Rutherford

  CHAPTER 3

  Across the gravel road that led up to the farmhouse and a few yards beyond the horse coral, Mister Tinkerman had bulldozed out quite a large area and filled it with water. He called it his stock pond but every other creature on the farm knew better. As far as they were concerned, the pond along with the rest of the farm belonged to a cantankerous old goose named J.J.. J.J. was the name given to him by Mister Tinkerman several years back when the goose first showed an inclination to be the barnyard boss.

  J.J. had grown over the years into an unfriendly cuss who chased and chastised every moving thing that caught his eye. His intentions were clearly to do harm to any unfortunate creature who dared to share a path with him. Mister Tinkerman was the one exception. J.J. was big and mean but he wasn’t stupid. He knew that Mister Tinkerman was the one with the grain can, and J.J. loved grain almost as much as he loved water. Everything else, though, was fair game. Anytime he felt the urge to prove his lordship, he’d unfold his great span of wings, put his huge feet into motion and start snapping the air. The chase was on.

  The name J.J. was short for Judge and Jury and as such he was a force to be reckoned with. But Rutherford didn’t know that yet. That would come later. For now, J.J. wasn’t in sight and Rutherford was far enough away from the stock pond to be fairly safe. And he had other things on his mind. He had been away from the nest for a long time and he was thinking it was about time to be getting back home.

  “Come on,” Charlie said when the laughter about Fritz came to an end. “I’ve got something else to show you.” Instead of returning through the secret hole in the wall, Charlie led them to a frayed line of rope that hung from the open haymow at the roof of the barn. Charlie gave the rope a couple of sharp tugs. “I can’t climb this anymore, but you can,” he said. “It’ll take you up to the loft, then you can jump down to the scarecrow’s hat, climb down to the floor and you’ll be right back where we started from. It’s a good way to get away from the cat if you ever have to. He can’t climb it either.”

  It looked to Rutherford like the rope reached all the way into the rolling, dark clouds that filled the sky above the barn. A light sprinkle of rain had begun to spatter against their upturned faces. “Go ahead,” Charlie urged him on. “Give it a try.” Rutherford squeezed his eyes tightly together, taking a moment to build up his nerve. “Go on before it starts raining again,” said Charlie. “I’ll catch you if you fall.”

  “Promise?” Rutherford asked in a way that sounded like he wasn’t a bit sure that Charlie would catch him even though he said he would. He had been tricked by two of his brothers and Nell once back at the packrat’s pile of discards. They dared him to get all the way to the top of the pile then jump into their arms. He jumped, they moved, and he sure didn’t want that to happen again. “Pinkie promise,” he said, and Charlie held out a finger. “Okay, here I go.” Rutherford set his parcel of grain on the ground and placed a tentative front foot on the rope, then another and another until he was solidly attached. He was surprised. “I can do it!” he shouted with glee.

  “I knew you could,” said Charlie. “Now climb up it.”

  Rutherford dug his little fingernails into the rope. He was clinging to it quite nicely and making progress when a brilliant sheet of lightning and a boom of thunder raced through the cloudy sky above them. Rutherford’s nail-hold on the rope loosened and down he tumbled. “I’ve got you!” Charlie told him as he grabbed him out of the air before he hit the ground.

  The lightning, the thunder and the fall took away all of Rutherford’s enthusiasm. “What was that, Charlie?” he shouted after catching his breath and regaining his bearings.

  “Oh, that’s just weather,” answered Charlie like it was an everyday occurrence. “That’s what Mr. Tinkerman and Susan call it.” Charlie had seen it rain twice before. The first time, he had been foraging for whatever he could find around Mr. Tinkerman’s trash barrel when the sky began to get very dark. At the time, that was something new to him, too, and pretty scary, so he crawled under Mr. Tinkerman’s porch to wait and see what was going to happen. That’s when Mister Tinkerman walked out onto the porch and called for Susan. “Looks like we’ve got some weather coming, Susan. Better put the chickens up and close the barn doors,” he had told her. A few minutes later the sky was lighting up and roaring its displeasure with something. Charlie had hoped it wasn’t him, but just in case, he stayed hidden under the porch that day for a long time after the storm moved on.

  It had rained again a few days later. That time, though, Charlie had a better handle on things. Instead of hiding from it, he stood on his hind legs and danced the whole storm through, mostly right in front of Fritz, the cat, who simply sat on the front porch and watched him. So, Charlie was an old hand when it came to weather. Rutherford, on the other hand was a newbie, a frightened little newbie.

  “I think I should go home now, Charlie,” he said, picking up his package and putting it back over his shoulder. “My mom’ll probably be worried about me.”

  “Yeah, mine too,” Charlie agreed. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  They said their goodbyes and Charlie headed across the barnyard. Rutherford, instead of trying the rope, darted through the hole in the wall, gingerly stepped around the pile of pebbles and tiptoed back through the door-flap to rejoin his family.

  CHAPTER 4

  Rutherford’s mind was filled with a jumble of thoughts as he slipped back into the den after his day with Charlie. One part of him was anxious to tell his story while the rest of him was hoping that his day of exploration would go unnoticed by the rest of the mouse household. His thoughts were playing leapfrog with one another when he made his reappearance at the bottom of the rag-pile. Nell and the others were there. So much for going unnoticed.

  “Well, if it’s not scaredy pants,” she taunted him. “Where have you been hiding all day?” Rutherford tried to step around her and her question but she wouldn’t let him. “Well?” she insisted.

  Here was his chance to prove to all the others that he wasn’t the coward that Nell made him out to be. He could tell them about his day with Charlie and all the things he had seen and probably be a hero to them. Or, he could keep it to himself and at least enjoy one more day beyond the nest before they would all want to join him. All kinds of thoughts raced through Rutherford’s head while she stared at him. Then he made up his mind. He would get back at her for all the bullying. “I was outside,” he told her, holding up his package of grain. “See, I even took my lunch. It was really, really scary, and it’s like you told us. There’s something horrible out there.” He laughed to himself when he watched Nell’s mouth sort of drop open. He raised his voice into an excited squeak. “Only it’s worse than what you told us. It’s a monster and it’s right outside the door. Come on, I’ll show you.” He reached for her.

  Nell quickly backed away into the safety of the crowd. “You didn’t go outside,” she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “You’ve just been hiding. We knew you wouldn’t go out but we didn’t even try to find you.” She looked at the others around her, and they all agreed that it was true. And that was the end of it for her. She wasn’t about to look outside. “Come on, you guys,” she said and turned away from Rutherford. “You’re ‘It’, Roger. By the way, scaredy pants, you can’t play anymore.”

  Rutherford felt a little guilty for not being completely honest but the scarecrow was out there and it did look very frightening, and if she should happen to peek outside she would see it. He decided he would tell them the real truth sometime but for now, since he wasn’t allowed to play hide and seek, and he wasn’t quite as afraid as he was before, he would make sneaking out part of his everyday routine. He got up early the next morning, ate his breakfast then scurried off to see what the new day held in store for him.

  Charlie wasn’t there when he checked on the scarecrow. He wasn’t over at the hole in the
wall either. That worried Rutherford. He peeked out into the barnyard but still no Charlie. It looked like if he was going to do some exploring today it would have to be on his own. That was a creepy idea and one that Rutherford wasn’t at all sure he wanted to do. But, being Rutherford, he soon bucked himself up, and after some long moments of contemplation and a thorough check to make sure Fritz wasn’t anywhere in sight, he darted under the fence, crossed the yard and scooted under the ramp of the henhouse.

  So far, there was still no sign of the cat even though the water had all dried up. There was, however, a big creature that looked somewhat like a chicken sort of waddling toward him from across the gravel road. Right behind the big guy was a much smaller version of himself, waddling in much the same way and talking in a scratchy sort of voice that Rutherford couldn’t decipher. Then he saw Fritz. The cat had crept up through the horse corral, his body balanced on the lower rail of the fence, his tail curled around him and his eyes staring in Rutherford’s direction.

  A sharp, squealing sound interrupted Rutherford’s thoughts and caused him to jump up and bang his head on the underside of the ramp.

  From behind him a voice said, “Ouch!” It was followed by an immediate apology, “I’m sorry. I bet that hurt, didn’t it?”

  Rutherford turned away from watching the cat and saw a pink-face eyeing him from the middle of a mound of dirt. “You scared me, that’s all,” Rutherford answered, rubbing the knot that sprung up on top of his head. Living with nine brothers and sisters taught him to never admit that anything hurt if he didn’t want to be laughed at.

  “No, you’re wrong,” said the owner of the pink face. “I think it did hurt. If I’da known you were hiding under here, I woulda been quiet. Whatcha hiding from, anyhow?”

  The little voice seemed friendly enough, and Rutherford quickly decided he needn’t be afraid of the creature. “I’m not hiding,” he said in the gruffest voice he could manage. “I don’t hide from anything.” He didn’t want to mention the cat.

  “Bet you’re going to change your mind when J.J. gets over here.”

  “J.J.?” Rutherford questioned.

  “Uh,huh. That’s him and Muffin by the coral.” Rutherford looked across the barnyard at the two odd creatures he had seen earlier. “If I was you , I’d find a better place to hole up ‘til he’s finished whatever he’s coming over here to do,” pink face warned. “If he sees you he’s gonna want to bite you. And as little as you are, you’d be a goner for sure, I’ll betcha.”

  “Why would he want to bite me?” Rutherford asked in a puzzled tone.

  “’Cause he’s mean. He wants to bite everybody. I gotta go.”

  The urgency in pink-face’s voice caused Rutherford to shudder. “Where are you going?”

  “Back to my mom. She’ll protect me.”

  Rutherford shot another glance toward the horse coral. Fritz was gone but the goose and his sidekick were fast approaching. If they were mean like pink-face said, he didn’t want to be alone. “Can I come with you?” he asked quickly.

  “Sure, but you’d better get on my back, the mud’s always pretty deep at my house.”

  Rutherford scaled the mound of dirt that half covered the pink-face and sprung onto what he thought might be his back. It was a lucky guess. No sooner had his feet settled just behind the pink-face’s floppy ears, than the whole piglet rose out of the earth and began a mad dash for the sty. But they were a bit too late in their getaway.

  Muffin, the half-wild Mallard duck, who was the only known creature to have never suffered the wrath of J.J., spied the movement with his one good eye. “Over here, boss!” he quacked in a language that only he and J.J. understood. J.J. ceased his forward march and swung his stout body around to find out what Muffin was pointing a wing feather at.

  “ Nah,” J.J. hissed his disappointment at the skimpy size of Muffin’s find. “Let ‘em get some meat on their bones.”

  “But I can take ‘em, boss,” Muffin pleaded. J.J. could see that his partner was itching for the chance to do some terrorizing of his own. “Please, can I go? Please?”

  “Oh, go on,” the goose said. “I can’t stand it when you whine. Go on, go get ‘em. I’m going to find Fritz or Gitter and have some grownup fun.” With J.J.’s approval, Muffin took off in as big a hurry as his waddle would allow while J.J. spread his wings and struck out in the opposite direction. But this was not to be their day. Neither one of them would be able to claim any sort of bragging rights for this day’s foray into the barnyard.

  Mister Tinkerman was mending fences on the far side of the garden and had taken the beagle, Gitter, with him. Fritz, the cat, not wanting a run-in with J.J., had bolted out of the horse corral and dashed across the yard to find safety inside the house. The two of them being out of reach for the day ruined J.J.’s plans. As for Muffin, thanks to the piglet’s speed, Rutherford and his new friend made it back to the security of his momma’s sty before the duck could catch them. Muffin gave up the chase when he heard the piglet’s momma grunt her hello. Even lying on her side, the momma hog looked to be as big as a house to Rutherford, and probably to Muffin as well. The disheartened duck quacked angrily through the slats of the pigpen a few times then toddled off perhaps to find J.J. and try to recruit his help in the matter. In any event both of the tyrant’s pursuits were over in a matter of seconds and the only harm done was to that of J.J.’s and Muffin’s egos.

  When the duck left, Rutherford jumped to the ground and stood next to the piglet who busied himself getting a drink of milk from his momma. He introduced himself over the piglet’s slurping sounds. “I’m Rutherford. I live in the barn and I’m a mouse.”

  “I’m a pig and I’ve got two names,” the piglet announced proudly, taking a break from his noonday snack. “You can call me Slowpoke if you want to. That’s what my momma calls me ‘cause I was the last one born this time. Or you can call me Lucky. I got that name from Susan. Do you know Susan?” Rutherford had heard Charlie say the name so he knew there was a Susan on the farm but he didn’t really know a creature who was called that. He shook his head.

  “Susan’s nice. She has three names, you know? Susan Allison Tinkerman. She’s a human. Humans walk on two legs. Bet you didn’t know that either, huh?”

  Rutherford thought about it. He knew the scarecrow. It stood on two legs and Charlie said it was made to look like Mister Tinkerman. So it made sense to Rutherford that Mister Tinkerman was a two-legged human, whatever that meant, and Susan must be like him. “I knew that,” he answered, not wanting to look silly in front of the piglet. “I know a lot of things, Lucky.” After the duck chase, Rutherford decided that the name Slowpoke didn’t fit the piglet. He wasn’t slow at all. Given the circumstances, Lucky sounded much more accurate to him.

  Lucky’s momma grunted and wiggled her huge body into a more comfortable spot in her dirt bed. When she grunted a second time, seven more pink-faced piglets came plowing through the mud-hole in the middle of the pen. Lucky pushed Rutherford out of the way just before he got trampled by the mad rush. “Betcha didn’t know about them, did you?” he said, then laughed as the herd of piglets shoved and squealed and bullied their way to be first to reach their momma. “Come on, Rutherford,” Lucky said as his siblings stormed in to get their share of milk. “Let’s get out of here before momma rolls over and squashes you. I’ll show you around and you can meet some of my friends. Jump on.”

  Rutherford gladly jumped aboard. He rather liked being transported around the farm, first on Charlie’s back and now atop Lucky’s head. The extra height let him see things he would never see from his normal ground-level view. And there was so much to see. As they rounded the barn, Rutherford was thinking that if Nell and the others weren’t so darn mean they could be up here on Lucky’s head with him. There was plenty of room.

  At the sheep enclosure he met Curls, the newest member of the flock. She was so little and so cute.
She could barely walk and had a pink ribbon tied around her neck. “Susan did that,” Lucky told him.

  The mention of Susan’s name gave Lucky an idea. “Want to see the garden? That’s Susan’s favorite place.” Rutherford didn’t know what a garden was but if Lucky wanted to take him there, it was okay with him. “Sure,” he said, and Lucky trotted around the sheep pen and crossed the gravel road very near the stock pond. A small herd of cows milled around both in and out of the water. “That’s where J.J and Muffin hang out,” Lucky said as they bypassed the pond. “We don’t want to go over there,” he said, pointing at the cows, “but you see that black and white one?” Rutherford supposed he meant the smallest one dancing among all the big ones. “Well, that’s my friend, Carlisle. He’s gonna to be a Holstein bull when he grows up. Betcha didn’t know that, huh?”

  Lucky took them across the road again a few yards further on and headed toward an area separated from the rest of the farm by a high, wire fence. The garden. But instead of taking the path that ran down the fence, Lucky cut across a field of wild grass that was so tall Rutherford could barely see over it. It was kind of a no-man’s land that looked as though it hadn’t been mowed in years. A little ways into this field, Lucky’s footsteps took on a hollow, thudding sound. Quickly and without any warning, Lucky stopped. He stopped so abruptly that Rutherford thought he was going to slide off his perch and into a mound of freshly churned up dirt. “Uh, oh, I forgot,” the piglet exclaimed with a good deal of alarm in his voice. “I’m not supposed to be over here. Mister Tinkerman said he would tan my hide if he caught me rooting around here again.” Just the day before Mister Tinkerman had yelled at Lucky for digging up the ground around the garden. Susan had laughed about it, but not Lucky. He didn’t like trouble.