Читать книгу Jerry Todd and the Flying Flapdoodle - Edward Edson Lee - Страница 3

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Horse Foot and I were sitting on the front porch steps.

“H-h-hey, Jerry Todd,” says he, spitting at a knot-hole in the top step, “l-l-let’s do somethin’.”

“I know what I’d like to do,” says I, with a meaning look at him.

“W-w-what?” says he cheerfully, as he took another crack at the knot-hole.

“I’d like to put an express tag on you,” says I, “and ship you over to Honolulu.”

“I d-d-don’t even k-k-know her,” says he.

“Know who?” says I, staring.

“H-h-hannah Lulu,” says he. And then he brightened. “B-b-but I know H-h-hannah Beecher,” says he. “S-s-she’s got warts. And her p-p-pa sells fish.”

The big apple! I’ve known him all my life. For he and I live beside each other in the little town of Tutter, Illinois. But this was the first time that I ever had to have him sitting around under my nose.

“I didn’t say Hannah Lulu,” says I. “I said Honolulu.”

“W-w-where does she live?” he quizzed.

“She don’t live,” says I. “She’s a city on the other side of the world.”

“I like k-k-k-k-k——”

He got all tangled up on that one. And finally I let out a yap at him.

“For the love of mud!” says I. “What do you think you are, anyway?—a cuckoo clock?”

For that’s what he sounded like, with his crazy k-k-k-k-k stuff.

“Go ahead and say it,” says I, “and quit rehearsing.”

“K-k—ketchup,” he finally got it all out in one hunk.

“Ketchup what?” says I, staring.

“K-k-ketchup and b-b-beans,” says he.

I figured I better get out of his reach. It was safer. So I slid over to the other side of the steps.

“You’re crazy,” says I.

And all the time I was wishing to myself that a nice friendly cyclone would come along and carry him off. Ketchup and beans! Nobody had said anything about ketchup and beans till he spoke up. But that’s his way. He’s liable to start talking about anything. And the way he talks! Oh, oh! K-k-ketchup and b-b-beans!

His real name is Sammy Rail. But don’t get the silly idea that he looks like a rail. Far from it. He’s built like a sofa pillow with a rag tied around it. And when he talks his red cheeks puff out like lopsided tomatoes. To hear his ma tell it, he’s the smartest thing that ever walked around on two legs. He says this, and he says that. And, of course, as soon as he says it she starts touring the neighborhood to repeat it. He’s so clever! Only nine too! And he says the drollest things!

But the Tutter kids don’t tell about him being droll. I guess not! They say he’s plain dumb. And we all call him Horse Foot because he acts as though it hurts him to move his feet around.

And to think that I had to put up with him for the next two weeks! Ouch!

His little sister had the measles. And to escape them himself he had lugged his toothbrush and pajamas over to my house. He was going to stay with me, he said, till his sister got well. It was his ma’s idea. And then he stopped stuttering long enough for me to applaud. But the only applause he got was a dirty look.

Mum stepped in then. She was very glad, she said, in her kindly way, to accommodate a neighbor in distress. So Horse Foot’s striped pajamas were put to roost in my bedroom closet. And here I was gorging myself on his intelligent society.

If only I could paint some spots on him to look like fresh measles! Then he’d have to go back home and live with the rest of his measly tribe. It was something to think about, all right.

“L-l-let’s do somethin’,” says he again.

“Pickled pigs feet,” says I, giving him some of his own crazy stuff.

“Huh?” says he, staring.

“Liver and onions,” says I.

“Huh?” says he again.

“Ketchup and beans,” says I.

He was beaming now.

“My p-p-pa brags on me too,” says he. “H-h-he says I’m the b-b-best spitter for my age that h-h-he ever saw. When I f-f-first started spittin’ I c-c-couldn’t spit any higher than our b-b-bay window. B-b-but now I c-c-can spit clean over our garage.”

Suffering cats!

“I’m glad,” says I, “that your little sister hasn’t got the seven-year itch.”

It was a swell summer morning. The trees were full of robins. I could hear bees too. They were chasing around in search of honey. One stopped to explore the big honeysuckle vine at the end of the porch. I saw the bee buzzing in and out among the blossoms. And suddenly I got to thinking how lovely it’d be if it took a buzzing trip down Horse Foot’s dirty neck. He needed something like that to stir him up. And maybe if he got a move on himself he’d get some sense.

“L-l-let’s do somethin’,” says he.

The same old record!

“What do you know,” says I, “besides ketchup and beans?”

“Um-yum-yum,” says he, patting his stomach.

Two weeks! And I even had to sleep with him too!

“I wish I knew some nice easy way to get into jail for two weeks,” says I.

“L-l-let’s,” says he brightly.

“Let’s what?” I grunted.

“Go fishin’.”

And over I went against a porch post.

“I give up,” says I weakly.

Mum was standing in the front door.

“Did you notice the robins this morning, Jerry?” says she.

“Yes,” says I, “and I noticed the bees. But they don’t light where I want them to.”

She saw me looking at Horse Foot’s neck.

“Remember,” says she, with a smile. “No tricks.”

I got up and went inside.

“Mrs. Rail had her nerve,” says I, “to send him over here to pester me.”

Mum ran her fingers through my hair in that nice chummy way of hers.

“We mustn’t forget,” says she, “how Mrs. Rail helped us last winter, when we all had the flu. And it was Sammy himself who took care of our furnace.”

“Just the same,” says I, “I hate to think that I’ve got to have him around here for the next two weeks.”

“I think he’s rather cute myself,” says mum. “Don’t you?”

Cute!

“He’s got a face like a fried fish ball,” says I. “And every time he talks he twists his Adam’s apple around his shins.”

“But he can’t help his speech, Jerry. He was born that way. And now that he’s staying here with us, the very least we can do is to treat him kindly. I’m sure I’ll do my best. For I know how well Mrs. Rail would treat you, if I sent you over there to escape a contagious disease.”

“I’d never go,” says I. “For I’d rather have seventeen contagious diseases than to live with him. Why, he’s only nine! And look how big I am! He doesn’t fit into my gang at all. For Peg Shaw alone would make two of him. And we’re all four grades ahead of him at school.”

“It won’t hurt you,” says mum, “to give him a little attention for a few days. So quit growling about it.”

“Nursemaid!” I snorted.

“Yes,” says mum, with a firm air, “and I’m going to take the nursemaid across my knee and warm him up, if he doesn’t behave.”

And all the time Horse Foot was aiming at the knot-hole.

“Maybe I better get him a funnel,” says I.

Mum handed me a dime.

“Take him downtown,” says she, “and buy him an ice-cream cone.”

“It’s a shame,” says I, pocketing the dime, “to waste perfectly good ice cream on him.”

There was a sudden racket outside.

“What’s the matter now?” says mum, with an anxious air.

“Oh,” says I, “he just rolled down the steps.”

“Goodness gracious!” she cried.

And out she flew.

“Did you hurt yourself, Sammy?”

“N-n-no,” says he, picking himself up. “B-b-but I b-b-bet I could, if I d-d-did it over ag’in.”

I started to sing.

“Tra-la-la-la-la,” says I, getting mum’s eye. “Spring, beautiful spring. And then poor little Eva breathed her last, and went up to the angels.”

“Don’t be silly,” says mum, as she helped Horse Foot get his left elbow out of his right pants pocket. “And don’t wander off at dinner time. Mrs. Meyers and I are going over to Ashton this afternoon. And I don’t want to wait dinner on you. For the sooner we get started the more time we’ll have for shopping.”

Horse Foot heard the word “dinner.”

“K-k-ketchup and b-b-beans,” says he promptly.

“Yes, yes,” says mum, with an impatient gesture, “I’ll see that you get plenty of ketchup and beans. You needn’t remind me.”

“L-l-liver and onions,” Horse Foot further added to the bill of fare.

“But you can’t have both,” says mum.

“P-p-pickled pigs feet,” continued Horse Foot.

And then he laughed.

“J-j-jerry said it. S-s-so I said it too.”

“Well,” says mum, kind of stiff-like, “you mustn’t pay too much attention to what Jerry says. For he can be just as silly as anyone else.”

Here Mrs. Rail came out on her front porch to shake a rug.

“Hoo-hoo!” she called to mum.

“Hoo-hoo!” mum called back.

“I heard you’re going over to the county seat this afternoon.”

“Yes. Mrs. Meyers and I are going over in her car.”

“Is Sammy going with you?”

“I hadn’t planned on it,” says mum. “But he’s welcome to go, if he wants to.”

“Well, see that he washes his ears. Make him dig with the rag. And don’t give him any money. For the last time I took him over to Ashton he almost ate himself to death in the dime store. I had to keep a hot-water bottle on his stomach for two days. And I might have used the water bottle longer, if he hadn’t chawed a hole in it.”

“There’s a big sale on bedroom curtains,” says mum. “Only thirty-two cents a pair. I can’t buy the material and make them for that.”

“Oh,” wheezed Mrs. Rail, in her fat way (for she and Horse Foot are built just alike), “how I wish I could go with you.”

“Do you need new curtains?” says mum.

“No. But it’s so nice to look at ’em. . . . And if you have pancakes for breakfast, Mrs. Todd, don’t give him more than two. For they make him break out something awful. Watch his handkerchief too. He’ll carry it around for the next six months, if you don’t yank it away from him.”

“What I’d like to get,” says mum, “is a plain pattern for the front bedroom. Something to match the wall paper.”

“Pink?” wheezed Mrs. Rail.

“No. Blue.”

“But I thought the wall paper in your front bedroom was pink”

“I just had the room repapered.”

“Oh, dear! And I won’t be able to see it for two weeks. But that’s what you get when you start raising children. If it isn’t measles it’s mumps; and if it isn’t mumps it’s whooping cough, with a few cracked collar bones mixed in. Still, as I told my husband last night, when he was gargling his throat in the bathroom, what is home without little ones? Certainly, I wouldn’t give up either of my two darlings for all the money in the world.”

“Do you think they’d look better with ruffles?” says mum.

“Goodness gracious!” wheezed Mrs. Rail, with big eyes. “Who are you talking about?”

“My new curtains—that I’m going to buy.”

“Oh! . . . How silly of me. I thought you meant Sammy and Jane.”

Mum laughed.

“How is Jane?”

“Just about the same. She’s cutting out pictures now—an old mail-order catalog, you know. And she has genuine six-dollar seal-skin coats and double-jointed hayforks stuck all over the headboard of the bed. But the poor little lamb has to do something. She can’t just lay there and stare. And what’s a few hayforks to scrape off? As I told my husband last night, when he was gargling, children are an awful chore—there’s no two ways about that. But they’re a blessing as well.”

There was a lot more talk about ruffled curtains and family blessings. But Horse Foot and I didn’t stay to hear it. For a gang of boys had just come into sight in the sunny village street. They were pulling a baby airplane.

And who do you suppose was sitting in the cockpit!

No. You’re wrong. It wasn’t Lindbergh. It was little old Red Meyers himself!

“Hot dog!” I yipped.

And down the street I went, lickety-cut, with Horse Foot trailing behind (as usual) like a comet’s tail.