Читать книгу Roy Blakeley's Happy-go-lucky Hike - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 9

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So then we started going around from one house to another asking the people if they wanted a nice dog. But nobody wanted any. In one house there was a little girl and she cried because her mother wouldn’t let her have it. I guess we went to about ten houses; we got way up to the north end of the town where the paper mill is. So then we started back on the other side of the street.

We were just coming out of a house when we saw a man waiting for us and Tin-pan-tin started barking at him. I bet he knew that man was going to start a lot of trouble for us. He just kept barking at the man and we couldn’t stop him. Gee, he knew all about him before the man spoke.

I said, “Hey, mister, have you got a nice home, because here’s a dog that wants a home.”

He said, “Where do you boys belong?”

“We’re boy scouts and we belong in Bridgeboro and we’re doing a good turn finding a home for this dog,” Pee-wee shouted. “So do you want him, because he’s nice and affectionate.”

The man said, “You got a license for him? Because I’m a constable in this town and I got my orders to arrest anybody that’s out on the public thoroughfares with a dog that ain’t got no license.” Then he grabbed Tin-pan-tin by the collar and started looking for the license tag.

I said, “Hey, mister, I guess he left it home on the dresser; maybe he got dressed in a hurry.”

Wig said, “Maybe he sent it to the laundry, how do we know?”

Pee-wee started turning the dog’s collar round and round, looking for the plate. He said, “What kind of a plate is it?”

“It’s like a dinner plate, only different, “I told him. “Hey, mister,” I said, “don’t mind him, he thinks it’s a plate with a couple of helpings of dessert on it.”

“Maybe it’s only a saucer on account of him being such a small dog,” Wig said.

I said, “Maybe he ate it, I wouldn’t blame him, because we all remind ourselves of starving Russia.”

The man said, “Well, you youngsters think it’s so funny, I’ll just let you see what it means to ignore the law that was printed for a reminder three days in the Little Valley Despatch, so’s nobody’d have no excuse for having in their care, possession and custody to wit, unregistered canines without tags for same.”

Wig said, “Gee, did we do all those things?”

“Hey, mister,” I said, “all we’re trying to do is find a home for him and he didn’t have any license tag when we found him, and maybe his new owner will get one. And we didn’t see the Little Valley newspaper because we don’t live here. So will you please let us try to find a home for him?”

“Anyway, he don’t belong to us,” Pee-wee spoke up, “and anyway, we didn’t know he was a canine, did we?”

Wig said, “Anyway, we won’t have him in our custody to wit, very long.”

I said, “Sure, no fooling, and the first cash register we see we’ll register him, won’t we Vic?”

The man said, “If you’re boy scouts you ought to know about not breaking the law, and I’ll learn you not to be fresh with officers. I reckon you youngsters think you can come from down Bridgeboro way over here to Little Valley and do as you please, settin’ up for city chaps with all your smart talk. Well now, I’ll show you Little Valley is on the map. If I wanted to haul you all in now I could do it and lock up the whole pack of you, dog and all, till the judge opens court in an hour or so. But I ain’t goin’ ter do that ’cause you’re youngsters. I’m going to give you a summons.”

“Even you don’t need to do that, if you don’t want to,” Pee-wee said.

All the time poor Tin-pan-tin kept barking at the constable and I had to grab hold of his collar to keep him away while the man wrote out the paper he was going to give us. He asked us our names and everything while he was writing. Then he tore the page out and gave it to me. We all stood watching him while he went back up to the next corner where I guess he came from and started turning the Go sign so the cars could start. Gee, by that time there were a lot of cars and the drivers were blowing their horns; I guess they were mad. So that shows you how boy scouts can stop traffic, they’re so smart, especially the ones I go with.

ALL THE TIME TIN-PAN-TIN KEPT BARKING AT THE CONSTABLE.

Pee-wee said, kind of scared, “Now what are we going to do? Now we’re in a lot of trouble. I bet we’ll get sent to jail, hey?”

“I hope they have eats in the jail,” Vic said.

That summons was made out on a blank that they use for automobile drivers. The constable wrote in how we had an unlicensed dog and it said we should go to the court where the justice of the peace was at five o’clock that afternoon. Pee-wee was afraid when he got there they wouldn’t let him send word to his father. We had about an hour to wait so we went in a field and started playing mumbly-peg. We were not exactly scared, but jiminy crinkums, how did we know we were doing anything against the law trying to find a home for the dog?

When it was five o’clock we hiked over to the town hall; they have everything in there except airplane races—courts and church fairs and everything. There was a man that got caught speeding and he had to pay fifteen dollars—he was good and mad. Gee whiz, the things he said about Little Valley! That constable was there and he told the judge how another man parked in the wrong place and the judge made him pay two dollars.

Then he said, “Now how about these youngsters?” He meant us. He said, “Don’t you boys know you have no right to have a dog about the streets without a license? I thought boy scouts knew all about such things. It’s just as important to know the law about dogs as it is to know the law about shooting rabbits.”

Pee-wee said, “I know all about rabbits because I sell them and boy scouts are supposed to do good turns so we’re finding a home for this dog.”

The judge said he could fine us ten dollars if he wanted to but he wouldn’t as long as we paid for the dog’s license and that was two dollars. He said we should come back with the two dollars in an hour. Wig started to say something but he was mad and he wouldn’t listen. He said he’d let people know that they couldn’t come from big places like Bridgeboro and disobey the law—he said everyone knew they couldn’t go round with dogs without any license. Pee-wee started to say something but the judge pounded his desk with a hammer to make him shut up. Gee, we were glad to get out of there.

I said, “That’s just like being dismissed from school—only different.”

“A difference of two dollars,” Vic said.