The Door Into Summer

About three in the morning I pulled into a motor court across the road and down a bit from the turnoff into the Girl Scout camp, and paid too much for a cabin-Pete almost queered it by sticking his head up and making a comment when the owner came out.

“What time,” I asked him, “does the morning mail from Los Angeles get up here?”

“Helicopter comes in at seven-thirteen, right on the dot.”

“Fine. Give me a call at seven, will you?”

“Mister, if you can sleep as late as seven around here you’re better than I am. But I’ll put you in the book.”

By eight o’clock Pete and I had eaten breakfast and I had showered and shaved. I looked Pete over in daylight and concluded that he had come through the battle undamaged except for possibly a bruise or two. We checked out and I drove into the private road for the camp. Uncle Sam’s truck turned in just ahead of me; I decided that it was my day.

I never saw so many little girls in my life. They skittered like kittens and they all looked alike in their green uniforms. Those I passed wanted to look at Pete, though most of them just stared shyly and did not approach. I went to a cabin marked “Headquarters,” where I spoke to another uniformed scout who was decidedly no longer a girl.

She was properly suspicious of me; strange men who want to be allowed to visit little girls just turning into big girls should always be suspected.

I explained that I was the child’s uncle, Daniel B. Davis by name, and that I had a message for the child concerning her family. She countered with the statement that visitors other than parents were permitted only when accompanied by a parent and, in any case, visiting hours were not until four o’clock.

“I don’t want to visit with Frederica, but I must give her this message. It’s an emergency.”

“In that case you can write it out and I will give it to her as soon as she is through with rhythm games.”

I looked upset (and was) and said, “I don’t want to do that. It would be much kinder to tell the child in person.”

“Death in the family?”

“Not quite. Family trouble, yes. I’m sorry, ma’am, but I am not free to tell anyone else. It concerns my niece’s mother.”

She was weakening but still undecided. Then Pete joined the discussion. I had been carrying him with his bottom in the crook of my left arm and his chest supported with my right hand; I had not wanted to leave him in the car and I knew Ricky would want to see him. He’ll put up with being carried that way quite a while but now he was getting bored. “Krrwarr?”

She looked at him and said, “He’s a fine boy, that one. I have a tabby at home who could have come from the same litter.”

I said solemnly, “He’s Frederica’s cat. I had to bring him along because . . . well, it was necessary. No one to take care of him.”

“Oh, the poor little fellow!” She scratched him under the chin, doing it properly, thank goodness, and Pete accepted it, thank goodness again, stretching his neck and closing his eyes and looking indecently pleased. He is capable of taking a very stiff line with strangers if he does not fancy their overtures.

The guardian of youth told me to sit down at a table under the trees outside the headquarters. It was far enough away to permit a private visit but still under her careful eye. I thanked her and waited.

I didn’t see Ricky come up. I heard a shout, “Uncle Danny!” and another one as I turned, “And you brought Pete! Oh, this is wonderful!”

Pete gave a long bubbling bleerrrt and leaped from my arms to hers. She caught him neatly, rearranged him in the support position he likes best, and they ignored me for a few seconds while exchanging cat protocols. Then she looked up and said soberly, “Uncle Danny, I’m awful glad you’re here.”

I didn’t kiss her; I did not touch her at all. I’ve never been one to paw children and Ricky was the sort of little girl who only put up with it when she could not avoid it. Our original relationship, back when she was six, had been founded on mutual decent respect for the other’s individualism and personal dignity.

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