Читать книгу Poppy Ott and the Freckled Goldfish - Edward Edson Lee - Страница 6

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We had left Red Meyers comfortably draped against a corner telephone pole, hoping that a cyclone would come along and carry off his aunt’s beauty parlor, dirty windows and all. But he wasn’t to escape the hated window-washing job so easily. And upon our appearance in the street we found him, sponge in hand, sort of pirouetting, or whatever you call it, on the top of the wabbly stepladder.

Boy, when old red-head gets one of these crazy spells, he sure is funny! Recklessness is his middle name.

“Shut up, you half-baked animal cracker,” he bellowed across the street, pushing out his jaw like a tough. “Or the first thing you know I’ll come over there and hyphenate you from your air supply.”

“Go soak your head, you freckled dumb-bell,” came the answering bellow.

It was Rainbow! And what do you know if he, too, wasn’t putting on a window-washing program! This was worth seeing, all right. So, as I say, Poppy and I sort of picked out comfortable seats in the front row.

“When you get through scraping that window,” Red bellowed some more, “you better blanket it, or it’s liable to take cold.”

At which Rainbow toughly shoved out his own jaw.

“Is that so,” says he.

“Yes, that’s so,” says Red, making himself look harder than ever.

“If anybody happens to ask you, we wash our windows a whole lot oftener than your old aunt.”

“Why don’t you wash your ears for a change, and soak off some of the calluses?”

“I’ll soak you in the jaw, if you don’t shut up!”

“And dabble around on the back of your neck,” was Red’s further cheerful advice. “Maybe you’ll find the long-lost family collar button.”

“In just about two minutes, guy, you’re going to feel the gentle effect of my fist on the end of your sneezing apparatus.”

Red jiggled the stepladder recklessly, yipping and waving his arms. The water slopped over the edge of the pail. And, to tell the truth, I expected nothing else than to see the whole business come down kerplunk!

“Look out!” he gave a wilder bellow. “There’s a woodpecker headed your way. You better pull in your head.”

Mrs. Biggle waddled to the front door.

“Donald!” came sharply from the fat beauty expert. “Will you please make less noise. I hired you to wash windows, not to entertain the whole street. You are disturbing our trade.”

Red was having the time of his life. For, as I have said before, he sure loves to shoot off his bazzoo.

“Hey, Aunt Pansy!” he beamed. “Look across the street. The baby’s getting its first bath.”

Mrs. Biggle’s face got red. For it was embarrassing to her to have the window washer publicly draw her attention to the other store. Then she gave a scream, clutching at her fat jeweled throat, as the acrobat did a stork dance on one leg.

“Donald! Stop it! You’ll fall and break your neck!”

“Say, Aunt Pansy,” grinned the monkey, in further daring one-legged stuff, “I bet you can’t do this.”

“Haw! haw! haw!” came coarsely from across the street.

Red turned like a flash.

“Pull in your ears,” he bellowed. “Didn’t I tell you the government’s looking for mules?”

“Who said that solid ivory won’t rust,” Rainbow gave Red a dig about his hair.

“Draw in your woodpile, pignut,” was Red’s further contribution, “or I’ll come over there and take a chunk out of it.”

“Go on home,” bellowed Rainbow, “your pa wants his shoes.”

Here Mrs. Flossie fluttered around the corner, smelling like a walking perfume factory. And when she and Mrs. Biggle came together on the sidewalk, up went the thin one’s nose to the level of her painted eyebrows.

“Say, Ma,” chirped the family hope, “look at the copy-cat across the street.”

That set Red off again.

“I started first,” he bellowed.

“Yes, you did—not,” the other stuck out his mug in return.

“Don’t pay any attention to him, Chester dear,” mamma tilted her head. “It is the nature of some people to act common.”

“If I’m a comma,” bellowed Red, mistaking the word, “you’re a question mark.”

“Donald!” Mrs. Biggle tried to hush him up, her face getting redder every minute.

Up went Mrs. Flossie’s aristocratic nose another notch.

“Small-town stuff,” she gave her competitor a dig.

Red had his neck stretched.

“Look out!” he screeched, weaving back and forth on the stepladder. “You’ll fall over backwards and crack your nameplate.”

“Rowdy!” came the hot retort.

“Say, Aunt Pansy,” Red went on with his nonsense, “bring me a telescope. I think I see signs of life across the street. Maybe they’re going to get a customer.”

“It’s a cinch,” yipped Rainbow, “that we don’t see any signs of life on your side of the street. Your store is so dead it smells bad.”

“Go crawl in a new skin, bologna-face, and weigh yourself.”

“Stir yourself, liver-and-onions, you’re burning.”

“Garlic!”

“Limburger!”

“Cookie-cutter!”

“Pin-head!”

“SAUER-KRAUT!”

“MONKEY-FACE!”

Red then picked up an old song, yipping out the words at the top of his voice.

“‘Come be my rain-bow, my pret-ty rain-bow, my heart-t-t be-gui-i-ile; give me a smi-i-ile; once in a whi-i-ile.’”

“Kill it,” bellowed Rainbow. “Don’t let it suffer.”

“Hey, fish-face, I saw your picture in the meat market.”

“You’ll see yours under a calla-lily wreath, if you don’t dry up.”

“It was on a lobster can,” hooted Red.

“The talking baboon!” jeered the other in turn.

“Vinegar-face!” Red pushed out his mug.

“Cabbage-head!” Rainbow showed that he could be just as hard.

“Skunk!”

“Louse!”

“Maggot!”

“Carp!”

“BEDBUG!”

“INSECT!”

Mrs. Biggle had now completely lost her temper.

“Donald Meyers!” she wheezed. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense. If you don’t go to work, and keep still, I’m coming up there with a stick.”

Red soaked the sponge full of water.

“You hadn’t better,” he grinned, realizing that he had the advantage, “or you’ll get a shower bath.”

It was about time now for Rainbow to pull some of his usual mean stuff. So, when he disappeared into the store, I kept an eye on the door. Sure enough, out he came, on the run, with some of his mother’s facial clay and a sling-shot.

Bing! His back turned for the moment, Red got the clay ball squarely in the seat of the pants. Then, as he spun around, another clay ball struck him in the chest.

There was no pretending now. Old red-head was mad all the way through. But he should have known that he couldn’t throw a pail of water clear across the street. In trying it, he completely lost his balance. Down came rock-a-by, baby and all, as the old rhyme goes, with the stepladder spraddling out like a dying horse. It was some spill, I’ll tell the world. Poor Red! He found out that his cranium wasn’t half as hard as the concrete sidewalk. It’s a wonder he didn’t kill himself. And across the street, of course, young Rainbow was laughing his head off. Oh, my, it was so funny! Haw! haw! haw!—and some more haw! haw! haw’s! Even Mrs. Flossie cracked her hand-painted face with a chimpanzee smile.

Well, we weren’t going to see our old pal get the worst of it. I guess not! So we sort of nudged our box of soft soap in his direction. And then—oh, baby! Bing! A big gob of soap flattened itself on the beauty-parlor window just above Rainbow’s hat rack. Bing! This time, due to Red’s wild aim, it was Mrs. Flossie who had to duck to keep her physiognomy from getting disfigured for life. Bing! The third gob of soap striking him squarely in the bread basket, Rainbow let out a roar like a suffering bull, after which he beat it for cover.

“Come on out, you shriveled-up, knock-kneed, yellow-livered imitation of a human being,” shrieked the victorious soap thrower, strutting up and down the sidewalk. “Just one more little crack, angel-face—that’s all I ask of you.”

“Ya! ya!” Rainbow made a face through the crack of the door.

And did Red ever paste him. Sweet doctor!

As can be imagined, there was considerable of an audience. The kids were yelling all kinds of encouraging truck to Red. And some of the men were on his side, too, particularly old Mr. Blighty, who laughed so hard, on his rheumatic legs, that he had to sit down in the laundry doorway to keep from falling down.

“I swan to Peter!” he cackled, slapping his knees. “If the Germans had had a supply of soap, an’ him, I bet a cookie we’d ’a’ bin licked.”

Poppy nudged me.

“Look, Jerry! See who just arrived.”

A tall, willowy, middle-aged man, wearing an old-fashioned soft black hat and a baggy black coat, came around the corner, teetering as he walked, as though he had coil springs in his big shoes. His tight-fitting black pants weren’t quite long enough for the unusually long legs, and, as though to fill out at the bottom, he wore a pair of gray spats. Under the left arm was a green umbrella, sort of supported by the bony hand on that side, and the other hairy-backed hand gripped a shabby traveling bag.

Until he caught sight of Red Meyers, the queer-looking stranger seemed to teeter along in a sort of trance. Then he stopped abruptly, blinking, a look of amazement spreading slowly over his long solemn face.

“My word!” he murmured, raising his nose glasses and looking under them. “What an amazingly fine specimen. Such perfect continuity of pigment discolorations! Marvelous! Simply marvelous!” Dropping his bag and umbrella, he fumbled around in his coat pocket, finally producing a long-handled magnifying glass, his use of which set everybody to laughing.

“Hey!” scowled Red, when the magnifying glass was turned on his nose. “How do you fit in?”

“Marvelous!” the bent-over newcomer repeated. Then he sort of teetered in a half circle, doing some more magnifying on the other side of the “specimen’s” nose.

“MARVELOUS!” THE BENT-OVER NEWCOMER REPEATED.

I quickly got Red’s ear.

“He isn’t making fun of you. Find out who he is and what he wants.”

Mr. Blighty wasn’t missing any of the added entertainment.

“Is he so small, Purfessor,” the old man cackled, “that you’ve got to use a magnifyin’ glass on him to find him?”

The stranger carefully returned the glass to his pocket.

“A most remarkable case, sir,” he beamed. “I have seen nothing to equal it in years.”

“Yep,” waggled the Tutter man, cocking an amused eye at Red, “he’s a case, all right. He’s what you call a hard-b’iled case.”

“In its hygienic trespass, the pigment formation has functioned in the corium with apparent abandon, to the result, as you can see, sir, that the patterning is perfect.”

Phew! Talk about a walking dictionary! I didn’t wonder that Mr. Blighty looked dizzy.

“Say, stranger,” says he, scratching his head, “what be you-all talkin’ about, anyway?”

The newcomer raised his shaggy eyebrows in surprise.

“Sir! You first spoke familiarly. I thought you had recognized me, and hence was conversant with the nature of my selective researches.”

“Nope,” Mr. Blighty spit.

“Then permit me to formally introduce myself, sir. I am Professor Aldercott Maxmillion Pip, A.B., M.A., Ph.D.”

“I swan to Peter! A man with a name like that! It hadn’t ought to be allowed,” and the joker cackled at his own words.

“I am a scientist, sir,” came with a touch of pride, “as my degrees mutely bear evidence.”

“Astronomy?” Mr. Blighty spit again.

“No, sir. Lentigo.”

“Never heerd tell of it.”

“Lentigo, sir, is the scientific name for freckles.”

“Freckles, huh?”

“With all due modesty, sir, I justly claim to be the world’s leading authority on freckles. This fascinating study of mine has led me into deep researches, and now promises to pay me bounteous rewards.”

“Meanin’ which?” Mr. Blighty hitched his good ear forward.

“I have every reason to believe, sir, that within a fortnight it will be my privilege to release, into the hands of mankind, under an appropriate trade name, a positive corrective formula for Lentigo, or, in more common words, a complete cure for freckles. One application of my Miracle Mud, sir, and the objectionable pigment discolorations will vanish from the corium overnight, never to return.”

Mr. Blighty slapped his knees.

“I swan to Peter! Do you hear that, Donald?” he got the red-headed one’s attention. “The Purfessor is goin’ to take the freckles out of your colorium an’ make you beautiful.”

“Yes,” the freckle specialist beamed, “it is my earnest hope to be favored with the helpful assistance of this young gentleman in the conclusion of my important experiments.”

I again got Red’s ear.

“Don’t you catch on, you dumb-dora? He wants to experiment on you.”

“Go lay an egg,” says Red. “This is the only face I’ve got. And I’ll be blamed if I’m going to let him monkey with it.”

“But he’ll improve it for you,” I grinned.

“He won’t,” says Red, “if I see him coming.”

But when it was explained to the freckled one how easily he could earn a dollar a day, his interest picked up considerably. For, to a kid, a dollar is a dollar. And what if he did have to wear a mud plaster on his face now and then? Mud has never hurt anybody yet.

Well, say, I didn’t know whether to laugh at the silly-acting old scientist, or take him seriously. A freckle specialist! Of all the crazy junk! Still, I sensibly checked up in my mind, a freckle specialist wasn’t any queerer than a bunion specialist or a tonsil specialist. Certainly, if his Miracle Mud was a success, he’d get a fortune out of it. For millions of freckled people would buy it.

I little dreamed of the crazy, shivery, bewildering events that were to follow on the heels of Professor Pip’s appearance in Tutter with his “Miracle Mud.” Gee-miny crickets! The thought of that mysterious yellow face, as it later spied on us, night after night, gives me the creeps to this day.