“‘Found: Very large brown and black dog near football stadium. Owner may call College two-three-nine-five. Please hurry.’ Look, George, there it is! That’s us. We’ve burst into print!”
“But how about the Lost?” asked George anxiously.
“Lost—a watch,” mumbled Susan, hastily reading the ads, “a bracelet, a Siamese kitten, a wallet at the corner of Main and Walnut, a light-brown top coat, a—a—a—no dogs!” she cried at the top of her voice. “No dogs!”
“Hooray,” cried George, “no dogs!”
Mother and Dumpling both came to the door.
“No dogs?” asked Mother, a shade of regret in her voice.
“No dogs!” cried George, and Dumpling waved Irene in the air and cried, “Three cheers and a rah!”
But just then the telephone rang. “George, you had better go,” said Mother. “This is your affair.”
George went to the telephone. “Hello,” he said, “hello, hello, hello. Yes, this is College two-three-nine-five. Yes, we have a brown and black dog. Yes. Yes, we think he got lost in the football crowd. Yes—”
Mother, Susan, and Dumpling came and stood around George and the telephone. Even Dorothy stopped reading and began to look interested. Terence sat at George’s feet, looking eagerly into George’s face, and his tail went wham! wham! wham! on the floor. George’s face was very grave.
“Yes—yes—yes—” continued George, and then his face began to brighten. “No,” George said, “no—no—no—” He held the telephone against his chest and said, “Mother, Terence isn’t a Pekingese, is he?”
“Good gracious, no!” cried Mother. “Here, let me have the telephone.” She spoke for a few moments with the person at the other end of the line, and then she said, “But this is a very, very large animal. Largeness is one of his distinguishing features. Well, I’m terribly sorry. I do hope you find your Pekingese. If we see him, we’ll be sure to let you know.” She hung up the telephone.
“Mother!” they cried. “Mother! It wasn’t for Terence after all!”
They all began to laugh and shout and hug each other, even Mother, and Terence went wild with delight. He knocked three ornaments off a shelf with his tail, but only one broke, and nobody scolded him.
While they were in this pleasant frame of mind a knock sounded at the back door. Their happy faces fell again.
“We didn’t give our address in the ad, did we?” cried George.
“No,” Susan said, “I’m sure we didn’t.”
They followed Mother to the back door and stood behind her apprehensively as she opened it.
“Well, Tommy Tucker!” Mother exclaimed. “It’s certainly nice to see you! Come right in.”
“Hi, Tommy! Tommy Tucker!” cried the young Ridgeways, happy once more.
“We thought you were someone who had come to take our dog,” cried George. And after that they had to introduce Torrible Terence and relate to Tommy all the events of George’s birthday.
Mother went on making cookies as calm as you please while the great football hero, Tommy Tucker, sat on a common kitchen chair and patted Terence’s head and listened to the things the children had to tell. He seemed to be very much interested, but he was quiet. Susan thought that he looked worried. Dorothy kept right on studying and peeling vegetables without even being polite enough to look around.
Mother put a pan of cookies into the oven, and then she smiled at him. “Tommy,” she said, “they will wear your ears off talking. Maybe you had something to say yourself.”
“No,” said Tommy. “I like to hear these kids talk. I’ve got brothers and sisters at home about like them; and you don’t exactly look like my mother, Mrs. Ridgeway, but your doughnuts have the same flavor. I guess that’s why I came here today. I don’t know any other reason.”
“You played a good game on Saturday, Tommy,” Mother said. “You were wonderful.”
“Wonderful, Tommy!” cried the children.
“Oh, were you at the game?”
“No, I was baking,” Mrs. Ridgeway said. “We run through baked things just the way you run with a football, Tommy. But I listened on the radio, and they all told me—why, even Dorothy—”
“Humph!” said Dorothy, clearing her throat.
“Well, it’s all over now,” Tommy said, “even the shouting.”
“I can’t believe that,” Mrs. Ridgeway said. “What ails you, Tommy?”
“Mid-terms come next week, and I’m dumb.”
“That’s what Dorothy said,” remarked Dumpling.
“But we wouldn’t believe her,” George said fiercely.
“It isn’t true, Tommy! Really it isn’t!” begged Susan.
Tommy was silent for a moment and then he said gloomily, “All this hero stuff, it really gets me down. Everybody shouting and cheering for me—it ought to make me happy. Maybe it would if I was as good as they say I am. But I’m not. I’m going to flunk in chemistry, Mrs. Ridgeway, and they’ll take me off the team, and then—and then—”
“Then they won’t cheer anymore,” said Mother calmly.
“Mother!” cried the children reproachfully.
“That’s right,” Tommy said, “and maybe that’s what’s bothering me. I don’t know. But I think I feel worst because I’m so dumb I can let a thing like chemistry lick me.”
“You sound so sure that you are licked, Tommy,” Mother said. “Why is that?”
“Well, mid-terms are here, and honestly I can’t remember a blessed thing. I study this crazy stuff half the night, and when I wake up in the morning it’s all gone.”
Dorothy turned around and entered the conversation. She waved a carrot in one hand and a paring knife in the other. Her blue eyes flashed, and while Susan was angry with her for being so cruel and unkind about football players, still she couldn’t help thinking that Dorothy looked very pretty.
“The trouble with you,” Dorothy said to Tommy, “is that you don’t pay attention. I’ve seen you there in class, drawing diagrams of football plays right while the professor’s talking.”
“Well, I don’t understand it all. I’m dumb,” Tommy said doggedly.
“That’s what Dorothy said,” chirped Dumpling.
“You are not dumb,” Dorothy said angrily. “Well, I did think you were at first. But a fellow who can learn football the smart way you play it—well, it seems like he isn’t entirely dumb.”
“Dorothy!” cried the Ridgeways in happy surprise.
“The trouble is,” went on Dorothy in a tumble of angry words, “you don’t know how to study. When an idea seems hard you just lie down and let it walk over you. That’s not the way you play football, you know. When you’re carrying the ball, and you don’t see any way through the line, you go right ahead, dodging and pushing and smashing through. You make the touchdown. You aren’t afraid. But when it comes to chemistry you’re afraid. You let the line stop you. Someone should have taught you how to study, big boy, away back in high school!”
“Well, gosh! I guess no one did,” said Tommy humbly.
“Then someone ought to now!”
“Who’s going to?”
“You could get a tutor,” Susan said thoughtfully.
“‘Two tutors were teaching two tooters to toot,’” said George.
“Dorothy could tutor you,” Susan said. “Couldn’t you, Dorothy?”
Mother looked at Susan and Dorothy and Tommy. Suddenly she began to smile. “Susan is right,” she said. “I believe Dorothy would be the very one to tutor Tommy. Susan and I will do Dorothy’s dishes tonight, and, Dorothy, you can help Tommy study his chemistry while you are reviewing your own.”
“Is that an order?” Dorothy asked. “Because doing dishes is a lot easier than teaching a big lunk like this to think for himself.”
“It’s an order,” Mother said firmly.
“That would be fine,” Tommy said. “I could come over right after training table. But I am dumb, and if she doesn’t want to—”
“Of co
urse she wants to! Don’t you, Dorothy?” cried Susan.
“Okay,” Dorothy said, “I’ll do it. But the first thing you’ve got to do, you’ve got to stop saying how dumb you are, and get your mind to moving.”
“Okay,” said Tommy obediently. “Right after supper then I’ll be here.”
The Ridgeway children shouted with delight. It seemed as if Dorothy might be going to turn out well after all.
That evening Dorothy and Tommy and the children all sat around the dining-room table with chemistry books and notebooks open. Dumpling and George sat on either side of Tommy as close as they could get, admiring him very much. Susan sat opposite, also admiring him. Dorothy sat at the end of the table like a schoolmarm, and if she admired Tommy, you could not notice it.
“Well, the first thing you have to learn,” said Dorothy severely, “is how to organize things. Your notebook is a mess. So first we’ll go through mine and try to improve yours. And then we’ll go back over the last few weeks’ work and find out what it is you don’t understand.”
Mrs. Ridgeway came to the door and looked at them. “Time for bed, children,” she said.
“Oh, Mother!” they cried. It was very hard for them to go to bed while Tommy Tucker was in the house. But Tommy grinned at them and tousled Dumpling’s hair and made sparring motions at George.
“I’ll be here tomorrow night, too,” he said, “if Dorothy will teach me.”
Leaping Lizard
It was beautiful Indian summer weather in Midwest City, and day followed perfect day with no change for the worse. Terence settled down and made himself at home, as if he had always been the Ridgeways’ dog, and nobody called up or advertised for him. Tommy Tucker came every evening and studied with Dorothy. The children thought that Dorothy was unkind because she scolded Tommy and told him how poor his work was. But it did seem to be worthwhile, because Tommy began to give the right answers to her questions, and he made his notebook look a great deal neater and more correct. He began to get his experiments done on time in the laboratory, too, Dorothy said.
There was only one thing that was not perfect in these beautiful Indian summer days: the turtles still wanted to get out! George gave them plenty of exercise, too, because now his turtle tracks were finished, and he could have turtle races. For one cent George sold a ticket which entitled the purchaser to race one turtle one time. The person whose turtle won the race had his ticket money refunded. In that way George made four cents on each race. George advertised his turtle races at school, and many of the boys were interested. After school for a few days the Ridgeways’ backyard was full of boys, not only the Gimmicks and the Terrible Torrences, but all the boys from school who were interested in turtles. George hoped that he would earn enough money in this way to buy food for Terence.
The first day he collected twenty cents, and he felt that it would be a simple matter to provide for Terence and at the same time have fun. But unfortunately it turned out that the boys had spent most of their pennies on that first day. On the second day George took in two pennies, a kite string, a red crayon, a chipped agate marble, and a lot of promises of future payment. After that the turtle-racing business rapidly declined. There was neither enough interest nor enough money to keep it going.
Dumpling had always been on hand to see that the turtles were not mistreated, and she was glad to observe that the turtles enjoyed racing. As soon as they were set down in the narrow tracks, the turtles began to hurry away as fast as they could go, straight ahead, as if they had a definite destination in mind. After four or five races it would seem that they might have become tired. But this was never so. Back in their roomy and well-appointed dish pan, instead of sitting calmly on the five rocks to rest, the turtles immediately rushed away to try to climb the sides of the pan.
“Oh, George!” cried Dumpling in despair. “They want to get out!”
“Well, Dumpling,” George said, “we’ll get the big zinc washtub.”
So George and Dumpling carried the washtub up from the basement to the backyard. They went to the vacant lot on the back street for all sorts of interesting and unusual stones and a pail of sand. They added a little moss and a few tufts of grass. They used the hose to fill the bottom of the washtub with water. Susan helped them build a twig bridge from one of the big stones to another, and in the attic she found a little Japanese pagoda that they set up on the central stone. It was a lovely thing to see when they had finished with it, and George said confidently, “Now they’ll be satisfied.” Even Dumpling could not think of anything else to add to the turtles’ comfort. So they moved the turtles to their new home and watched them swimming around, exploring it.
Just then the Gimmick boys called over the back fence, “Come and look what we got!” So the Ridgeway children ran to see.
The Ridgeway yard and the Gimmick yard followed much the same pattern. Each had a fine wide driveway which swung into an ample turnabout before a carriage house. The Ridgeways used their carriage house for the family car, for garden tools, and for various projects of the children’s. But the Gimmick carriage house was the heart and center of Mr. Gimmick’s repair business, and in the backyard he collected spare parts instead of grass and flowers. The driveway and turnabout provided the space that the Gimmick boys used for parking cars on football Saturdays, and all around the edge of this space Mr. Gimmick piled spare parts that might come in handy some day in repairing cars for other people. There were old tires, wheels, crankcases, steering wheels, bolts, nuts, monkey wrenches, screws, bits of garden hose, bicycle parts, old lawn mowers, and even a picture frame or two that must have come there by mistake, since one cannot be expected to hang pictures in automobiles.
Today, standing in the turnabout, was a most unusual car. The Ridgeways had never seen it there before. It was a very old and rickety car of a bygone age.
“It’s a jalopy,” said Tim proudly.
“What’s a jalopy?” asked George.
“Well,” said Tad, “a jalopy is this.” So they looked and they knew what a jalopy was.
Some previous owner, with a brush, some red paint, and a humorous turn of mind, had painted signs all over the jalopy. One said, “Shake well before using”; another said, “Must be a screw loose somewhere”; another said, “Rattle his bones, Over the stones.” On the back of the car was painted its name: “Leaping Lizard.”
“Where did you get it?” asked Susan.
“Pop took it in on a trade,” said Tim. “And he says we can play in it, if we don’t touch the brakes.”
The children swarmed into the old car. Somehow George found himself behind the steering wheel. “Why can’t we touch the brakes?” he asked.
“There’s something wrong with them,” Tim said. “If you pull the hand brake, they lock and you can’t move the thing forward or back. You’d have to take it up and carry it to get it out of here.”
“Aren’t the brakes on now?”
“No. Pop worked a whole day to get ’em disengaged, and he says whoever pulls the hand brake will get the works.”
“What are the works?” asked Dumpling. “Is it something to do with brakes?”
“Ya,” said Tim. “Pop breaks you in two.”
“I see,” said Dumpling.
Mr. Gimmick had the appearance of a man who meant what he said, so George kept his hand off the brake. But the children knew how to have fun in a car without using brakes. George made a very good driver, for he could imitate almost all the sounds of starting, stopping, and the different speeds of locomotion. To sit behind George in a jalopy was exactly like taking a nice ride except for a lack of motion.
“Shall we go on a picnic?” asked Susan.
“All right,” agreed Dumpling, “but we haven’t any food.”
“We can play food,” Susan said, “just as well as we can play riding.”
“How can you play food?” asked the Gimmick boys in surprise.
“Here,” said Susan, “hold out your hand. I’m giving you a great big bun with
a roasted wiener in it. Be careful you don’t drop it, and if you care for mustard just open the bun and I’ll dab a little in.”
Susan had such a way of making things seem real that before he knew it Tad was opening an imaginary bun and holding it out for imaginary mustard.
“I’ll take chorc’late cake for mine,” said Tim.
“Just a minute, please,” Susan said, “while I put the cover on the mustard jar and cut the cake. Here’s a real big piece for you now, Tim, and don’t wipe the frosting off on your trousers because it’s real, real thick and gooey.”
“Um-yum!” said Tim, smacking his lips. “Chorc’late cake!”
Somehow with George driving and Susan serving lunch, the Gimmick boys enjoyed their jalopy much more than they would have all alone.
“Susan,” said Tad, “the next time there’s a football game, you know what we’re going to do?”
“Park cars?” asked Susan enviously.
“Oh, sure,” said Tim, “but we’re going to make money another way, too.”
“We’re going to sell real food,” said Tad.
“Chorc’late cake?” asked Dumpling.
“No. Popcorn,” said Tim. “Our Ma is going to help us pop it. We’ve already got the bags.”
“Bags with red and yellow stripes,” said Tad, “like Midwest colors.”
“How much a bag?” asked George gloomily.
“Ten cents,” said Tim. “You want to order some? We’ll save a bag for you if you do—”
“No, thank you,” said Susan politely. “We haven’t any money.”
“We need to make money instead of spend it,” said George. “We’ve got to buy food for Terence.”
“Well, look!” howled the Gimmicks. “You haven’t any money, but you’ve got room for four cars to park in your driveway and turnabout. Why don’t your pop let you park cars?”
The Ridgeway children were silent. They knew from experience that there was no use trying to explain to the Gimmicks about “academic dignity.”
Tim ran into the house to get the new signs they had made for the next football game. The signs were of cardboard and were shaped like hands with pointing fingers. One said: