Rutherford

  Rutherford looked down and saw something that glistened in the sunlight like a kernel of corn. Corn was his favorite food and there it was sticking partially out of the mound of dirt that had gotten Lucky into so much trouble. “Let me off for a second, please,” he asked, tapping on Lucky’s ear. Lucky wanted to leave, but for the sake of his new friend, he lowered his head until his chin rested on the dirt. Rutherford crawled down onto Lucky’s nose and jumped off. From this closer range he could see that it was only a rock and not a bit of corn after all, but he saw something else. Under the dirt, splintery and blackened with age, was a piece of wood like that on the walls of the barn. But it looked damp and soft. Running down the middle of it was a rather large crack. Rutherford pushed a handful of dirt over the crack and watched it fall out of sight. “There’s a hole down there,” he informed Lucky who had already turned to leave. “You want to go exploring?”

  Lucky refused to turn back around. He shook his head. “I don’t want Mister Tinkerman to find me out here again. He was really mad at me yesterday.”

  “Okay,” Rutherford agreed, but he made a mental note to come back when he got the chance and find out what was under the boards. It was a puzzle and Rutherford was not one to let a puzzle go unsolved.

  On the way back to Lucky’s house, they made one last stop at the horse corral to see if Jenny could play. Jenny was another baby just a few months older than Lucky and Rutherford. Her mom was a really pretty horse and her dad was a really ugly donkey but they were both nice enough when Lucky inquired about Jenny. “I’m sorry, Lucky, but Jenny isn’t here,” her mother said.

  A human creature from the city called a buyer had taken her with him when he left the farm. She was going to become a famous mule, he had said to Mister Tinkerman, and be taught to pull logs and other heavy loads in a thing called a show. It didn’t sound so great to Rutherford but her mom and dad seemed to be happy about it. “Jenny is our fifth child to leave the farm to find her fame and fortune,” her father bragged in a broken hee-haw fashion. They didn’t know it but the sign over the entrance to the horse stall proclaimed that Jenny’s parents were world famous as well. It was through the sale of their offspring that Mister Tinkerman was able to keep the farm going and provide a home to all the other creatures that lived here. It was sad even for Mister Tinkerman, but it was necessary.

  The sadness of Jenny’s leaving stayed with them as Lucky and Rutherford slowly trudged back to the pig sty. The long day was drawing to an end but for the most part it had been an exciting day for Rutherford. He had made some new friends and found some new creatures to be on the lookout for and he had discovered a hole in the ground that begged for a closer look. Life was full of adventures.

  Rutherford wanted to tell his brothers and sisters all about the things he had seen and learned outside the nest but Nell wouldn’t give him the chance. Right after dinner she started her tormenting again by calling him a baby who was afraid of his own shadow. So, rather than tell them or fight with her, Rutherford simply left them and went to bed to dream about what he might do the next day.

  CHAPTER 5

  Rutherford didn’t really know Fritz, the cat. He had only seen him that once when Charlie surprised him with the mud-ball and then the day before at the coral. But he knew that Charlie and Mazie wanted nothing to do with him and he based his opinion on that. He figured it was best to stay as far away from him as was possible and to always keep an eye out for him. Like Charlie said, Fritz could be sneaky.

  Fritz was sort of a staple on the Tinkerman farm and didn’t have a lot to complain about as a normal rule. He got fed regularly, tuna fish and warm milk, got petted when he wanted it, enjoyed free run of the Tinkerman’s house and could stay out all night anytime he so desired. Life was good most of the time. The one exception was the early spring of every year. That’s when the rains came, and Fritz did not like rain. Water, water, everywhere! He detested it. In Fritz’s mind, cats were born to roam, to come and go as they darn well pleased. Free range, that’s what it was supposed to be; not stuck on the porch watching the rest of the world go by. No matter how much he wished for things to be different, every year at about the same time according to his calculations Spring happened.

  But, as if that weren’t bad enough, the happening of spring each year did not come alone. Along for the boat-ride came an assorted raft of ill mannered, misbehaving brats. Rapscallions like the ones who, for no good reason at all, tried to bombard him with mud missiles the previous morning. Here it was a day later and he still had bits and globs of mud on his orange coat to prove it. The attack was nothing new. It happened like clockwork every year. Everyone had to test the cat. So, this year, Fritz decided he had had enough. And as the rains came tippling down, he snoozed on the porch and dreamed of how he could best cope with all the disrespectful creatures he was obliged to live amongst.

  “Fritzy? Fritzy? Here kitty, kitty.” Fritz knew Susan’s voice as well as he knew Gitter’s obnoxious baying. Gitter was the local mascot, an overly fat, short bodied Beagle that had to stick his nose into everything that went on around the farm. He never had anything important to say; he was just downright annoying. “Fritzy, Fritzy?” Sometimes Susan’s voice was just as nerve-wracking as Gitter’s. Fritz curled up and pushed his head further into his belly fur. He was probably thinking she might give up if he ignored her. The screen door screeched open and Susan stuck her head out. “There you are!”

  He was caught. All he could do now was twitch his tail a couple of times and get the purring machine started up. Susan loved it when he purred, and for him it usually meant a special treat. “Sorry about the rain, Fritzy,” she said as she picked him up and began to run a hand over the fur of his neck. He really wished she stop putting the tail on his name and just call him plain old Fritz, but she was a good petter. He purred, she petted, and they were both happy. “How’d you get mud all over you? You silly old cat. Let’s go clean you up.”

  Oh no! Not the ‘Let’s get you washed’ routine. She had to know that was the worst idea since food in a bag was brought home. Dry food and wet water, a cat’s two most awful nightmares. Fritz arched his back and gave her his best imitation of a lion’s roar. “Oh stop it!” Susan said and squeezed him tightly against her chest. “A little bath won’t kill you.” Clutching him solidly in her arms like a rag doll, she hurried down the hall toward the big tub in her grandpa’s laundry room.

  When Susan loosened her grip to turn the doorknob, Fritz leapt to the floor and clawed his way over the slick linoleum to his favorite hiding spot behind the living room sofa. Before Susan could get a hold on him again he had rubbed and licked off the more obvious clumps of dried mud. “Now look what you’ve done,” she scolded him, pointing a finger at his nose. “ I’m going to have to vacuum it all up, and just for that it’s no treat for you. How do you like that?”

  It was music to his ears. He’d trade a treat any day for the chance to skip one of Susan’s clean-up attempts. She never really dunked him into the tub of water, but rubbing him off with a wet washcloth was almost as bad. Not Fritz’s idea of a good time at all.

  So Fritz escaped. While Susan went for the vacuum cleaner he snuck out from under the far side of the couch and beat it for the front porch. Hiding under Mister Tinkerman’s rocking chair, he would rekindle his plan for creating the new and revised version of Fritz, the misunderstood cat.

  The truth of the matter was that Fritz had learned when he was not much more than a kitten that there were two rules to follow if he wished to live on Mister Tinkerman’s farm. Rule number one: Never hunt down or torture any other creature that called the farm home. Rule number two: Repeat rule number one.

  As the legend around the farm goes, Tabetha, the cat that Fritz replaced, forgot rule number two once too often. Even though she was no longer around to tease and torment them, the creatures who lived during her time passed the stories down to their future g
enerations. So now, thanks to all the evil tales, Fritz was looked at like some sort of criminal. His problem was to figure out how he was going to change that. In reality, his only offense was that he had been born a cat instead of something else. Over the hum of Susan’s vacuuming up his mess, Fritz closed his eyes and purred himself to sleep.

  Across the barnyard and under the haystack, Rutherford was dreaming as well.

  CHAPTER 6

  Charlie showed up the morning that Rutherford decided to pack his parcel of food and go out to do some field work with Lucky. Their plan was to follow the gravel road until they came to the shed where Mister Tinkerman parked his tractor. According to Lucky’s momma, at this time of the year there would be a field of newly planted corn just on the other side of the tractor shed. She knew that because as a piglet she had gone there many times in the early morning to dig up a tummy full of the tasty little morsels herself. Of course she got into trouble for it, but at the same time she chuckled when she told the boys to be careful and watch for J.J. and Mister Tinkerman if they decided to go there.

  “I know right where it’s at,” Charlie said upon hearing the plan. “Can I go with you?”

  “That’d be great,” Rutherford answered, and the three of them struck out for the tractor shed. Rutherford, riding atop Lucky’s head, took the lead position and Charlie, being the tallest due to the fact that he could easily stand on his back legs, was appointed to bring up the rear and act as lookout. That was an important job and Charlie took it seriously. About every ten steps he would stop, stand on his tiptoes and scan the horizon for any sign of trouble, namely Fritz or J.J. or Muffin.

  Considering the height of the wild grass along this stretch of the road, Charlie was doing a bang-up job. No one could fault him for not zeroing in on the orange blur that silently shadowed them from a few feet away in the depths of the grass. Fritz was on the prowl and he had homed in on the little parade he saw heading towards Mister Tinkerman’s corn field. He knew that the three small creatures had to pass right by J.J.’s pond and that could mean big trouble for them. Out in the open as they were, they would make prime targets for the crazy old goose and his half-wild sidekick. Fritz wanted to be there to help the little guys out just in case that kind of trouble arose. If everything worked like he thought it could, it would go a long way toward changing his image for the better, and that would be a very good thing for Fritz’s peace of mind. So, his only reason for following them was to be their rescuer if needed…but Susan didn’t know that.

  One of Susan’s greatest joys was to check on the garden and see what new buds of life had popped through the earth since her last visit the day before. Sometimes she would spend hours lying on the ground, her chin propped on her hands, watching for a nubbin of green to snap upright. Sometimes, though not often, she would catch the dirt as it split open and she could witness the birth of a new beanstalk or some other plant whose seed she had placed in the soil with her own hands.

  This morning, she was on her way to the garden hoping to beat the rain that was in the forecast when she stopped to see what had caught Gitter’s attention. He was bounding around in the tall grass raising a ruckus like he had seen a snake or something else he wasn’t sure of. “What did you find, boy?” she called to him, thinking it was probably nothing to be concerned about. She knew Gitter wasn’t a very brave dog. He tended to bark and bay at the most obvious things. This time Susan saw that it was Fritz that caused him to come unwound. She watched them for a moment before she figured out why the cat was doing his belly-crawl through the grass. He was stalking a baby raccoon, one of Queen Victoria’s piglets, and a tiny field-mouse that had hitched a ride on the piglet’s forehead. “Fritz!” she yelled, dropping the ‘y’ that she would have tagged on had she been happy to see him.

  Fritz paused for a second then hissed at Gitter to shut him up. It worked. The beagle barked one last time and high-tailed it back to Susan. At the same time, the proximity of the dreaded cat caused Charlie and Lucky (along with Rutherford) to head toward the tractor shed at a speed only frightened animals are capable of. Only their top speed was no match for that of Fritz. He zipped around them and stopped some twenty feet from the cultivator attached to the back of Mister Tinkerman’s tractor. “Don’t you dare, Fritz!” Susan’s voice rang out as she ran to catch up with him. She had left her normal path along the garden fence and entered the tall grass where Lucky had rooted up the ground a couple of days before--the place where Rutherford had found the puzzling hole in the ground covered by the cracked boards. When Susan yelled at Fritz, he froze in place. So did Charlie and Lucky.

  Rutherford was right: there was a hole under the boards. Years and years before, long before Mister Tinkerman became the farm’s owner, a water-well occupied that spot. In those days, wells were dug by hand so they made rather large holes in the ground. When a well stopped producing water it was usually filled back in with dirt so as not to become a hazard. For whatever reason, this well had not been completely filled in. It was still ten feet down to the dry bottom. Whoever filled it in had decked it over with redwood planks that tend to last a very long time underground, and then covered the wood with a thick layer of soil.

  For many years that covering had done the job, but on this day, when Susan stepped on the cracked boards, they broke. With a loud pop, she fell in and sunk up to her ankles in the soft dirt at the bottom. She wasn’t hurt but there was no way she could climb the rocked walls and get out. She was stuck. “Grandpa!” she cried in hopes that her grandfather would hear her. But that wasn’t going to happen. Susan didn’t know that Mister Tinkerman had driven into town earlier that morning to buy some rope and refill the chicken feed barrel. He wanted to get that done before it rained again. For now, the only answer Susan was going to get would be Gitter’s yapping and baying as he chased around the opening in the ground above her.

  At the tractor shed, Fritz, Charlie, Lucky and Rutherford all stood silently facing each other listening to Gitter’s barking grow more and more intense. Rutherford didn’t know Gitter but he could tell something was definitely wrong and as nervous as he was he knew something had to be done about it. He mustered up as much courage as he could then jumped down from his perch on Lucky’s head. Like a little soldier, he marched over to confront the cat man-to-man. “I’m Rutherford,” he said in a shaky but defiant voice, “and these are my friends, Lucky and Charlie, and we know who you are, so if you’re going to be mean to us…”

  “Who told you that?” Fritz interrupted.

  Rutherford batted his eyes. “Everyone knows how bad you are.”

  “I am not!” Fritz said, although the way he shouted, it was hard to believe him.

  That confused Rutherford. “So you’re not going to hurt us?” he asked.

  “Never!” answered Fritz, putting a lot of emphasis on the word.

  Rutherford checked to see what Charlie’s and Lucky’s reactions were. They seemed to accept it. “Okay, then,” Rutherford said, happy that he had faced his fears and that the cat may not have been so bad after all. He ran back and jumped aboard Lucky. “Let’s go see who’s making so much noise.”

  As they got closer to the well, Susan’s cries for help could be heard over the beagle’s yelping. “That’s Susan!” Lucky said, speeding up. “But I don’t see her.” Fritz was the first to reach Gitter and find out what happened. He was peering over the edge of the well meowing loudly when the others arrived. “She’s down there,” his mewling informed them. Rutherford recognized the spot. “I told you there was a hole there! Let me off, Lucky.”

  Gitter stopped his yapping. Now that reinforcements had arrived, he must have thought he had done his job and he backed away to let the others do theirs. “Susan! Susan!” cried Lucky. He and Charlie and Fritz huddled together alongside Gitter, all of them tearful and none of them knowing what to do. Rutherford saw right away that if anything could be done to save Susan it would
be up to him. Someone had to take charge. He ran out onto the remaining part of the wooden planks. “Don’t worry, Susan, we’ll get you out,” he called down to her. Of course, Susan couldn’t understand him, but she saw his little head peeking over the broken board. She gave him a smile. Rutherford could only see her face but he could also see that dirt was still dropping down on her from the underside of the board he was standing on. That board was dangling loosely above her. Above him, the sky was quickly filling up with heavy, dark clumps of rain clouds. “I’ll be back,” he told her as he slowly backed off the board knowing that between the weather coming in and the well caving in, Susan was in real trouble.

  Rutherford didn’t have a plan yet but after seeing Susan’s smile he was determined to get her out of the well. He darted over the mound of dirt just in time to see J.J. and Muffin trotting across the gravel road. They plodded forth from the pond with their wings spread, their bills snapping and their out-of-tune quacking charging the air with threats of mayhem. They had evidently heard Gitter’s alarm and decided to find out if there was any fun in it for them. “Just great,” Rutherford thought. Lucky had warned him to stay out of their way, but at the moment his mind was too busy to let him worry about what the two of them were up to. He stiffened his shoulders, raised up on his back legs and walked out directly in J.J.’s path. “Stop right there!” he yelled at the top of his voice.

  Rutherford felt like he had already been bullied far too many times in his short life, mostly by Nell, and he was tired of it. Facing up to Fritz a few minutes before had helped to strengthen his determination, and those experiences were teaching him a very important lesson; when it seems like everything is against you, you have to stand up for yourself. So far, though, it didn’t look like J.J was impressed. He and Muffin slowed down a bit but they kept moving forward and quacking their special code. When it looked like they weren’t going to stop, Fritz chose sides and positioned himself next to Rutherford. He twitched his tail, laid his ears back and raised a menacing paw. “He said stop!” he hissed. His command was so loud that it caused Gitter to choose sides as well. He ran up beside Fritz growling and flashing his teeth at the goose and his partner. Charlie joined them and stood on his hind legs to make himself as tall as possible, which wasn’t very tall at all but he was trying. And Lucky squished himself in between all the others. “Betcha didn’t count on this, did you?” he squealed at the two intruders.