Rufus M. Read Online Free PDF

demanded, looking over his glasses at the class.
    "Yes," yelled the whole class, pointing to Rufus.
    "Here's mail for him," said the postman. And he handed Rufus a postcard.
    Rufus was stunned. At first he could not move. The only time he had ever gotten a postcard before in his life was from Sylvie when she went away to Camp Lincoln for a week. And on Valentine's Day he got valentines but not from the letter man. They came under the door with a ring of the bell and stamping of feet on the porch. Come to think of it, nobody ever got letters right in school. Home was where letters came, if there were letters. At last he managed to stand up and go to the front of the room and take his postcard. He examined it a long time. It had a picture of a soldier laughing on it. He turned it over. It was addressed to Rufus M., Room Three, School, Cranbury, Conn., U.S.A. The message on it was this:
    "The washcloth you knitted sure comes in handy. My buddies and I all take turns. Al."
    A1—that was that soldier's name. Rufus smiled. He showed it to everybody and then he put it in his pocket and he kept it there always.

3. The Invisible Piano Player

    Rufus did not think about the invisible piano player all the time. He ate, drank, slept, went to school, went to Sunday School, read his postcard from the soldier Al, hiked up East Rock with Joey, and played, most of the time. Still, whenever he went past a certain house on Pleasant Street, he did think about the invisible piano player who lived there.
    The Saybolts lived in this house: Mr. Saybolt, a motorman on the Bridgeport Express, and Mrs. Saybolt, his wife. She called all children "Tigers!" and chased them off her white sidewalk and out of her hedge chairs—two hedges in front of the porch she kept clipped in the shape of armchairs. She was a jolly lady on the whole, who sometimes laughed and talked to herself when she was hanging up the clothes. She just did not want children sitting in her hedge chairs. Rufus did not know whether the invisible piano player was named Saybolt or not. He had never seen him. So far as he knew, neither had anybody else ever seen him. This was natural since he was invisible.

    It happened quite by accident that Rufus found out about the invisible piano player. Nobody told Rufus a word about him in advance.
    One day Mama sent Rufus to the Saybolts' house with Mrs. Saybolt's new navy blue dress. It was not far, just around the corner. But Rufus was proud to go there with the new navy blue dress, because it was the first time that Mama had ever let him deliver any of her dressmaking alone. That meant he was a big fellow in the family now.
    Rufus walked up on Mrs. Saybolt's porch. She wouldn't call him "Tiger," because he was here on business. Inside someone was playing the piano. Rufus rang the bell. Nobody answered the door. He rang again. Still no one answered. They couldn't all be out because somebody was playing the piano. Rufus supposed no one could hear the bell because the person playing the piano was making so much noise. The door was open, so Rufus stepped in. He stood for a moment in the hall.
    "Hey," he called, in a lull in the music.
    Nobody came. And the music began again, so Rufus stepped into the parlor expecting to see Mrs. Saybolt playing. Then he stood transfixed in the doorway. There was music coming from the piano. The keys were hopping up and down, playing a lively tune. But,
nobody was sitting at the piano playing it.
    Rufus recognized in a flash what it was—an invisible piano player!
    Rufus stood there, watching. He knew about invisible people. Certain people who wore certain cloaks were invisible. Jane had read him a story only this morning about one of these fellows. That one happened to be a prince, an invisible prince.
    Rufus would have liked to stay there forever watching the invisible piano player, but just then Mrs. Saybolt came downstairs, scooped up her navy blue dress, pinned three dollars to a piece of paper, gave it to