Five long weeks later the afternoon turned hot, as late September days sometimes do in Vermont.  On their way home from school the kids decided to stop at “High Banks.”  They wanted to cool off before heading home to their chores.

There’s a brook at High Banks that cuts through the forest like a snake through tall grass.  It’s a quarter-mile from the farmhouse, beyond the sugar house at the farthest end of the sugarbush.  The woods there are thick, mostly high maples and beeches whose leafy crowns create a canopy overhead.  It’s quiet and still, serene and safe from the world beyond.

When they reached High Banks, Sam and Will scrambled down one of the banks to the brook below.  They rolled up their pants and waded in while Ben eased himself into the arch of a maple whose trunk curved out over the water some ten feet below.  Finding a shady spot, Becca crouched down, wrapped her arms about her knees, and rocked slowly back and forth, a sad and troubled look on her face.

Then they heard Cal and Sarah coming down the path.

Since the night at the campfire when the Professor had been arrested, Cal had lived with them.  Instead of being a misunderstanding as the Professor had thought, the case against him grew stronger as the weeks went by.  Summer passed, school began, and it was County Fair week, but the Professor remained locked up in jail.

Each afternoon Cal and Sarah walked to meet the kids on their way home from school.  Today, not seeing them on the road, Sarah had guessed they’d gone to High Banks.  When she and Cal found them there, she shouted jubilantly, “I knew you’d be here!”

“Hey, Sarah! Hey, Cal!” called Will.  “Come on down here and help us dam up the brook.”

“We’re making a swimming hole!” added Sam.

Glaring at them, Becca said, “I don’t understand how you all can act like nothing’s happened!”

“Whadda you mean, Becca?” Will asked.

“Yeah,” Sam said, a confused and hurt look on his face.  “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” Becca’s voice was filled with bitter sarcasm.  “Oh nothing’s wrong, nothing at all.  Just the Professor’s locked up in jail, people are talking about lynching him, our father’s gone, and we’re sitting here not doing anything about any of it!”

From the overhanging trunk, Ben sat up and glared back at Becca.  “I’m sick of this!  You’re always bringing Pa into everything.  He doesn’t have anything to do with the Professor.”

“But Ben, don’t ya see?  The Professor’s just like Pa — he tells us stories and he makes life fun.  And he liked us, Ben, he really liked us.  I could tell.”

“Well, so what?  The Professor’s not our Pa and that’s it.”

“No,” Becca said, her eyes downcast, “but I don’t want to lose him, too . . .”

There was a long silence broken only by the sad calls of two mourning doves.

Will broke the silence.  “What do ya mean, ‘lose him’?  And why do you say he’s gonna be lynched, Becca?”

“You tell them, Ben,” Becca said.

Ben eased himself out of the trunk, crossed the brook, and walked over to the small campsite the kids had made at High Banks.  The rest of them gathered around, sitting on logs or crouching somewhere in the circle about the empty fire pit.

The sun overhead broke through the leafy canopy, sending shafts of dappled light.  The doves sang their mournful song from somewhere near the sugar house.

Finally, Ben said, “Yesterday afternoon when Mama sent me and Becca down to the store, we overheard some people saying how it didn’t look like Freddy Miller was gonna make it, and that if he died, the Professor ought to be lynched.”

Sarah asked, “What’s ‘lynched’ mean?”

Ben looked right at her and said, “It means they don’t wait for a trial.  They just get the Professor, put a rope around his neck, and hang him from a tree till he’s dead.”

“Kill the Professor!” Will exclaimed.  “We can’t let them do that!”

“Yeah,” Sam added, “we gotta save him!”

“How we gonna do that?” Sarah asked.

Everyone was silent, overwhelmed by the idea of saving the Professor.

Then Cal, who hadn’t said a word thus far, spoke up, “Fly.  Make wings, fly away.”

Becca reached out a hand to touch Cal.  “No, Cal,” she said, “people can’t do that.  Besides, the Professor’s locked up in jail.”

Cal looked stricken, so Becca added, “But I wish you and the Professor could fly away like in that story Laura Mary Alice told us about Daedalus and Icarus.”

Suddenly Ben jumped up, all excited.  “Hey, that’s it! I got a great idea!  Saturday’s the County Fair, and town’s gonna be full of people.  I remember Sheriff Bill saying it’s the busiest day of the year for him.  It’d be perfect for breaking the Professor out of jail.  We can sneak in there when no one’s looking.”

“But Ben,” Becca said, “how do we know no one’s going to see us?”

“I know,” Will said, “we can dress Cal up like Icarus and all the people can watch him fly!”

“But Cal can’t fly,” Becca reminded them.  “He’d just fall like Icarus.”

“Oh yeah, . . .” Will said, defeat in his voice.

“Wait,” Ben said.  “I know what we can do.  You know that telegraph wire that runs from the hotel over to the new train station they’re building?  We could rig up a harness for Cal and hook him up to that wire and he can sail right over the whole crowd, just like magic.  And while everybody’s watching Cal, we can get the Professor out of jail.”

All the kids cheered and spoke at once:  “Yeah! Yeah!”

“Let’s do it!”

“That’s a great idea!”

“Wait!” Becca shouted.

Everyone grew quiet.

“Is it safe?”she asked.  “And, is it right?”

“Course it’s safe,” insisted Ben.

“Cal,” Becca turned to him.  “Can you do it?”

Without hesitating a moment, Cal said, “Fly.  Cal fly!”

The cheering started up again, and in the midst of it Will remembered the song lyrics he’d heard Cal repeating in the wagon all those long weeks ago:

The daring young man on the flying trapeze.