Transcriber's Note:
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
MR.
WICKER'S WINDOW
by
Carley Dawson
Illustrated by
Lynd Ward
1952
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON
The Riverside Press Cambridge
Copyright, 1952, by
CARLEY DAWSON and LYND WARD
For
those at
Second Family
House
CHAPTER 1
hristopher Mason felt numb. It seemed to him that he was as good asan orphan already, for his father, a Commander in the Navy, was faraway at sea, and Chris's mother was in a hospital, not expected tolive.
Chris scuffed along the brick pavements of Georgetown, but he did not,as he usually did, look about at its familiar houses. This friendlycore of the growing city of Washington, D.C., today seemed to himalmost hostile.
Georgetown, where Chris lived, is the oldest part of the capital city,built by early English settlers long years before Washington itselfwas even planned. Grouped at the head of the navigable part of thePotomac River, above Georgetown's bluffs, the Potomac foams and dashesover wild rocks and waterfalls, and across the river, the countrystarts.
Chris had just left his mother's sister, his Aunt Rachel. Aunt Rachel,white-faced, was preparing to go to the hospital to be with his motherand had asked him, "Don't you want to come too, Chris? For a littlewhile?" But a cold-edged wing of fear[8] had brushed the boy like a batwing in the night. He had shaken his head, speechless, grabbed hissweater, and slammed the front door.
Now he hesitated on a corner, suddenly dismayed, not knowing quitewhere to go or what to do. The whole city with its white marblebuildings and templed memorials, its elm-lined avenues, seemed all atonce very empty.
He looked down to the Potomac, always, for Chris, just "the river,"where it glinted distantly blue and silver at the end of the street.Factories along the riverbank cut off all but the farthest stretchesof water as the river moved under bridge after bridge beside the banksof Maryland and