Corn-Farm Boy (7 page)

Dick looked at Mom. “Can I keep him …
upstairs
?”

Mom nodded and Margy helped Dick put him to bed in the empty box, where she had made a nest of soft cloths.

“Popcorn is a nice surprise,” said Dick, his eyes shining. “Thanks a lot.”

He went upstairs with the box. Mom looked at Dad.

“That's better than medicine,” she said.

CHAPTER IV

Doctor Dick

While Dick was getting better, the little dog Popcorn was always with him. He slept in the box in the boy's room and ate on the rug beside his bed. The puppy quickly learned to run up and down the steep stairs. He became a good watchdog. Whenever he heard someone come in the lane, he ran downstairs and barked. All the children loved him.

“You can't have him all for yourself,” said Wilma one day. “We all want a part of him.”

“What part?” asked Dick.

“I'll take his two ears and his head,” said Wilma.

“I'll take his tail,” said Raymond.

“I want his four legs,” said Margy.

“I'll take what's left—his whole body,” said Dick. He hugged the puppy in his arms. “So Popcorn's
my
dog, after all.”

Sometimes the children nicknamed him.

“I'll call him Trixie,” said Wilma.

“I'll call him Butch,” said Raymond.

“I'll call him Sassy Brat,” said Margy.

“And I'll call him Stubby Tail,” said Dick.

As the days went on, little Popcorn's list of nicknames grew longer and longer. Sometimes he was Jiggers or Bud or PeeWee or Hot Dog or Shicklegruber or Pie Face. But it did not matter to Popcorn. He answered to them all and was the friend of everybody.

For the first week he was the center of attention. Then Raymond brought a young wild rabbit in from the field. He gave it to Dick for a pet.

Margy patted the rabbit. “I think he got lost from his mother,” she said, “because he is almost skin and bones.”

“We'll feed him,” said Dick, “and name him Peter.”

Popcorn was moved to the sun porch downstairs and Peter slept in the box in Dick's room. Dick fed him milk with an eye-dropper first. Soon he was able to nibble carrot tops. By the time Dick left his bed and came downstairs, the pet rabbit had the run of the house. He ate celery, lettuce, Cheerios and bread. Later Dick tried feeding him corn and oats, and rabbit pellets from the feed store.

School was out now. It was June and Dick went for short walks on his crutches in the warm sunshine daily. He always took Popcorn with him. Popcorn barked at the geese in the barnyard and pestered them until they took after him. The dog ran to Dick for help. Dick talked to the geese. “You'll have to make friends with Popcorn,” he said.

Dick rigged up a hoop and taught the dog how to jump through it. Margy jumped through and the dog followed her. The children played circus. They all tried to keep Dick cheered up, but it was not easy. On many days he sat in the house and moped.

“Why don't you go outside in the sunshine?” asked Mom.

Dick shook his head. “Nothing to do out there,” he said. “I can't drive a tractor or even ride on one. How can I help with the windrowing or the combining? A guy's
got
to be able to drive a tractor if he lives on a farm.”

Mom did not argue. She knew how the boy felt and she was sorry for him. “Will you take some lunch out to the men?” she asked.

“Aw—let Margy do that,” said Dick. “That's little kids' work.”

“Margy's out with the big girls,” said Mom. “I don't know just where they have gone.”

“What do those girls have to come over here for?” asked Dick. “That silly Donna Ruden and that prissy Rita Hass.”

“They've come to spend the night with Wilma,” said Mom.

“To spend
the night
?” shouted Dick. “First they come to spend the day. Do they have to spend the night, too?”

“They don't
have
to,” said Mom. “They
want
to. They are Wilma's friends.”

“Well, I don't like them.”

“That's too bad,” said Mom.

“Where's that lunch?” demanded Dick. “I'll take it out just to get away from those silly girls. But not on crutches—I can walk as good as anybody. I'm not using crutches any more—hear?”

“Well, if you're sure you don't need them …” said Mom.

Dick wanted to go out to the oats field where the combining was going on, but at the same time he hated to go. He felt sick that he could not drive the tractor. But he could not keep away. He would go out and watch for a while. He could look at his traps on the way back. He had set traps for pocket gophers the day before. Pocket gophers could ruin an alfalfa field, and Dad wanted to get rid of them.

Popcorn scampered at his heels and big old bouncing Buster came clumping along. The warm sun felt good through Dick's thin shirt. It was really summer now. The boy made his way slowly out to the field, bag of lunch in one arm and coffeepot in the other.

A week before, the standing oats had been the color of rich gold. When Buster ran through it, his bushy black tail could be seen waving like a flag above the uncut grain. Now the grain was cut. It had been windrowed several days before. The grain was laid down in even rows to dry out slowly. It was ready to be harvested.

Across the field came the big noisy combine. Dick could not help but feel excited when he saw it and the man on top. Was it Raymond? He could not tell because of the dust. Yes, Raymond was on the combine and Dad was driving the tractor with the wagon behind it.

The cut grain slid into the front of the machine. Straw and dust poured out from the rear onto the ground. Shelled oats went into the grain hopper on the side. When the hopper was full, Dad came close with the wagon, and a shower of grain was dumped into the wagon bed.

When the men saw Dick with his large paper bag and coffeepot, they stopped. “Lunch!” cried Raymond. “I'm starved.”

“I'm ready for it,” shouted Dad.

“So are we!” cried several other voices.

Dick looked up in dismay. There were those girls riding in the oats wagon. Could he never get away from them? Dick was surprised that Dad would let them ride on the oats.

“Dad, I'm going back to the tool shed to get a file,” said Raymond. He grabbed a sandwich, unhitched the wagon and drove the tractor back to the barnyard.

Dad sat on the wagon tongue and Dick sat beside him. He took Popcorn on his knees. The four girls in the body of the wagon stopped playing and asked for something to eat. Dick knew now why Mom had sent out so much lunch. Dad passed sandwiches and they all ate. Dick was hungrier that he thought.

“We had engine trouble when we started out,” said Dad.

“What was the matter?” asked Dick.

Dad's eyes twinkled. “The wrens had built a nest in the engine,” he said, “and did we have a time getting it out! The radiator boiled over like a fountain.”

Dick laughed. Behind him, the girls began to play again. Wilma took a shovel and made mountains out of the loose grain. The other girls made big piles and messed them up. They giggled and laughed.

“I like the feel of oats running through my hands,” said Margy, trying to act as old as the big girls. She poured a trickle of oats down Dick's back—until he jumped away.

“Let's make a contour farm,” said Donna.

They began to lay out hills and curving valleys.

“I'll make a creek down below,” said Margy. “Then we can all go in swimming.”

“My sister and I rode the windrower yesterday,” said Rita Hass, “and I guess it got the best of me. I didn't feel so good last night. All that machine did was rock, rock, rock.”

“Rock, rock, rock,” said Wilma. “I began to feel woozy when we went bumping along in this old oats wagon.”

“Rock, rock, rock!” mimicked Donna. “I'll feel better after I have a drink. Anybody bring any cold drinks for a thirsty crowd? Is that coffee?”

“No,” said Dick. “It's iced tea.” He poured tea from the coffeepot into paper cups.

Margy said, “Oh, how thirsty I am.” She climbed down over the wheel and picked oats straws for everybody. “Get down and have a drink, you kids.”

The girls climbed down.

“Here,” said Margy, “drink your tea through a straw.” She passed straws out and they all drank or tried to.

“Why, heavenly days!” Wilma looked around. “
Where's Dad
?”

“He was here a minute ago,” said Donna. “Remember—he passed out the sandwiches.”

Margy looked under the wagon bed. The girls looked under and around the combine. They looked in the fields near by but could not find him.

“Where's Dad?” Wilma faced Dick. “You know. Tell us.”

Dick grinned a sly grin, but would not answer.

“Dad's
lost!
” Margy began to whimper.

Just then a head and shoulders popped up over the sides of the wagon bed. There was Dad. He had climbed inside the wagon to level off the oats. The girls shrieked with laughter.

Dad was waiting for Raymond to came back with the tractor. The girls kept on playing and laughing. They waited to ride back on the oats wagon.

Dick gave the coffeepot to Wilma and walked off. It was fun to be outdoors. He walked over by the alfalfa field to see about his gopher traps. He hated to kill animals, but when they were pests and ruined a crop, there was no choice. To get all the gophers out of a field, he knew he should have a dozen traps or more. He owned only two, so could set only two at a time.

In making their tunnels, the gophers push out excess dirt into a mound. Then they plug up the hole. Dick found one of the mounds. He dug down to the place where the tunnel forked and found his first trap. There was nothing in it. But in the second trap, something was alive and moving. Was it a gopher caught by the leg? It had stripes down its back. It was a chipmunk, not a pocket gopher.

Dick looked more closely. There had been rain the night before. The hole in which the trap was set had filled with water and the poor chipmunk was half-drowned. Dick took it out of the trap and wrapped it up in his ever-ready handkerchief, even though its leg was bloody. The little animal was almost dead from lack of blood. He tucked it inside the front of his shirt, just above his belt. He started off toward home.

He wondered where Popcorn was, so he whistled and called. Soon Popcorn came tearing along at his heels.

There was no one at the barnyard. Everything was quiet except for the contented noises of the animals. Dick lighted a heat-lamp and, wrapping the chipmunk in an old sack, placed it under the lamp. He hurried to the house. The kitchen was empty, too. He did not see or hear the girls anywhere. Mom was gone. This made it easier for him to get the equipment he needed. When he returned to the barn, the chipmunk looked better. It had more life in it and opened its eyes. Dick examined it. Its leg was broken and swollen. He thought it had best be taken off. He tied a string around the animal's leg to shut off the nerves. He waited until it got numb. Then he took a sharp knife, which he had sterilized in the kitchen and cut the leg off above where it was swollen. He left enough skin over the hole for it to heal over. He put All-Purpose Salve on it and wrapped it in gauze.

Chippy struggled a little bit. Dick took the string off right away and put him under the heat-lamp again. Then he fixed a box. He put straw in the bottom and stretched chicken wire over the top. He put the chipmunk in the box. Faced with the problem of feeding him, he soon found a nest of sparrow eggs and stole one. Sparrows were pests to be got rid of. He pried the chipmunk's mouth open and poured the egg in. The animal swallowed it. Dick left a little corn, oats and alfalfa close by. Then he went out and left Chippy.

In the barnyard he saw that nobody had come. After a while, he went back in again. Part of the corn and alfalfa had been eaten, but not the oats. The chipmunk could move now. He started to tell Dick something. He had a saucy little chatter. Dick listened. It was a kind of trill really. Dick felt better. The chipmunk was going to get well.