blind,” put in the Bomber authoritatively.

The older campers were repeating the Reverend Starbuck’s oft-stated predictions of the consequences of this particular pastime.

“Hey Bomber,” Peewee said. “How’s about givin’ us a look at Tits O’Shay?”

“Oh, come on, Peewee,” said Dump. “You’re too young for that stuff.”

“No, I ain’t.”

“Then ask your father, don’t go looking at dirty pictures. ”

“Hell, Tits O’Shay ain’t dirty,” declared the Bomber. “She’s cute.”

Dump groaned a protest as the Bomber heaved himself up to retrieve the battered cardboard box he kept stored in his assigned space on the overhead shelf, and from it produced a small piece of polychromed cardboard, the end flap of a pound carton of Land O’Lakes butter showing the picture of a smiling Indian female kneeling and holding up before her chest a carton of Land O’Lakes butter on which was the picture of the identical smiling girl holding up another pound of butter, and so on, presumably, into infinity. In this instance, however, the portion above her hands where the carton rested had been cut out and the maiden’s bare knees were folded up into the excised rectangle, presenting the alluring picture of a smiling Indian maid holding in her hands two eye-filling breasts – the luscious Tits O’Shay. Monkey and Eddie were practically drooling, while Peewee stood bug-eyed on the bed behind them.

“Okay, you guys, that’s enough for one day.” As the Bomber slipped the card into the box and stretched to return it to its hiding place, he emitted a volley of rude noises.

“Pee-yoo, you farted!” Holding his nose and screwing up his face, Peewee pointed out the obvious.

“Bombs away!” Eddie shouted, and began chanting, “Beans, beans the musical fruit, the more you eat the more you toot.” Then they all took up the refrain, “The more you toot the better you feel, so eat your beans at every meal.”

“Aw, come on, you guys-”

Despite his brashness, the Bomber was easily embarrassed, but it was because of this singular talent that he had been nicknamed “Bomber” in the first place; or sometimes the Brown Bomber, a cognomen stemming from a certain resemblance to boxer Joe Louis, who only the year before had knocked out Jim Braddock to become heavyweight champion of the world. Joe, of course, was a darker shade, but the swarthiness of the Bomber’s complexion, as well as his chunky features, furrowed brow, and poll of kinky black hair, marked a distinct likeness.

Monkey and Eddie and Dump stopped their razzing, but Peewee, never knowing when to quit, continued to pinch his nose and repeat his pee-yoo’s. When at last he subsided, they all seemed to. run out of talk. Dump frowned at his watch; what was keeping the others? he wondered. All Boats In had rung, the lake lay deserted, the waterfront too. Just about everybody, campers and counselors, was already indoors, engaged in the before-dinner routine known as “powwow,” the final one for the first group of two-weekers.

Fourteen days of camp had already passed, and tomorrow, Sunday, July 3, they would be going home, to be. replaced with a new incoming group, among them, the longed-for replacement for the infamous Stanley Wagner, and the talk in Cabin 7 now turned to speculation on this interesting subject. Whatever he turned out to be like, all the regular Jeremians hoped he would be the kind of boy who would help get them back in the habit of winning. For, until this summer, “Hartsig’s boys,” as they were called, had been prime stuff at Friend-Indeed. Thanks to the leadership of Reece, who had a peculiar knack of urging his campers to feats of prowess that outdid those of the other cabins (although even Reece had been stymied by Stanley), they had garnered more “happy points” and fewer “blackies” two years running, and (until Stanley had been inflicted on them) had fully expected to do the same again this season. If the new boy lived up to expectations, if he could “show some good old moxie,” and “bring home the bacon” (to use two of Reece’s favorite expressions), and, well, just “fit in,” they might still put it off; they might still see the names of the Jeremians and their counselor formally inscribed on the plaque at the base of the Hartsig Trophy, the handsome silver cup donated by Reece’s dad, Big Rolfe Hartsig.

Voices were heard out on the line-path, and in a moment two more Jeremians entered the cabin. -

“What’s going on?” demanded Phil Dodge, the taller and huskier of the two. “Jesus, Peewee, are you completely nuts!” he exclaimed, spotting the boy lolling grandly on Reece’s cot.

“No. Why?”

“You’re messin’ around on Big Chief’s bed, that’s why.” The counselor’s cot stood in the center of the back wall, between the sets of double-decker bunks (four to a side), and was made up in the military style, with a footlocker at the foot (monogrammed “R.A.H.” – “rah-rah Reece!” -for “Reece Adam Hartsig”).

Phil shagged Peewee off the cot and went about neatening the blankets and pillow.

Meanwhile, Peewee had turned his attention to the frog dangling by its hind legs from the second boy’s fist.

“Boy, that’s a whopper. Where’d you get it?”

“I caught it,” said Wally Pfeiffer, his tongue bright pink from the Necco wafer he was sucking. “I stunned him with a rock.”

Phil gave Wally an exasperated look. “So what? Who waded in and grabbed him? Don’t think you’re so hot. And listen, kiddo,” he added, “didn’t I tell you that candy’ll make you break out? You know how Big Chief feels about pimples.”

Wally gave his pal a grim, tooth-clenched look and spat out his half-melted wafer. Phil Dodge, a square-headed boy with a hard-packed body, a spiky pineapple haircut, and eyes that never told you anything, was cabin monitor and Reece’s second-in-command, enforcing the counselor’s dictums as he could (which meant mostly in matters concerning the unassertive Wally) and even aping his mannerisms. “All right, camper, let’s hop to it,” Phil would say, and “Listen, kiddo, I don’t want to have to tell you again” – and when Reece said “Listen, kiddo,” Phil really did “hop to it.”

Now he couldn’t mask a certain satisfaction in having bent Wally to his will, which made Wally burn silently. Wally could never hope to measure up to Phil; he was a skinny, dour-looking lad with limp, flaxen hair and the pale, puffy-lidded eyes that resulted from an overactive thyroid – a condition that probably accounted for his perpetually drowsy expression and morose disposition.

“We both caught him,” Phil asserted, willing now to be generous. He took the frog from Wally and gave the creature a shake. It emitted a croak of protest.

“Boy, he sure is fat,” Peewee said admiringly. “Can I have him?”

“What for?”

“I bet Oats’d let me keep him in the lodge,” Peewee said. Oats Gurley was the camp nature director. “In a box. I could have him for a pet. Or we could blow him up.” “What’re you talking about, runt?” Phil demanded. “You know, like a balloon,” Peewee said, refusing to be cowed by Phil’s contemptuous glare. “I seen Reece do it once. He took a soda straw and shoved it up this frog’s ass and blew it up. It floated in the water but it couldn’t swim.”

“Oh, come on, Peewee, that’s disgusting!” Dump exclaimed.

“I didn’t do it! Reece did!” Peewee protested.

A frog-balloon was a good gag, after all. Didn’t campers chloroform frogs for dissection in nature study? Not that Reece Hartsig would bother with anything so pedestrian as that. In fact, he would never do anything ordinary, even when it came to frogs. And when you got right down to it, there wasn’t anything much Reece couldn’t do and do with style. Who else did the boys know whose sleek, tanned features had turned up in the Sunday rotogravure, grinning among a group of important-looking individuals? Who else had surfed at Waikiki Beach, and sailed to Europe with his parents to see the Berlin Olympics? Who else had climbed Mount Monadnock and paddled-and-portaged the Quinnebaug clear down to New London; who else wore a tux and went to country-club dances, and carried a silver flask on his hip? Who else had been courting the matchless Nancy Rider, subdeb daughter of the lieutenant-governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; had even, it was rumored, danced with Dixie Dunbar at the Rainbow Room in Radio City? Who else had left a trail of broken hearts (which was why the Jeremians sometimes liked to call him “Heartless”) up and down the whole of the Eastern Seaboard? Who else, after this, his last Moonbow summer, was going off to be a flier in the Army Air Corps, and get a pair of silver wings? At Friend-Indeed, Reece was the “Big-Chief,” former ace camper – a bunkee in Jeremiah, as his father had been before him – and current top-rated counselor, and it was a rare Moonbow boy who didn’t look forward to the day when, like his hero, he too would have been made one of Pa’s “Glad Men from Happy Boys” (Pa had dreamed up the camp motto and had decreed that it be painted on the sign at the highway turnoff), who could take up smoking a pipe in public – the same kind of briar Reece’s father had given him, in a smart gold-stamped leather case with a green satin interior, the kind you saw in an Esquire ad.

Phil dumped the frog into the fire bucket and partially covered it with a box until Reece could decide its fate. No sooner had he and Wally hit their bunks than the missing Jeremian came in over the back sill.

“Tiger!” Peewee crowed happily.

“Hi, sprout, what are you doing here? It’s powwow time.”

“I’m powwowing with your guys.”

“Jay say it was all right?” Jay St John was the counselor of Habakkuk, Peewee’s cabin.

“Yes-s.”

“I bet he didn’t,” Phil put in.

“Nerts to you,” Peewee said with a scowl. He tried chinning himself on Tiger’s bunk rail, then gave it up.

“Where’s Reece?” Tiger asked, looking around.

“He’s havin’ his picture taken with his dad,” Eddie reported.

“How come?”

Phil explained: On Big Rolfe’s order, Reece had donned his military school uniform and gone to have a newspaper picture taken at the Blue Ribbon Rathskeller over on the highway.

“It’s for the Bund,” the Bomber added.

Tiger knew about the weekly meetings of the German-American Bund, a popular local group to which Reece’s father paid allegiance. “Mail come?” he asked, looking around.

Phil produced the afternoon’s allotment: only two letters for Cabin 7, one for Reece, another for Wally. When Tiger tossed Reece’s letter onto his pillow, Peewee snatched it up and proceeded to inspect it closely.

“Y’know something, you guys? This thing really stinks!” he said, greedily sniffing the blue envelope, noting the return address penned in a light, feminine script with circles for the dots, over the i’s, and a puckered lipstick print on the flap. “It’s from Nancy Rider,” he added, glancing at the tinted snapshot of a shapely girl in the bathing suit tucked into the mirror frame over Reece’s cot.

“Listen, small fry, you better not go screwing around with that letter,” Tiger advised as Peewee sprang into a bunk; “Reece won’t like it.”

“Aw, Heartless don’t care,” Peewee protested, giving the letter another sniff and leaving a greasy thumb mark on the envelope as he returned it to Reece’s pillow.

Tiger wasn’t so sure of that; nor was anyone else. While the fact that, in the absence of Nancy Rider, their counselor was this summer newly smitten with Peewee’s sister, Honey, gave the kid points, it didn’t necessarily follow that he could get away with messing around in Heartless’s private mail.

“Gosh, look at that.” This from Eddie, who spoke in a confidential tone, his eye fixed on the line-path. The others looked too.

“Who d’you suppose it is?” Wally wondered, staring at the odd sight that had suddenly presented itself: twenty feet away someone was standing on the path – a strange-looking guy, with ears that stuck out and a comical hat on his head. A skinny, gawky type, who’d appeared out of nowhere. They couldn’t see his face because he was positioned with his back to the cabin.

“What’s he doin’ here, anyways?” said the Bomber.

“Betcha it’s your new boy,” Peewee said, revealing hitherto unrealized psychic powers.

“Cripes, you gotta be kidding,” the Bomber said in dismay.

“He’s not supposed to be here till tomorrow,” Phil added.

“Maybe he came early,” Tiger suggested. He jumped down from his bunk and signaled to Phil, and together they stepped out onto the porch. “Phil, you’re monitor. Go and bring him in.”

“Are you kiddin’? Not me. You really think it’s the new guy?”

Though he couldn’t be absolutely sure, something told Tiger that the boy on the path was indeed Leo Joaquim. If ever there was an orphan, this spud filled the bill.

“Holy maloley, take a gander at the luggage, will ya?” the Bomber muttered from inside the cabin.

The boy’s “luggage” was a worn cardboard suitcase, its clasps reinforced by a length of frayed rope. Beside it rested a blanket roll and a stack of small wooden boxes, both tied with twine, and a limp-looking pillow, and leaning against these was a black violin case, battered and scarred.

“Knock it off, Bomber,” Tiger said. “The rest of you stay here. And don’t act like a bunch of tools.”

Leaving Phil on the porch, Tiger went down the steps and made his way along the path. The newcomer stood amid his sorry paraphernalia, looking lost and tired.

“Hi,” Tiger said in a friendly voice. “ Who’re you looking for?”

“Cabin 7. Jeremiah.”

“You found it. You must be Leo Joakum.”

“Joaquim,” the boy said, pronouncing it Wack-eem. “And you must be Tiger Abernathy.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Mr Ives described you.” His voice had a rusty quality, a weary inflection.

“How come you got here today?”

“No bus Sunday.”

Tiger measured himself against the new boy: Leo was a good six inches taller, taller than any of the Jeremians. And he was thin – too thin, Tiger judged – sort of scarecrow-ish, all arms and legs, joints and angles. His clothes were a haphazard job: shorts of some heavy, rough material that looked as if it must itch, and far too tight. Black buttons were sewn with white thread onto the waist, and to these were attached suspenders of scalloped elastic that hung loosely over his narrow shoulders. Instead of sneakers he had on a pair of brown leather shoes, badly scuffed and worn, with thick, rigid soles, and maroon socks that drooped around his ankles. And then there was the hat -an old felt “crown,” its narrow brim cut in a sawtooth and embellished with an array of brightly colored soda bottle caps and political buttons. All in all Leo Joaquim was ' as un-likely looking a specimen as could be imagined at

Friend-Indeed. And what, Tiger wondered, would Reece say when he saw the new Jeremian? Yet – he was here. Tiger remembered Ma’s admonition.

“How old are you?” He was making conversation.

“I was fourteen last February. And you?”

“Fourteen too. Last month.”

“Congratulations.”

“Gotta pee?” Tiger asked, noticing that the boy was practically hopping from one foot to the other. “Help yourself. Take any bush.”

“It was a long bus ride,” Leo explained sheepishly as he stepped behind a shrub and relieved himself.

He was, Tiger thought as he waited on the path, decidedly weird. Still, there was something appealing in his shy, awkward manner, in the dusty, raspy voice. “Well,” he said as Leo rejoined him, “I guess we don’t want to stand around here all day, do we? Let me help you with something.” He took the cardboard suitcase. It felt heavy. “What you got in here, anyway?” he asked as they moved toward the cabin.

“The family jewels,” Leo replied.

Tiger laughed, and between them they got the stuff to the porch where Phil and, now, the others were waiting. There was a good deal of shuffling around while everyone said Hiya and shook hands and scratched elbows and the Bomber dropped the torch he was holding and picked it up again, and they all tried to act natural and naturally failed. Tiger performed the solemn introduction, getting the new boy’s name right, and one by one each of the Jeremians offered his hand and received in return an awkward handjerk.

Phil looked the newcomer up and down. “My name’s Dodge,” he announced, a bit over hearty.

“Mine’s Jackson,” the Bomber offered, and then the rest told their names, and Dump’s full title of Donald Dixon “Dump” Dillworth, Jr, was proclaimed amid much laughter and hoots of derision.

“And my name’s Peewee Oliphant,” crowed Peewee, whipping off his ten-gallon hat and sticking his mug out.

“And where is your trunk, Mr Pee Wee Elephant?” came the new boy’s quick reply.

This made them all laugh and the new boy laughed with them, then blinked his eyes once or twice as though they hurt, and said in his dry, sandpapery voice, “Glad to know you all.” His face was just a face, nothing extraordinary there except perhaps for the large, dark eyes – they peered out with a kind of faraway expression that went past you, or even through you.

The formalities seen to, the group filtered into the cabin, the Jeremians sending out silent signals to each other saying, What the heck? and Beats me. As yet, Tiger had given no indication of how far they ought to extend their hospitality, and this was odd, because Tiger usually provided them with guidelines regarding any new or unexpected situation. He now stood by the infamous yellow-stained bunk as if to say This is yours.

“Who slept here?” Leo asked. He looked from the bunk to Tiger.

“Belonged to a fellow named Wagner,” Tiger said.

“You’re his replacement,” the Bomber added.

“What happened to him?”

“He went home with his tail between his legs,” Phil said.

“I see he left his yellow badge of cowardice.”

Tiger shot the new boy a look. That was a good one, especially for a guy from Pitt Institute.

Leo was regarding the cot in the middle of the room, a scant yard away. “Who sleeps there?” he asked.

“Reece.”

“Reece?”

“He’s our counselor.”

“Where is he?”

“Havin’ his picture took,” the Bomber explained.

“For the newspaper,” Wally chimed in.

“The Sunday paper,” Monkey added with emphasis. Watching Leo trying to unknot the twine around his blanket roll, Tiger slid his knife from its sheath and handed it over. When the twine was cut, releasing the bedroll, Leo returned the knife.

As he carefully moved his violin case aside and started to undo the dented clasps of his suitcase, the others by ones and twos crept into their bunks, watching, eyes filled with curiosity. The suitcase was unstrapped and the lid folded back on its wobbly hinges; it produced nothing remarkable, however, among its contents. Then Leo began to undo the twine holding together the stack of small wooden boxes.

“Whatcha gonna do with those?” the Bomber inquired, trying not to sound overly curious.

“I’m going to collect things in them.”

“What kinda things?”

“Ohh… flora and fauna.”

“Flora who?”

“Floradora.”

Ha ha. The Bomber made a goony face to the others. Someone snickered. Leo, still having trouble with the knot, asked Tiger for the loan of his knife again. After he had cut the twine and unwound it from the boxes, he sat holding them, still stacked, between his knees. And though every camper in the cabin was bursting to know their real purpose, the new boy did nothing further to relieve them of their curiosity.

“What do you play in baseball?” the Bomber asked, hanging his head over the end of his bunk.

“In b-a-ase-ba-all?” Leo drawled the word, as though its meaning eluded him. Then, “I don’t play anything.”

The Bomber sat up in surprise. “You don’t?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Tiger’s look went to Dump, in the opposite quarter of the cabin. “Well, there goes the ball game,” it said; Stanley Wagner’s bunk must be jinxed.

Just then the bell rang for dinner, breaking the tension, and all along the line-path campers exploded from their cabins and streamed across the playing field, heading for the dining hall in the upper camp. Not inclined to hurry, the new boy sat on Stanley’s bunk rail and emptied a pebble out of one of his shoes.

“I see you brought your own pillow,” Tiger remarked, waiting with the Bomber at the door. “That was smart.” “Was it? Good. I never go anywhere without Albert.” “Who’s Albert?” Peewee wanted to know.

“My pillow.”

Oh.

When he had put his shoe back on and laced it up, Leo went to join Tiger and the Bomber. As the second bell for dinner sounded, the three broke into a run.

“Hey Wacko, you forgot your hat!” cried Peewee, short legs churning as he tried gamely to catch up, in his hand the bottle-cap cap.

Peewee didn’t realize it then, but he had bestowed a new nickname on Stanley Wagner’s replacement: Wacko Wackeem, who played the violin and kept a pillow named Albert, who wore a funny-looking hat – and who didn’t like baseball!

All together, the Jeremians could never just walk down the road from the dining hall to the lower camp, but, as they did this evening, they would form loose, lollygagging knots, dragging dust, kicking fannies, elbowing ribs, clipping shoulders, tripping feet, now seeing which of them could throw a stone the farthest or hold his breath the longest or strike the deepest tone, now knitting together, now spreading to both sides of the road, now joining up again to make cracks about Willa-Sue’s busted brain, coming closer to delve into the mysteries of all womanhood, with the Bomber telling – the Bomber was forever telling – about how he’d seen a naked female in the window of the tenement next to his tenement and what that looked like, and always, always, Peewee Oliphant’s plaintive cry behind, “Hey, you guys, wait up!”

Tonight, though, there was a difference: tonight they came down with Leo, the new boy in Cabin 7. There was no doubt but that he’d made a splash at dinner; campers couldn’t take their eyes off him, and he was the subject of numerous jokes. “Hey, get a load of Mortimer Snerd.” “Where’d the yokel come from?” Jokes about his Adam’s apple and his ears and his bottle-cap hat. Things had quieted down some during the meal, but no one could ignore the fact that it seemed Cabin 7 might have drawn another Stanley Wagner. But, Tiger thought, twisting the bill of his baseball cap, this boy really was nothing like Stanley. For one thing, he was smart – his odd-shaped skull looked like it housed a full quota of brains. They must eat a lot of fish at the Institute. Still, he was odd, with his pathetic suitcase and mysterious codfish boxes, his beat-up violin case and weird hat, and his pillow named Albert. There were other strange things about him, too. His gawky kind of walk, the jug ears that stuck out, the habit he had of ducking his head before he spoke, the surprising way he had of phrasing things, the kind of things he said. Like when the Bomber asked him the question everybody else had been wanting to ask but refrained from.

“How come you came by bus? Couldn’t your mother and father bring you?”

“I’m afraid they couldn’t.”

That might have been the end of that, but the Bomber was like a dog worrying a bone. “Father have to work?” he pressed.

“No.”

“You don’t have a car?”

“That’s correct. No car.” He walked one or two steps before adding, “No mother and father, either.”

“Oh.” That one was a shocker to all but Tiger.

Peewee piped up. “Yikes! You an orphan? You live in a orphanage? Do they feed you gruel-?”

“Peewee, for cripes’ sakes, give the guy a break, will you?” Tiger said.

“I was only askin’. Gruel’s what they gave Oliver Twist in a orphanage.”

“Oliver Twist wasn’t in any orphanage,” Dump corrected. “He was in a workhouse.”

“What’s the diff?” Peewee wanted to know.

“Not much, to be truthful,” Leo answered.

“But don’tcha know who your mother and father are?" Peewee persisted.

“Yes,” Leo returned deadpan. “ ‘My mother was an Indian princess and my father was the Emperor of China.’ ” The guys wanted to laugh outright; yet – there was something in the way he spoke the words that made them hold back. Peewee, however, had to titter. What a twerp, his laugh said. Not being absolutely sure, he looked to

Tiger for a guiding sign, but was offered none. Then he looked to the Bomber, who shrugged, then behind him to Eddie; still, nothing doing.

“What did he do, your father?” Phil inquired.

“About what?”

“No, I mean – well, what did he do for a living? What was his job?”

“Butcher.”

“Huh?”

“He was a butcher. You know – loin of pork, lamb chops, rib roasts

…” Clearly these words were meant humorously, but they served to bring a frown to Phil’s brow. The Bomber, however, was getting a kick out of the new boy.

“Hey, your ma must’ve liked that. She was real lucky.” “Yes. Real lucky,” Leo said, but there was something odd on his tone that made the Bomber wonder; Tiger, too.

“What did you think of Ma Starbuck?” he asked, having just introduced Leo to Ma outside the dining hall.

“I guess she runs the place, huh?”

“How’d you guess,” said the Bomber.

“Does everybody call her Ma?”

“Everybody around here does.”

“Ma.” The boy repeated the word. “Everybody’s ma. Well, every boy should have a ma, shouldn’t he? A boy’s best friend is his m-mother, isn’t that what they say?”

By now they had come onto the playing field, but instead of going over to watch the evening one o’ cat game, they split up, most of the Jeremians heading for the Dewdrop Inn, while Tiger took the new boy on toward the pine grove and council ring to introduce him to the setting for tonight’s campfire.

Though Tiger had known the pine grove for seven summers, knew it as well as the palm of his own baseball mitt, this evening the place seemed to have taken on a tinge of mystery, of unnatural quietude. Occasionally a bird chirped, a brief, fleeting melody of evensong, and now and then a call came from one of the canoes out on the lake, bright gold in the last of the sun. Beside him, Leo stood gazing at the giant flat-topped chunk of granite

– Tabernacle Rock, they called it – that lay altar-like at the foot of the tallest pine in the grove.

“What an extraordinary tree,” he remarked, sighting up to the topmost branches.

“They call it the Methuselah Tree,” Tiger explained. “Because of its age.”

“It’s awesome. Hercules would have trouble felling it. How old is it?”

“Oats Gurley thinks it must be over two hundred. Oats is our nature director.”

Head thrown back, Leo continued to stare up at the tip of the tree.

“ ‘This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks… ’” he quoted. “Do you like Longfellow?” “ ‘Hiawatha?’ ” Tiger ventured.

“ ‘Evangeline.’ Sorry.” There was a pause, presumably so Tiger could digest this nugget, then the silence was broken by the sound of backfiring over on the road. Leo laughed. “Mr Ives’s jitney leaves a lot to be desired. I suggested he call it Bellerophon.” Clearly he was out to impress Tiger. “You know who Bellerophon was, don’t you?”

“No.”

“He was one of Alexander the Great’s horses. He had another: Bucephalus. It appears you have an owl in your tree,” Leo added; the sequence of his thoughts seemed slightly disordered.

Tiger allowed as how it was indeed a horned owl, a common enough species in that locale. “You can hear him sometimes,” he said. He cupped his hands and hooted softly, but the bird remained aloof and silent.

Out of the blue, Leo pronounced a name: “Icarus.” Tiger looked at him. “Icarus?”

“That might be a good name for the owl,” Leo said. “What do you think?”

Tiger bit his lip, then grinned, amused that the new boy, not two hours in camp, was loftily bestowing names on a broken-down jitney and a bird that had been part of the Moonbow scene longer than Tiger himself.

“I hope you don’t mind me being under you,” Leo went on. “My bunk, I mean.”

“It’s fine. It’s real close to Reece, I know, but don’t let that bother you.”

“When do I meet him, anyway?”

“He’ll be back for the council fire.”

“Do you think we’ll be friends?”

“You and Reece?”

“No. You and me.”

“Sure, we’ll get on – don’t worry. The Bomber, too,” he added.

They left the ring and headed for the cabin, where they found the others lying around in their bunks. Tiger and the Bomber set about showing Leo how to doublefold his blankets, half on top, half under; to accomplish this they had to empty the bunk of its interesting paraphernalia.

“Whatcha really got in them boxes?” Peewee demanded as Leo picked up the stack – six white-pine Gorton’s Codfish boxes, all indentical.

Leo looked down at them and blinked. “Nothing,” he said. “They’re empty. All but this one.” He held it up. “There’s a ferocious creature in here.” He held it out. “Want to see it?”

Peewee drew back in alarm. “No.”

“Shaddap, squirt. Show us,” the Bomber said.

Leo was agreeable, but first he instructed them to shut their eyes, and when he said to open them again they saw that the top panel of the box had been slid back. Inside was a large black spider, fixed in place with pins.

“Yikes!” cried Peewee, jumping backward. Tiger also shied from the sight of the hairy and fearsome-looking thing.

“Holy maloley!” exclaimed the Bomber, and no comment was made when he broke wind, clambering down from his bunk for a better view. “Is it a black widow?” he asked.

“Nope,” said Dump, who knew about such things. “I bet it’s a tarantula.”

Leo nodded confirmation. “It’s from New Mexico and it’s called Lycosa tarentula. A wolf spider.”

Eddie was impressed. “Boy, I’ll bet it could kill you if it was alive.”

Leo shook his head. “Not true. Tarantulas can bite, but it’s not fatal.”

The boys exchanged looks; evidently the new boy was something of an authority on spiders. In fact, he seemed to know a lot about a lot of things.

Then everyone began talking at once, not directly to Leo, but speaking for his benefit all the same, expanding bit by bit, describing boat tests and canoe tests, and discussing next week’s Snipe Hunt and the Water Carnival later in the month. Leo, who had been privately surveying the immaculate cot positioned a scant three feet from his own, the shiny footlocker with its brass studs and stenciled monogram, the row of neatly pressed garments hanging from an over-pole, the Indian clubs against the wall, the tinted snapshot of a bathing beauty tucked into the frame of a mirror hung on a nail, ventured a question about their owner.

“What’s he like, anyway?”

“He’s Big Chief,” Phil said proudly.

“He’s Heartless,” the Bomber said.

“Heartless Hartsig.” Leo tried it out.

“Better not let him hear you call him that,” Wally said. “He doesn’t like it.”

Phil spoke up again. “He’s the best counselor at Friend-Indeed. And we’re the best campers. You’ll never go wrong if you do what Reece says.”

“True?” Leo asked, looking around the circle of faces.

True, they chorused. There were Reece stories galore: about his father, Big Rolfe, and his mother, Joy, “den mother” to the Jeremians; about Reece’s car, the famous green Chevy coupe dubbed The Green Hornet, and about the governor’s daughter and the waitress at the Blue Ribbon he had dated last year and dropped in favor of Honey Oliphant.

As this discussion went forward, Peewee had been busying himself with an impromptu change of attire and was now standing with his feet on Reece’s cot admiring himself in the mirror..

“Jesus, Peewee, are you completely nuts!” Dump exclaimed, watching him cavort.

“No, why?”

“If Heartless catches you like that you’re really going to get it.” Peewee had substituted for his cowboy hat Reece’s garrison cap, bright with gold insignia, which he was trying on at various rakish angles, and, to add to the startling effect, he had taken the athletic supporter from the counselor’s rack and pulled it on over his shorts.

The Bomber wagged his head glumly, predicting dire consequences. “I’m tellin’ you, Peewee, you’re really askin’ for it, y’know that? If Heartless catches you, your ass won’t be in a jock, it’ll be in a sling.”

A silence uncommon to the cabin ensued; but not for long. The next subject of conversation was, inevitably, the Haunted House, which Leo had passed in Hank’s jitney, and the Bomber launched into the history of the place and how one careless camper had fallen – or been pushed by “unseen hands” – through a trapdoor and broken his leg.

“Is there really a ghost?” Leo asked.

“Darn tootin’,” said the Bomber fervently.

“You betcher boots,” Monkey agreed.

“Me, I seen it!” Peewee declared.

The Bomber made a scoffing sound. “Aw, you did not, you little spud. Shut your hole before I sit on you and squash you flat.”

“Did too! Did too!” Peewee persisted. “A great big hairy monster with pop eyes and horns and tusks like a elephant. Honest I did, honest!”

As always, nobody heeded the boy’s clamor, with the exception of Leo, who listened attentively to the farfetched description of the ghost, darting glances from one Jeremian to the next, as if trying to put names and faces together. “I believe you,” he said finally when Peewee’s protestations died down.

Outside, it was turning to twilight; soon the torchlight parade would begin. The boys lit the lantern, then went about getting their equipment together for the council fire – sweaters, torches, flashlights, and little chamois bags that each camper hung around his neck on a rawhide thong.

“What are those?” Leo asked.

“Seneca medicine bags,” said Tiger, and went on to explain about the Seneca Honor Society and how, at tonight’s council fire, each new inductee would be presented with a red feather and a medicine bag, marking him as a “brave-to-be,” and then escorted to the Wolf’s Cave in Indian Woods to be formally initiated. All the regular Jeremians were already Senecas. When Leo asked what the medicine bags contained, however, he got short shrift from Phil for an answer: The contents of the bags was secret, only a Seneca brave could know.

Leo shrugged and studied the dusty toes of his shoes, then looked up suddenly. “Want to see a trick?” he asked Peewee.

Peewee gave him a suspicious look. “What kinda trick?” he asked warily.

“Like this. Watch closely.”

Peewee observed with wonder as Leo’s ears began performing weird and amazing feats, wiggling and wagging up and down. In a moment the younger boy was giggling at the comical sight, then laughing, and his childish crowing was soon joined by the deeper laughter of the others.

“Now play something!” Peewee shouted, shoving the violin case at Leo. “Go on, play!”

Leo shook his head, his expression clearly stating he had no wish to go on entertaining them.

“Yeah, play somethin’,” urged the Bomber; then they were all yelling for him, pressing and cajoling until he had no choice. With a glance toward Tiger, who’d said hardly anything since they’d come in, Leo unsnapped the catches and laid back the top of the case. With the fingernails of one hand he plucked a tiny flurry of notes from the instrument. They were all waiting. He picked up the violin and began tuning it, making rapid, professional forays on the strings until he seemed satisfied, then tucked it under his chin and began to play. Seated on the edge of Reece’s footlocker, his thin arm bent, the hand and fingers curled upon the butt of the horsehair bow, he played with a faint smile on his mouth, his eyes now flashing, now remote, his head moving with a rhythmic grace all its own as he drew forth a soft, intense melody that held his listeners in thrall.

But the roof of Jeremiah could not contain the sound of his music, nor the walls – how was this possible with all four flaps open to the evening? – and before long, all up and down the line-path they gathered, campers and counselors, on the porches of Hosea and Isaiah and Ob amp;diah and Ezekiel, and of all the cabins of Virtue and High Endeavor, to listen as the music floated out from Jeremiah.

Zipper Tallon heard it in the Dewdrop Inn and, buttoning up, was lured across the field by its sound. Henry Ives, his duties completed, stopped and listened. In Hosea, Gus Klaus put away his Studs Lonigan excerpts to lend an ear, finally abandoning his bunk altogether to take a gander at the music maker in Jeremiah. Ezekielites Dusty Rhoades, Emerson Bean, and Junior Leffingwell did likewise, while over in Three Corner Cove, in the gathering twilight, Honey Oliphant, giving herself a beer shampoo, heard it and wondered.

Then the music became louder and merrier as the fiddler changed his tune. Jumping onto the footlocker, he began playing an antic ditty, and as he played, beating out the time with his foot, he sang the words:

I push the first valve down.

The music goes down and around,

Whoa – ho – ho – ho – ho – ho,

And it comes up here.

Fiddling, all angles and long fingers, with a bright gleam in his eye, he seemed to Tiger like some mad musician at a crossroads fair in a storybook, whose spellbinding music would so enchant the village folk that they must jump up and leap about until they dropped of exhaustion. And, indeed, as the song gained momentum all the campers crowded into Jeremiah were suddenly on their feet, knocking one another about, leaping from bunk to bunk as they sang, faces red and perspiring in the lamplight, the excitement building to a fever pitch with pillows flying through the air and Eddie, who could walk on his hands, proving it.

Then to the scent of pine and citronella that pervaded the cabin was added another odor: the sweet, sickish pungency of tobacco smoke – Rum and Maple, though in the wild confusion no one noticed until the Bomber, dizzy, spun backward toward the porch and collided with Reece Hartsig.

Everything stopped at once, the music, the laughter, the movement, all stopped and every head turned to face the tall figure in the doorway, nattily attired in his military school uniform, the shiny visor of his cap casting a dark lunette across his eyes.

“What’s going on here?” demanded the soft, emphatic voice.

Pandemonium. The visitors to Jeremiah scattered out the back, out the sides of the cabin, seven of the occupants retreated in considerable alarm and confusion to their bunks, while the violinist, still on the footlocker, lowered his instrument slowly, then stepped down and crossed to his bunk. Only Peewee made no move, but stood in the middle of Reece’s rumpled cot, turned to stone.

Either failing to notice or choosing to ignore the newcomer’s presence in the cabin, the counselor directed stern attention to the quivering Peewee. Making fists of his hands, Reece jammed them on his hips, widening an already broad set of shoulders.

“Get… off… my… bed,” he commanded, still speaking softly. Peewee seemed to shrink visibly before getting down, presenting a sheepish and pathetic figure by anybody’s standard.

“All right, Kemo Sabe,” Reece said, now snapping out the words, “suppose you tell me what you think you’re up to.”

“I wasn’t doin’ nuthin’, Big Chief, honest,” came the plaintive response.

“The cap. Take it off.”

Peewee did so.

“Now put it back where you got it from.”

Again the boy obeyed.

“Now the jock.” Again Peewee did as ordered.

“Now come here.” Digging into his uniform pocket, Reece produced a shiny quarter and handed it to the boy. Peewee, who had no idea why he should be so rewarded, merely blinked.

“Toss it on the bed.” Reece indicated his cot.

Peewee again did as he was told; the coin dropped softly amid the slackened bedclothes.

“Fix it, spud. Stretch it till that quarter bounces.”

The Jeremians watched while Peewee hustled around the corners of the bed, jumping over the footlocker as he tugged and pulled the blanket so the quarter bounced. When this was seen to, Reece reached out with a long arm, turned the offender over his knee and gave him a sound whack on his bottom.

“Get the idea?” he said, setting Peewee upright.

“What idea?” the boy asked in an outraged tone, his eyes sparkling with telltale tears.

“No more jumping on the counselor’s cot. You don’t belong here anyway. Get back up the line where you do belong.” He marched Peewee to the door. “Okay?” he said, holding out the quarter.

Peewee ignored the peace offering and sprang out onto the line-path. When he had put sufficient distance between himself and his tormentor he pulled up short and from the depths of his wounded pride shouted defiantly, “I’m gonna tell my sister! I’m gonna tell Honey you got a lousy letter from Nancy Rider and it stinks of perfume and it’s got a big fat lipstick mark on the back!”

He ran away among the trees. No one laughed. Turning back into the cabin Reece noted the envelope on his pillow. He picked it up and was about to pull the flap when his eye came to rest on the new boy. He slipped the letter under the pillow for later, then, straightening, said, “And who might this be?”

Leo opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out, and he swallowed with a noisy gulp.

Tiger was quick with the explanation that this was Stanley Wagner’s replacement. Reece said nothing at first, merely looked the new arrival up and down with a bland expression. He removed his cap and tucked it away on his shelf, then glanced in the mirror, running his palms over his hair, which gleamed with blond highlights. Satisfied, he turned back to the new boy, withholding his greeting for a moment longer. Leo gulped again, his face turned red, and he dropped his look to the floor, still unable to think of anything to say.

“How is it he’s here tonight instead of tomorrow?” Though Reece looked at Phil for an explanation, again it was Tiger who replied, mentioning bus schedules and – giving the new boy’s name. A faint frown appeared between Reece’s sun-whitened brows.

“Wackeem,” he repeated, thoughtfully, while Leo stared wordlessly back at him. No one presumed to speak; the moment drew out. Finally, Reece broke the spell, by putting out his hand; when Leo took it he felt his own engulfed.

“Welcome to Jeremiah, camper,” said the counselor crisply, and gave Leo a curt nod.

This salutation ventured, Reece engaged in a series of neatly executed moves, changing out of his uniform to his regular camp outfit. Wary and silent, unsure of what might happen next, the boys all watched as the ritual was performed. “You weren’t due till tomorrow,” Reece commented as he stripped off his neatly pressed shirt and shrugged on a sweatshirt. “We’re not ready for you.”

It was getting chilly, and Leo felt himself start to shiver. He glanced around, saw the Bomber’s confident grin, Dump’s owlish look, and Tiger – what was Tiger thinking?

“I guess he’s going to have to bunk in Stanley’s pee tonight,” Reece remarked to Phil. “You’d better get Hank over after church tomorrow with some new canvas.” Then, noting Leo’s shivers, he added, “You’ll need a sweater. Have you got one?”

“Yes.”

“Put it on, then. I don’t want any of my boys catching cold.” He half turned away, then turned back as Leo pulled on a moth-eaten wool sweater and replaced the cap on his head. “Are those the duds they sent you off with?”

Leo colored and stared at the floor again.

“Yes,” he replied.

“They don’t look very camper-like to me. If you’re to be a Jeremian, we’ll have to get you outfitted properly. Phil, all of you, see what you can dig up. And for gosh sakes find him some sneakers. Those shoes…”

Avoiding further comment, he completed his transformation from military man to camp counselor. Accoutred now with Friend-Indeed insignia and a host of impressive-looking merit badges, he made a splendid sight. He favored the faded khaki shorts that were the traditional Moonbow uniform, each leg meticulously rolled in a double turn on the thighs. Instead of the beat-up sneakers commonly worn around camp, however, his feet were shod in well saddle-soaped moccasins and immaculate white-ribbed wool socks, turned down precisely one turn over the ankles. On his finger he wore a ring carved from a soup bone, and on one wrist a gold watch gleamed. The other wrist sported an elaborate braided band of leather, and at his neck, over a colorful bandana kerchief, was a dark thong of weathered rawhide from which hung a small heart carved of cedar, varnished and polished to a high gloss. He was like an illustration out of American Boy.

After combing his hair and checking the part from two different angles, he added his personal Seneca medicine bag to his outfit, then used the mirror again; when at last he looked around, his eye fell on Leo’s violin case.

He stared at it for a few moments, as if asking himself a question. “You play that thing a lot?” he asked finally.

“No. Just sometimes.”

Reece’s expression offered no hint of what thoughts he entertained.

“Didn’t ya hear him, Big Chief?” The Bomber was enthusiastic. “He’s a regular Pagliacci.”

“Try Paganini, Jerome,” Reece said. He swung his look back to Leo. “Just so long as you don’t play it again in here. We don’t want a guy sawing away on a squawk-box when campers have important matters to concentrate on – like winning the Rolfe Hartsig Memorial Trophy. Right guys?”

Right, they chorused.

“I see you brought your own pillow,” Reece went on.

“Yes.”

“He calls it Albert.” This from Phil.

Reece’s eyebrows shifted fractionally. “He has a pillow named.. . Albert?” He frowned. “And the hat? Does it have a name, too?”

“No. It’s just a cap.”

“My boys generally say No, sir.”

“No, sir.”

“And try standing straight. Jeremians don’t slouch like that.”

Leo did as he was told.

Reece nodded satisfaction. “As for the chapeau, maybe you can lose it for the council fire. We don’t want to give Ezekiel cause for jealousy.” This sally got its anticipated laugh.

With no more words, Reece sauntered out onto the porch, where he consulted with his two lieutenants, Phil and Tiger. Leo heard his name being spoken, then Phil said the word “orphan” and Tiger once more put forth an explanation; Ma Starbuck was mentioned, then something about a letter from the orphanage, then Phil said something Leo missed.

“What’s that?” Reece said, his deep voice skating upward in surprise. “He doesn’t like baseball?”

The rims of Leo’s ears burned; in another moment the porch conference broke up. Reece issued a couple of reminders about proper deportment at the campfire and keeping the noise down after taps; then, saying he’d see everybody later, he loped off toward the Nature Lodge.

Leo was left wondering. “Isn’t he coming with us?” he asked, as the boys shuffled outside to greet Hank Ives, ambling down the line-path with his can of kerosene for their torches.

“Reece? Don’t worry, you’ll see him,” Tiger assured Leo, escorting him onto the porch. By now full dusk had crept across the playing field; up and down the line-path, campers were waiting for the runners to arrive with the Flame of Friendship.

“Okay, fellows,” Phil said, “it’s time. Let’s hop to it. Wacko, duck the hat,” he added, going down the steps.

Leo lobbed the cap back over his shoulder; it landed squarely on his bunk, where it rolled and came to rest beside “Albert.” Tiger supposed he had never heard the superstition about hats on beds being bad luck.

It began like the Attic games of ancient Greece, with a single flame. At eight-thirty sharp at the head of the line-path by the mailbox rack, in the manner dictated by custom, Pa Starbuck ignited the Great Torch, and from this four-footer in turn ignited the torches of the three honorary runners, one from each unit, who passed their torches over Pa’s fire, then struck out Prometheus-like, moving from cabin to cabin, presenting their flames to light the torch of each counselor, who in turn lit those of his campers, roundly 120 of them, and when the last torch had received its kiss of fire the campers, bearing aloft the dipping wavering quivering lights, slipped from their porches and began wending their way toward the council ring, the Virtue campers falling in behind the Harmonyites, they behind the older boys of High Endeavour, all linking up in single file with the solemn, ceremonial air of a procession of monks belonging to some devout sacerdotal order, the irregular line of flickering flames growing longer still, a bobbing stream of lights snaking in and out among the trees, to spread out across the semicircular tiers of the council ring, back and forth along the rows, until each camper stood in his allotted place.

Here they waited until Pa Starbuck appeared beside the Tabernacle Rock, which bore a handsomely wrought teepee of twigs and branches. This pyramid Pa ignited with his torch, then, his ruddy features painted by the orange light, his blue eyes under white shaggy brows sparkling with eager anticipation, he offered in mellifluous tones the invocation to the Friendship Fire, enjoining “his boys” to loyalty and devotion everlasting, reflecting earnestly on the true meaning of good fellowship, lauding the rewarding principles of Camp Friend-Indeed, and offering thanks unto the Joshua Society, whose generosity had made it all possible.

As decreed by Moonbow tradition, and having extinguished and laid aside their torches, the campers now forged among their ranks a chain of hands in token of their truest feelings, of the good fellowship to be found in a host of such evenings by the lake, and of those qualities that, properly instilled, shall create “Glad Men from Happy Boys.” The air was pungent with wood smoke and snapping sparks that eddied upward into darkness like whirlwinds of fiery dust, gusting beyond the fir boughs to the stars, whose bright gleamings tried to make up for the lack of a moon, the pale ghost of which had faded long before sunset. And in unison their voices rose up as well, lifted in the familiar camp anthem (music based on an Old Welsh air; words by G Garland Starbuck):

Camping in the pines of Moonbow,

Down by the lake,

Here our loving hearts are off’r’d,

Our gift we take.

When the anthem was ended, everyone sat, the campers on the logs, Pa in a rustic, throne-like chair constructed from the anatomical parts of trees – limbs, crotches, elbows, and knees; then, making himself comfortable as he was accustomed to doing, he presented Coach Holliday, who, as Pa’s second-in-command, acted as master of ceremonies at all council fires, and who now offered the assemblage a preview of the many pleasures that lay ahead for Moonbow campers.

Tucked away to the side among the nest of Jeremians, Leo sat enthralled as the coach rose to spill out a cornucopia of exciting events like so many gold coins from a troll’s pot, a kaleidoscope of Fun Lights and Movie

Nights, a Watermelon Crush, a Major Bowes Amateur Night, a Friendship Lottery, a Water Carnival, and the “piece of least resistance” – Hap chortled at his own joke – this year only, the awarding of the Hartsig Trophy, celebrating a full twenty-five years of camping in the Moonbow wildwood, to that cabin whose campers earned the highest number of happy points (after demerits were deducted), and thus exemplified in highest degree the qualities of Good Christian Campers. There was more: as an added incentive, next spring the winners of the cup would attend an All-State Civic Jamboree at the New York World’s Fair, all expenses paid by Rolfe Hartsig and the German-American Bund.

At this welcome news three cheers were given for Big Rolfe Hartsig, the benefactor of Friend-Indeed. But what, Leo wondered, glancing around again, had become of the benefactor’s son, who was nowhere to be seen? Hadn’t Tiger said that the Jeremiah counselor would be at the council fire? What was keeping him? Leo had no time to dwell on such mysteries, however, because of what the coach next had to say: as of the end of the first two-week period not Jeremiah (the favorite) but Malachi, in the High Endeavor unit, was the front-runner in the trophy competition – all owing to the hapless Stanley Wagner, whose naifie Phil Dodge now muttered sotto voce, with accompanying descriptive epithets.

Next up were the other members of Pa’s staff: Rex Kenniston, waterfront director, to announce the trial heats for the swimming competition in the Annual Water Carnival; Oats Gurley, nature director and overseer of the dining hall, to solicit contributions to The Pine Cone, the camp newspaper, of which he was the editor; and Fritz Auerbach, the new crafts supervisor, a wiry, dark-haired, intense-looking young man, who rose to offer some general remarks about how much he had enjoyed his first two weeks at Moonbow Lake; a refugee from the Nazis, who in March had overrun his homeland, Austria, Fritz was grateful for the place he had found among the Friend-Indeeders. His warmly expressed feelings brought an enthusiastic round of applause, which lasted until, from far off, there came the melodious sounds of singing, signaling that something special was about to occur. All eyes were on the lake, even Pa’s, as out of the darkness they glided, the Singing Canoes, a flotilla of craft, each bearing a paddler and members of the camp glee club, the leaping flames of torches lighting up the darkness as they glided shoreward, the singers’ voices floating across the water. Applause swept the ring as the boys on land clapped for the singers, and for another Moonbow tradition, a blend of sound and sentiment, drama and glamour, that never failed to produce a sense of awe among the campers, and an awareness, no matter how dim, of belonging to a greater whole. Leo thought he’d never heard or seen anything so beautiful.

When the canoes were beached and the singers had joined their fellows in the council ring, the usual sing-along followed, starting with the camp pledge (as sung to “Maryland, My Maryland”):

O Friend-Indeed,

My Friend-Indeed,

When I am A Friend-in-need…

As they sang, Leo – utterly unfamiliar with the words of the songs, yet gamely joining in – had intimations of a powerful bond being forged between him and the other campers, a warming comradeship that said he too was part of it all. From what did it spring, this sudden sense of belonging? From feeling the pressure of Tiger’s knee signifying the importance of a moment here or there? Or the mute, mirthful heave of the Bomber’s girth? From the fire’s friendly glow, the fresh, outdoorsy fragrance of the pines? Leo couldn’t tell. All he knew was that the good fellowship that suffused the gathering, knitting it together in mood and purpose, was enveloping him as well, filling him with eagerness and resolution.

The sing-along finally ended and then, with his audience settled back, waiting for what was to come next, Pa began speaking (as he could always be relied on to do) about his old friend William F Cody, otherwise known as Buffalo Bill, and about how, when Pa was a young man and working for the Friends of Joshua, he had had occasion to meet the famed Indian scout and showman, and to receive from his own hands the reverend Buffalo Bill War Bonnet.

Pa’s remarks were but the prelude to what was now to come. He paused, a moment stretching into several. Atop the slab-sided rock the crackling of the fire grew louder, and Leo felt a tingling of anticipation. Then, without warning, there was an explosion of colors, a whirling shower of sparks, and through a sudden, further blossoming of smoke a tall, dark, savage-looking figure appeared, his sharpely chiseled features painted in vivid streaks of red, green, yellow, and white – the Moonbow Warrior! What magnificence! There he stood before the gathering, looking for all the world like a real Indian, with his chamois breechclout, a breastplate of bones and beads, hammered bracelets ornamenting his biceps, and beaded moccasins on his feet. More impressive than anything was the splendid headdress he wore, the Buffalo Bill War Bonnet Pa had just spoken of, with its glorious fan of multicolored feathers, its pendant train behind, and the gewgaws that hung down either side of the Warrior’s face.

For a moment longer, he remained immobile, then, folding his arms across his chest and stretching his neck muscles, he surveyed the semicircle of campers, his eyes glinting as they searched out those who had been chosen for induction into the Seneca Lodge. When he had spotted each of them, he gestured, and from the shadows beyond Tabernacle Rock a tom-tom started beating out a slow, syncopated rhythm. The Warrior dropped into a crouch and began a sinuous, prowling dance around the fire: heel-toe-heel-toe, stamping the toe, then snapping the heel down smartly, heel-toe-heel-toe, moving back and forth behind the campfire and chanting as he moved.

Ah wah ta na hay Ah wah ta no ho Ho tah! Ho tah ha!

Na wah ha na toe!

When he had made several circles around the fire, he proceeded along the first row of campers, bending to peer closely into each face. In one hand he held a cluster of red feathers, in the other empty medicine bags, like the ones the Jeremians wore. Pausing before a camper, he bestowed one each of these items on him, to warm applause from everyone; then, winding up among the tiers, he graced another boy and another. As he drew nearer to the Jeremians, his appointed features sharply etched by the vermilion light, Leo became aware of the overpowering presence of the half-naked figure, and he strained forward as the same tokens were offered to a fourth camper two rows ahead of them. “Attaboy, Bosey,” someone whispered.

Pivoting on his moccasin-shod feet, the Indian straightened for a moment, tensing his muscles, then crouched again and moved to the end of the next row, where the boys of Cabin 7 sat. But every Jeremian had already become a Seneca, so there would be no feathers or bags handed out to them, and yet – Leo saw how the Indian was moving along the row, passing the Jeremians one after the other, coming toward the new boy. Suddenly Leo felt a surge of excitement. Was such a thing possible, a new camper being made a Seneca, achieving Brave status on his first night at camp? The crouching figure came nearer. Nearer he came; nearer, until he stood poised directly in front of Leo. Suddenly the features disguised by the dark makeup made sense to Leo, and he realized that under the war paint the Warrior was Reece Hartsig!

He wanted to lower his eyes, but found he could not. Hardly daring to return Reece’s penetrating look, he waited – hoping – not daring to hope – the moment stretching out until, like a rubber band, it snapped and he blinked. And as the Indian passed on, Leo was filled with an incomprehensible sense of wrong doing, as if his capricious thoughts might have been read. He sat glued to his log as the Warrior retreated down the aisle and at the foot of the ring, having presented the last feather and medicine bag to another camper, stood erect, and, in a few panther strides, emerged into the light again. Bringing his feet together and taking a deep breath that expanded his chest, he raised his two brown arms in a majestic salute, then lowered them as he bowed before Pa Starbuck. A single step backward, out of the circle of firelight, and as magically as he had appeared he disappeared again, swallowed up in the velvety dark.

No sooner was he gone than, at a nod from Pa, the inductees rose and were ushered from the ring, to be instructed by the Moonbow Warrior in what was to come later, when all the members of the Seneca Lodge would gather for the secret campfire at the Wolf’s Cave. Applause followed their exit, and when the clapping had died away a silence gradually fell along the tiers. From his chair beside Tabernacle Rock, Pa Starbuck coughed and hemmed a bit, then suggested that everyone have a stretch before the rest of the program began.

After this general stirring about, they all sat again, gradually settling themselves into a renewed state of anticipation as the moment approached – the telling of the tale that by tradition crowned each council fire. Fresh logs were chucked onto the burning ones, sending sparks popping like Chinese firecrackers into the blackness, and the flames cast their amber glow along the sets of tanned legs picketing the front row, where rested pair upon pair of rubber-soled U.S. Keds, lined up as on the shelf of some outsized shoestore.

Now is the time. The moment all the boys have been waiting for, time for the ancient tale, that mixture of old-time native lore and birchbark legend that is the warp and woof of the camp, woven from stories far older than anyone present. Such moments as these are what make Camp Friend-Indeed the place it is. The spirit of Moonbow Lake lies among the words the boys know they will soon hear, words that newcomers like Leo Joaquim have been told to pay attention to. A born teller of such tales, Pa addresses his listeners with adroit turns of phrase, conjuring the Moonbow Princess who once lived in this same place, here within this very grove of pines, and the Moonbow Warrior, her secret lover, whose lodge stood on the opposite shore, among her foes – their rival tribes for decades warring with each other over some long-forgotten quarrel.

“Alone and lorn of love,” Pa says, “the maiden waits, while deep night draws on apace, and the old Star Maker takes out his tools to cut the shape and pattern of the stars, which he pins onto the dark cloak of night. He cuts the moon as well, full and round and silvery, to shed its light over all, while still the beauteous princess waits for her warrior to come to her, across the shining water, secretly so no one will know. On her soft cheek a tear glistens, bright as the Pole Star itself, for she is resolved to rebel against the tribe and all her people, to be united in love with the man that Sagittai, the Ancient Seer, has foretold shall be hers…”

All along the rows the boys harken, some leaning forward, some back, some gazing up at the star-strewn sky, some staring into the fire, all hanging on Pa’s every word. How they relish the telling; how silky and intricate the design as the threads of the familiar story are drawn out: whimsy and enchantment, shot through with moonlight; for to have the moonbow without a moon is impossible.

Pa goes on: “Alas,” he declares, “the princess waits in vain, for her warrior is by fate forestalled – each time he embarks, a fearful tempest, the work of Misswiss, the Evildoer, arises and forces him to return to shore. He cannot succeed until the fateful Night of the Moonbow, when, the seer proclaims, a bridge of moonlight will be magically created for him to cross upon.”

Aahh, the boys murmur, the moonbow, and Leo strains forward to catch each word.

Many nights pass, and days, and the moon wanes and waxes again, and still the moonbow does not appear. The princess weeps, the warrior chafes. Then, one night when the moon is full, the impatient maiden commandeers a canoe and paddles toward the opposite shore where her lover waits; but before she can reach it, her flight is discovered. She is overtaken and for her treachery is condemned to death; nothing, no one, can help her now, her fate is sealed.

“There the doomed princess lies,” Pa goes on with a lift to his voice, “there, upon the giant rock – this same rock where our council fire burns tonight. Misswiss holds aloft his knife. The sharp blade glints in the moonlight; see how he clutches it, ready to plunge it into her heart. Ah, hear her piteous moans – but who shall hear her pleas, who shall succor her?”

A ripple of sound traverses the rows, for the boys know that this is the best part of the story. By now Pa has risen to his full powers of description, and tonight’s moonless night seems moonless no longer, but clear and bright as can be, a night transfigured, filled with the wonder and magic of the tale.

Now, see it, boys, picture it in your minds: As the vengeful braves look on, silent and breathless, and Misswiss stays his hand yet a moment longer, little by little the miracle takes place. Yes! Look there, up in the sky! Forming itself from the tiniest, most infinitesimal particles of incandescence, attracting one another as though magnetized, gathering more and more substance, only faintly visible at first, a trembling shape of something not quite real, then, growing brighter and fuller, a filmy skein, and now, taking clearer shape, it becomes a visible band – yes, see it, boys, see it – a horizontal band that, ever so slowly, begins to bend at either end, to arch above the lake that mirrors it, its gleaming terminals linking one shore with the other, until, at last, behold the completed wonder, a luminous bow, a glorious rainbow of the night!

And so, taking heart as he prepares to meet his beloved, the Moonbow Warrior makes haste to cross the bridge of light – only to meet horror on the farther shore. Taken prisoner, bound with thongs to a sapling tree, he must witness the execution of his beloved. Again Misswiss raises his knife and prepares to strike; the warrior cries out as the mortal blow is struck, and while the blood gushes from the maiden’s heart, red as poppies, he bursts his bonds and throws himself upon her lifeless corpse. Seizing the knife that has killed her, he rises up and faces his foes, lunging toward them, desperate, until finally he falls, mortally wounded, upon the breast of the murdered princess.

Pa pauses, milking every last drop of juice the drama holds. A single pin could be heard if it fell among the pine needles. Then, once more, he goes on, telling how the Old Chief, father of the fallen warrior, vowing vengeance, rouses his braves to man the canoes, commands them to sally forth and destroy the murderers of his only son, to smite them, Pa says, even as Samson smote the Philistines. But wait! A vision has appeared before him. It is the spirits of the two lovers, united in death, who now with tender words and looks entreat the chief to be merciful, to turn the cheek that has suffered the blow, to find it in his heart to return evil with good, vengeance with forgiveness, and in so doing shatter forever the cruel chains of hate that have for so long shackled the rival tribes.

And so there comes a happy ending, of sorts. Instead of seeking retribution, the Old Chief paddles the moonlit path across the glittering waters to the camp of his enemy, there to smoke the pipe of peace and exchange ceremonial gifts. Thus, the two tribes bury the tomahawk in the earth and pledge to live together in that same spirit of friendship and amity exemplified by Camp Friend-Indeed and all its boys.

The story draws to its end; Pa Starbuck sits back to reap the harvest of thought his words have planted. By custom, no applause ever follows the telling of the tale; in silent accord the boys rise from their places and by the beams of their flashlights leave the council ring, some to make their way to the Seneca honor ceremony in Indian Woods, the remainder to return silently to their respective cabins.

There is one camper, however, who does not leave, but remains seated upon the log, lost in some private reverie. Tiger, who has started off, returns, and is shocked by the sight of the stricken new boy, who sits huddled and shivering, his brow furrowed, his mouth agape, staring at the rock at the foot of the Methuselah Tree, as if the bloody death of the Moonbow Princess were still being enacted before him. He clasps and unclasps his hands, pressing them between his bare knees. It is a painful sight, and troubling to Tiger. With a comforting word, he brings Leo to his feet and leads him from the ring in the beam of his flashlight, and up through the pine grove toward the cabin called Jeremiah. But Leo, mortified by his behavior, refuses to go inside, where he will be left alone.

Tiger sits him down on the porch step, where they talk together. Whatever feelings had upset Leo seem to be forgotten; he offers no clue as to their source. He is knowledgeable about star-gazing and points out some constellations in the glittering sky – Cassiopeia’s Chair, Ursa Major, the North Star. Soon he begins to yawn. It has been a long day. Tiger sees him into his bunk and settles him down for the night. When Leo closes his eyes,

Tiger slips away to join the Senecas at the Wolf’s Cave in the heart of Indian Woods.

Later.

Taps has sounded. The night breeze hums among the pine needles; overhead the stars pale and wink out one by one; among the sentinel trees the camp slumbers, as if the invisible hand of Morpheus had passed across lake and cabins, sprinkling moon dust, urging happy dreams. Yet there is one whose repose does not go untroubled, who shifts restlessly under his blanket, whose lips move, articulating distressful but unintelligible sounds. And while he mutters aloud against his pallid phantoms, beyond the cabin sides a tiny murder is enacted: high in the Methuselah Tree, the owl inquires of the night – “Whoo? Who?” – then sails from his branch like a gray whisper. On silent pinions he floats downward among the dark pine boughs, soft as shadows, soundless as falling snow, talons splayed, topaz eyes round as saucers, wizard-wise, seeking his prey, and with feathered finesse plucks from a patch of spear grass one hapless form whose feeble squeak of protest is choked off in midair as, soaring once more, the bird reaches his treetop and gives himself up to his midnight feast.

The new boy awakens with a cry.