THE OLD EMPTY HOUSE On a hot afternoon in the middle of the summer, I climbed over the fence in our back yard and dropped down on the other side where my friend Bobby lived. He was waiting for me to come, for we had planned to go up to the old empty Donovan house. “I’m glad that the Donovans moved out in the spring,” said I. “So’m I,” said Bobby, “I don’t think they’d ever let us climb on the cherry tree if they were living there now.” “Let’s first climb up the cherry tree, all the way up to the secret place, and then let’s eat some cherries, and then let’s go into the summer house where the old lawn swing is ….” “And then let’s play with the sun dial, and the old silver ball,” said Bobby. So Bobby and I ran up to the Donovans’ yard, and climbed up the cherry tree. We went as far as the secret place where we had a flashlight and an Indian tomahawk hidden. “Y’know what let’s do?” asked Bobby. “What?” said I, picking a bunch of cherries. “Let’s see if we can get into the Donovans’ house.”
“It’s awful spooky.” “I know,” said Bobby. “My Aunt Ann says that there is a secret room in the Donovans’ house. “I think we can get in through the windows that are on the front door,” said I. “Let’s go,” said Bobby, and started climbing down the cherry tree. “Look,” he said when he had reached the ground, “a whole branch has fallen off. And it’s just full of cherries.” And we picked it up and took it over to the Donovans’ porch with us. We tried the windows on the porch. There were three of them, and all were locked. We tried the front door, but it was locked. We tried the back door, but it was locked. We tried the cellar door and the ash barrel door, where they used to take the ash barrel out in the winter time. But they were all locked. And the window on the back porch was locked, and all the cellar windows too. “I guess we just can’t get in,” said Bobby. “We could shinny up the poles on the front porch, and climb on the roof, and see whether the bedroom windows on the second floor are open.” “Naw,” said Bobby, “we would be seen. We’ve got to do this secretly.” “This thing is funny,” said I, and pointed to a kind of a handle that stuck out of the wall on the house. “That’s an ice door for a built-in ice chest,” explained Bobby. “My Grandmother has one just like that.”
enough, and I told him about Bailey’s Beads. He said that Uncle Charley was interested in such things, and he would ask him. Uncle Charley might take us in his new Graham-Paige. Nothing very much happened for a couple of weeks after that. Except one day I found out that if you opened the canary’s cage and he flew across the mirror and perched on the frame, he would see himself in the mirror and begin to sing. Uncle Charlie agreed to drive to Amesbury in his new Graham-Paige. The weather turned out fine. The hour of totality was late in the afternoon. Just myself and my father and Uncle Charlie went along as everyone else was away or busy. Uncle Charlie drove up Swan Street into Pleasant Valley, and when we got to Lake Kenoza, he stopped and ate half a corned beef sandwich. He does not like to go on long trips without stopping half way. In Amesbury, the road was jammed with more car than I’ve ever seen. We pulled over to the side and waited. The eclipse had already begun. Now the thing about an eclipse is this. It really takes a long time for the moon to cover the sun, and after it’s over, it takes a long time to uncover the sun. But the time when the sun is completely covered is quite short. We waited and waited. The viewer I had bought was very good. My father and Uncle Charlie too along a bunch of snapshot negatives to look through, but mine was better and they kept borrowing it. Suddenly, the sun was entirely covered. The whole place got very dark. A cold breeze blew across the field. I head a robin sing the special song they sing at sunset. Bailey’s Beads appeared and lasted longer than I would have thought. We all had several turns on my viewer. I took out the snake, and it seemed to me that it was more real than usual. When the total eclipse was over, we waited around for a while and then went back home. Uncle Charlie stopped at Lake Kenoza and ate the other half of his sandwich. “How was it?” my mother asked us when we got back.