Читать книгу Jerry Todd and the Flying Flapdoodle - Edward Edson Lee - Страница 5

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We almost lost Horse Foot at supper time. For he tried to bite the top off the salt shaker. He got it mixed up with his cake. But we finally got the salt shaker out of him. And then he and I meandered down the street to meet the other fellows.

They were playing croquet in Red’s front yard. So I took a hand in the game. And when it got too dark to see the arches, we went around in back, where the glider was.

Horse Foot in the meantime had completely disappeared.

“Where is he?” says I, looking around.

He had followed me into the yard. But he was nowhere in sight now.

Then I heard a squawk in the barn. It sounded familiar! And when I ran in, as before, there hung the Family Blessing by his ears.

In the same crack, mind you!

I thought that Peg would split.

“Let’s tie a weight on his heels,” came the giggling suggestion, “and stretch him out.”

“I would,” says I grimly, “if I thought we could squeeze any brains into the top of his head.”

Horse Foot thought we were really going to weight him down.

“Hel-lup!” he squawked. “Hel-lup!”

I got a stepladder for him to stand on. And then I went outside and left him, thankful for once that I knew where he was and didn’t have to worry about him.

It wasn’t quite dark enough yet for us to start for the rag shed. So we sat down beside the glider to wait. And all the time Horse Foot was yelling bloody-murder.

Someone “hoo-hooed” in the distance.

“Suffering cats!” says I. “It’s his ma!”

And into the barn I went to shut him up. For I knew very well what I’d get from her if she found him hanging there.

But I learned, when I got inside, that he wasn’t hanging at all! He was sitting on the top of the stepladder with an all-day sucker.

“I t-t-thought it was the same c-c-crack,” says he, as he ran his tongue up one side of the sucker and down the other. “But I g-g-got through this time.”

I didn’t know what to do at first. For, of course, I didn’t dare to do what I wanted. There’s a law against stuff like that. But I figured that the very least he deserved was a good tumble. So I gave the stepladder a kick and left him.

The fellows were piling their blankets into the cockpit.

“Let’s get going,” says Red.

“What time is it?” says I.

“Nine-thirty.”

A car whizzed by out in front.

“We’ll be all out of luck,” says I, “if anybody runs into us in the dark.”

“I’ve got plenty of flashlights,” says Red.

We had to cross the canal. For the rag shed was on the south side of town. And to keep out of sight as much as possible, we finally decided to use the railroad bridge near dad’s brickyard. From there we’d follow the switch-track to the cement mill, and then cut off to the left. Once we got to the cement mill, we’d have everything to ourselves. For the people down there don’t roam around much at night—especially on a dark night like this.

If you’ll look on the map in the front part of this book, you’ll see how we got to the railroad bridge. We went down Main Street to Treebury Street. There we turned the corner to the left. Pretty soon we came to the brickyard. It was easy then to get to the bridge.

Scoop looked off into Zulutown.

“Let’s hope,” says he, “that we don’t bump into the Stricker gang.”

“Yes,” says Peg, as we stopped at the bridge, “and let’s hope we don’t lose Horse Foot through these railroad ties. For they’re a foot apart.”

I looked around.

“Good night nurse!” I squawked. “We’ve lost him already.”

Peg turned his flashlight into the inky canal.

“I don’t see any riffles,” says he.

I was good and mad now.

“Give me that flashlight,” says I, “and I’ll find him.”

There was a splash at the other end of the bridge. And tearing across, at the risk of my own neck, I found Horse Foot rolling rocks down the embankment.

“He’s all right,” I yelled back to my companions.

“Well,” Peg yelled in turn, “for Pete’s sake tie him up to something, and then come back and give us a hand. For we’ll have to carry this blamed thing on end to get it across.”

I took Horse Foot by the neck and set him down.

“I don’t want to get the name of picking on little kids,” says I. “But, bu-lieve me, if you aren’t here when I get back, there’s going to be something doing. And you needn’t be surprised either if I boot you all the way to the mill.”

“My p-p-pa brags on me too,” says he, in his brainless way. “H-h-he says I’m the b-b-best spitter for my age——”

“Aw, shut up,” says I. “You give me a pain in the neck.”

Red was yapping at the other end of the bridge.

“Don’t let him get away from you, Jerry. For I’m going to punch the stuffing out of him.”

“What’s the matter now?” says I.

“Oh, he went and put paint all over the side of my glider.”

I ran across.

“Look!” says Red, turning his flashlight on the fuselage.

This is what I saw:

“I c-c-couldn’t spell Norwegian p-p-pancake,” Horse Foot called across the bridge. “So I n-n-named it Flapdoodle. F-f-for flapdoodles are like p-p-pancakes—kind of.”

He meant flapjacks!

“When did he do it?” I asked Red.

“While we were playing croquet, I guess. But I never noticed it till now.”

I took a deep breath.

“If this keeps on,” says I, “I’m going to put that kid in a cage and lock him up.”

“You should have left him at home,” growled Red angrily.

“Where is he?” says Scoop.

“I left him on the other side of the canal,” says I. “But he may be halfway to Halifax by now.”

Peg laughed in his jolly way.

“If you were to ask me,” says he, “I think that’s a pretty slick name. ‘The Flying Flapdoodle!’ That’s a funny name.”

“But look at the way he printed it,” growled Red in an ugly manner.

“Shucks! That makes it all the funnier.”

There was another splash across the canal.

“I hope it’s him,” Red spoke spitefully.

“Quit picking on him,” says Peg. “There’s worse kids than him.”

“Yah, in the cuckoo house!”

“He makes me think of you, a couple of years ago.”

“I never acted like that,” growled Red.

“No,” laughed Peg, “you acted worse.”

We picked up the glider then and carried it across the bridge. It was kind of risky work—in the dark and everything. But we made it. And finding Horse Foot safe and sound, we roped him to one of the wings, to keep track of him, and hurried on in the direction of the rag shed.

So far we hadn’t met a soul. But old Emery Blossom came out, when he heard us fiddling with his pasture gate. He had a lantern. And I thought for a minute or two, as he raised the lantern to look us over in turn, with those sharp, deep-set eyes of his, that he was going to send us home. But he finally let us pass.

Like most stooped old men he has shaggy gray hair and deep wrinkles in his face and neck. He limps too, for years ago, when he had a wife, he let something drop on one of his feet. His wife died. And since then he’s lived all alone, in a shabby little house near his big rag shed. The house itself isn’t worth much. Nor the rag shed either. But he has a swell big pasture in back, which he rents out to people with cows and horses.

The old man knew, of course, that the glider had changed hands. And I don’t think he liked it very well. I think he wanted it for himself. But he didn’t say so.

“When did Collins skin out?” he inquired.

Collins was the picture-machine operator.

“Early this morning,” says Red. “He robbed our safe. And he had to skin out.”

“Pshaw! You don’t say.”

“Pa couldn’t get the money back,” Red continued. “So he took the glider. And if you don’t mind, we’d like to keep it in your big shed overnight.”

“Oh,” old Emery spoke hastily, with a greedy look at the glider, “that’s all right; that’s all right.”

“I don’t want you to tell anybody,” says Red. “But I’m going up to-morrow morning.”

“Pshaw!” says the old man, with a surprised air. “Not you?”

“Nobody else but,” was Red’s cocky reply.

“But s’pose you fall?”

“I’ll chance it.”

“I was goin’ to try it out myself,” says the old man, “when we got a motor on it. But I reckon it won’t be worth puttin’ a motor on, when you git through with it.”

I thought Red would resent that. But he had his mind on the motor.

“Is the motor ready?” he spoke eagerly.

“Yep.”

“Let’s put it on to-night.”

“No,” the old man firmly shook his head. “You can smash up your own part, if you want to. But you can’t smash up my motor. Fur if what I read about in the Bible is true, I’m goin’ to be needin’ it right soon.”

He was acting kind of queer now. Sort of breathless and excited-like. He kept looking up at the sky too, as though he expected to see something. But all I could see, when I looked up, was a few scattered stars.

“I’ve bin tellin’ my neighbors fur weeks,” the old man went on, in a low, mumbling voice, “that the day of judgment is at hand. But they say I’m an ol’ gilly. An’ when I got ’em out of bed last night, to listen, they jest laughed at me. Crazy Emery! Crazy Emery! He reads his Bible too much. That’s the way they talk to me. I didn’t hear anything last night. But I did hear somethin’ the night before—right up there in the sky. An’ I know what it was too.”

Gosh! I began to wish that I was home in my own bed. For I don’t like to mix up with people like that. It was blamed dark too—dark and spooky. That’s what made me so uneasy-like.

We were close to the rag shed now. It was just inside the pasture gate. And when we got there we opened the big end door and took the glider inside, old Emery in the meantime having disappeared into his cottage.

“I wonder what he heard?” says I, with an anxious air, as we spread our blankets among the rag bales.

“He’s been telling the neighbors,” says Peg, “that it’s the angel Gabriel.”

“The guy with the trumpet, huh?”

Peg nodded.

“Old Emery is a dandy mechanic,” says he. “And you can’t beat him on a rag deal. But he gets all woozy when he starts talking about the Bible.”

“Maybe he never heard anything at all,” says I hopefully.

For I didn’t like the idea that there was something hanging around overhead that I couldn’t see.

“Probably not,” says Peg.

Red was prowling around in another part of the big shed.

“Hey, gang,” he called. “Come here.”

“What do you want?” Peg called back.

“I’ve found the motor.”

So we went over. And sure enough, there on a rack, amid a group of greasy machines, was a small air-cooled gasoline motor with a wooden propeller fastened to it. The whole thing didn’t weigh more than thirty pounds. And it was hard for me to believe that a little engine like that would do much good in the air. But Red said that all a glider needed was a couple of horse power to keep it going.

“Gee!” says he, as he turned the motor over. “I wish I owned it.”

“So do I,” says Peg. “But we don’t. So let’s leave it alone.”

“I bet I could start it,” says Red, as he gave the neat little propeller another turn.

“Cut it out,” says Peg, as he glanced anxiously at the door that old Emery used in going back and forth between the rag shed and his home, a few yards away.

But Red kept right on.

“There’s the magneto—see? It’s built into the flywheel. And there’s the coil.”

We finally had to pull him away.

“To-morrow,” says he, “I’m going to try and make a deal with old Emery. For I’ve got some money in my bank. And I can easily work some more out of ma.”

Horse Foot was sound asleep. For kids of his age go to sleep easy. And as I looked down at him, with a flashlight, I kind of felt sorry for some of the mean things that I had said to him. He wasn’t such a bad little kid, after all. He hardly ever cried. He laughed instead. Besides, there was something droll about that dumbness of his.

Take the way he named the glider. “The Flying Flapdoodle!” Gee! It probably would be a “flat” doodle all right, I told myself, when Red got through with it.

He had an alarm clock. For you know how boys are! It takes something with a lot of noise fastened to it to wake them up at daybreak. And setting the alarm for three-thirty, he lay down beside me.

“Just think,” says he, “in another two or three hours I’ll be an aviator.”

“If—” says I.

“If what?” says he.

“If you aren’t a corpse.”

“Crêpe hanger!”

“By the way,” says Peg, from his place on the floor, “what kind of flowers do you want us to buy you? Calla lilies? Or turnip-tops?”

“Make it pumpkin blossoms,” says I.

Something came up to the door and whiffed.

“What’s that?” gurgled Red, as he popped up in bed.

“Maybe it’s Gabriel,” says Scoop.

Peg laughed.

“It sounds more like an old bull to me.”

I went to sleep then, with the bull pawing at the door, and the smell of old rags in my nose. I could smell grease too, from the machinery at the other end of the shed. It wasn’t a good sleeping place at all—it was too smelly. But I figured that I could stand it for one night.