Rufus M. Read Online Free PDF Page B

Rufus, and scooped him out the door, dropping two cents in his palm for himself. He didn't have a chance to ask one word about the fellow.
    That was the first time that Rufus knew about the invisible piano player. But always after that when Rufus went past this house he thought about him, especially if he could hear him busy at the piano. When he wasn't playing the piano, Rufus wondered if he sat in the hedge chairs. He could sit there because Mrs. Saybolt could not see him. He wondered many things about the man. He wondered if you could feel an invisible man or if touching him would be like touching air. He asked Jane.
    Jane thought a long time. Then she said she thought you could feel an invisible man. The only thing you couldn't do was see him. If he sneezed or coughed, she thought you could hear him. Hear him and feel him, that's what she thought.

    This sounded sensible to Rufus. He wished Mama would send him to the Saybolts' house again, but right now Mama was not sewing for Mrs. Saybolt. Rufus hoped that someday he'd have a chance to go back to this house and look at the stool where the invisible piano player sat. Then he would try to touch him and really find out if you can feel an invisible man or not.
    Going to school and coming home from school Rufus passed the Saybolts' house. Whenever he heard the invisible piano player, he paused to listen. This was the only invisible man he knew about outside of those fellows in books. And he was a smart man. To be invisible is smart in itself. But to be invisible and such a good piano player also was quite remarkable.
A Paderooski,
thought Rufus. This chap never missed a beat.
Tum-te-tum!
He never struck the wrong note, the way he and Jane did on their organ. He never had to practice exercises, either, the way Nancy Stokes did. He just played. Rufus admired him very much.
    Rufus listened from outside and across the street as much as he could. But the opportunity to get inside the house again did not present itself for a long time. Then one day when he heard the invisible piano player he stopped to listen for a moment. He could hear him very well because the window on the porch was open. Mrs. Saybolt was nowhere in sight. So Rufus tiptoed up on the porch and looked through the open window. This was almost as good as being inside the house. And there was the invisible piano player as invisible as ever!
    Rufus watched the keys hop up and down and he tried to imagine what the invisible piano player might look like if he didn't have his cloak of invisibility on.
    All the while that Rufus was watching through the window he kept one ear cocked for Mrs. Saybolt, so he could run if she came and called him "Tiger!"
    Then it occurred to Rufus that perhaps the reason the piano player stayed invisible was that he might be afraid of Mrs. Saybolt. In that case the invisible piano player might not be a man after all. He might be a boy like Rufus. He might be a boy who did not like to be called "Tiger!" and therefore made himself invisible.
    "Are you scared of Mrs. Saybolt?" he asked. "Don't be scared. I won't let her hurt you."
    At this moment Mrs. Saybolt came around the corner of the house, her apron full of twigs she had snapped off the hedge. "Shoo, tiger!" she shouted.
    Rufus tore home and crawled into the little old chicken coop, where he thought for a while. But he couldn't stay there long because curiosity won the upper hand. He must find out once and for all: Can you feel an invisible man or is he like thin air?
    With bits of feathers and chicken dirt clinging to him, he returned to the home of the invisible piano player. Mrs. Saybolt was in the backyard now, her mouth full of clothespins, hanging up the laundry. She did not see Rufus.
    Rufus decided to hop in the open window, feel the place where the piano player should be, and then hop out. He stepped over the low windowsill into the parlor. But he didn't go right over and touch the invisible person. He suddenly felt shy about that.