Ginger Pye (10 page)

"Just a chipmunk," Rachel assured herself. "Or a squirrel."

But Ginger waked up and he bristled the short hair on his back; and lazy Duke raised his big jowly head, looking puzzled.
It couldn't be a chipmunk or Duke would go after it,
thought Rachel.
And it couldn't be the man in blue because he is still way way away on his rock. Could it be Unsavory?
she asked herself.
Of course not,
she answered herself.

Since she heard no more she tried not to think of Unsavory because it was an uncomfortable thing to do—to think about Unsavory while she was alone on the big rock, guarding Ginger pup. Jerry was on the other side of the reservoir now, and Dick Badger was so occupied with his up-and-down swimming he would not have heard her if she called him. In the quiet she heard another rustling. Trying to sound carefree, but to be on the safe side, she called Jerry.

"Jer-ry!" she yelled.

A small breeze was stirring and maybe the rustling she had heard was breezes only, but she felt lonely. Just then a hat fell into the water exactly where Dick Badger was swimming and as he came up for air, he came up right under this hat. He threw it off and sputtered and laughed and said, "Where'd this old hat come from?"

Rachel said, "I don't know. It just flew into the water." In the dazzling sunshine she had not seen yet that this hat was yellow! Dick Badger swam up to the rock with the hat. He was going to play games with it, throw it into the water and swim to it, have him and Jerry race to it. But Jerry came back just then, and he and Rachel eyed the hat speechlessly. It was a muddy mustard-yellowish hat! They dropped the hat on the rock as though it was poison and they looked toward the woods not knowing what to expect next.

"I heard a rustling," whispered Rachel. She was so scared tears popped into her eyes. "That's why I called."

But now they heard nothing and they saw no one. They thought the person might be up in a big tree but the branches and leaves were too thick to see anything.

"Hey!" shouted Jerry.

Only silence answered him.

"If you want your old hat, come and get it," yelled Jerry bravely, hoping the person would stay where he was nevertheless. But still there was only silence. It was eerie.

"Sick 'em up, Duke," said Dick, delighted to be part of the mystery.

When you said, "Sick 'em up" to Duke, or "Rats!" he would usually just raise his mournful face and sniff a few times, looking sad. Or else, to please you, he would lumber off a few paces as though he had a purpose in mind. No one who knew Duke was the slightest bit scared of him. However, he was such a big hound that if Dick sicked him on a person who didn't know him, that person would be scared out of his wits.

Now Ginger, on the other hand, when you said, "Sick 'em up" to him, bristled his back, got into a rage, and tore around like mad. And this he would have done now, only Rachel kept a tight hold of him and all he could do was growl, the way he did with his orange duster.

Duke hadn't budged. He had only raised his head and stared with a wise expression into the woods. "Sick 'em up," said Dick again. Duke lumbered agreeably off into the woods but he soon came
back and lay down lazily again, licking his paws noisily.

Jerry and Dick flung off their wet trunks and got into their clothes. They all decided to go home. They weren't going off into the woods looking for the mysterious footstepper, that was certain. But there, on the rock, lay the hat, wet and battered and muddy yellow, and what would they do with it? Leave it here? Or pitch it into the reservoir way way out? It would serve the mean man right to lose his hat. Or perhaps they should take it home with them and keep it as "Exhibit A." No. Then the person would come prowling around looking for his old hat and what they wanted was for him to go away and leave them alone.

Finally they left the hat on the rock. "Hey, I know what," said Dick Badger. "I have a piece of red crayon in my pocket. We'll put a little mark in the hat and if we see anyone in this hat again we'll know it's the same person who has been snooping on us up here at the res'. We'll know that much at least."

This Dick Badger did. He put a small red mark inside the leather band of the old felt hat and they left the hat there on the rock, to be picked up by whomever it belonged to.

"I think it must have been Unsavory," said Rachel. "Or else the person would have said, 'Hey. That's my hat. Please throw it back.'"

This sounded logical. "Unless," said Jerry, who wanted to exhaust all possibilities, "it happened to be just any old hat lying around up here, belonging to no one; and it just happened to blow into the reservoy."

"Um-m-m," said Rachel. "It might have blown off a scarecrow in some farmer's garden, up Barney Hill a ways."

"Um-m-m," said Dick skeptically, for he preferred it to be part of the mystery. "Except that all the scarecrows I ever knew had black hats on 'em, not yellow."

"Nope," said Rachel and Jerry, agreeing.

Anyway, they left the old hat with its red mark in it that wouldn't wash off because it was indelible. And they went back across the little dam and past the red mill where, in the deep woods, gloaming had set in, and then out into the wooded path, still half in the gloaming and half in the sunlight, past Speedys' barn and the last houses, and then, there they were at the Green again.

As they walked, for Dick Badger's benefit, for he never tired of the mystery, they reviewed the times they had been watched or followed. There was the person standing in the doorway of the church when Rachel was in the pulpit, but that may have been the minister, so he really could not be counted. There was the person racing and crouching over the telephone poles in back of Speedys' barn the day they went to buy Ginger. There were the mysterious footsteps that night coming home from Gramma's, and the glimpse, under the horse chestnut tree, of a yellowish hat.

There was, also, the hat at the fence yesterday, spied first by Uncle Bennie in his high chair. Now, there was the rustle in the woods. And there was the hat itself falling right in the water where the perpendicular swimmer was coming up for air. Was all this the same hat and person, or what? It wasn't imaginary anymore, that was certain, all this mystery, all this carrying on. For here was a real, honest-to-goodness, ugly, yellow, felt hat, that they had left on the rock with a red mark in it.

When they reached home they told Mama the episode of the hat and she said, "Well..." And then she said, "Your father is coming home tonight and we'll ask him what he thinks."

That night, when Mr. Pye got home, he was told everything, all about the getting of Ginger Pye, and the mysterious footstepper—everything. But he didn't think anything. He just said, "Um-m-m." He was busy thinking about birds, especially the birds on Mount Pisgah from which he had just returned, and that was why he didn't think anything about all this hat, footsteps, and rustling business. And since Mr. Pye just said, "Um-m-m," none of the story sounded important anymore. What was wonderful was that Papa was home now. He was going to stay home for a long long time, he said.

The unsavory character may have been the real enemy in Ginger Pye's life but of this Ginger was unaware. He was a very happy dog and the only enemy he knew he had was an enemy dog.

It was October now and no more had been heard or seen of Unsavory, his hat, or his footsteps. In fact, such a long time had passed since the affair of the hat at the reservoir that everyone had begun to forget about the unsavory character.

"He knows, everybody knows, that Ginger is my puppy now, and I guess he has given up," said Jerry to Rachel.

"Um-m-m," agreed Rachel.

It was during these weeks that Ginger discovered the enemy dog. It was lucky that Ginger did find out about him for whom else could he play with? School had started but what did Ginger understand of school? All he understood was that, for some reason, Jerry and Rachel now abandoned him for a great deal of each day. Therefore, in whom could Ginger take an interest if not in the enemy dog and for a while he was obsessed with the very idea of him.

The enemy dog lived in the tall pier glass mirror, at least that was where Ginger first saw him—the tall pier glass mirror that stood between two windows in the horsehair parlor. This mirror had been a wedding present to the Pyes; and the three large vases that stood in its marble base were also wedding presents. One day Ginger was reaching up for his orange duster that happened to be lying on the marble base, and it was then that he made his amazing discovery.

There was another dog in this house and he was in the shiny mirror! Yet, all along, Ginger had mistakenly thought he was the only dog in this house.

Ginger Pye gave this new dog a friendly woof for he did not realize all in a second that this was his enemy dog that was going to torment him and stay in shiny places. The dog gave Ginger a friendly woof too, only Ginger couldn't hear it. Ginger Pye then barked loudly at the new dog and the new dog barked back at Ginger, only still he made no sound. His woofing and his barking were silent and, because of this, rather exasperating.

Ginger made a dash for the dog in the mirror and the dog in the mirror made a dash for Ginger. They growled at each other, Ginger in his loud fashion and the new dog in his silent fashion. Their noses were plastered right close together, so close Ginger couldn't even see the other dog anymore. But the cowardly dog stayed inside where he was
good and safe and he wouldn't come out. It was infuriating and it made Ginger Pye frantic.

It was then that Ginger realized that this dog in the mirror was an enemy dog and not a friendly companion.

Moreover, it turned out that the dog did not stay inside his pier glass mirror after all. He cropped up in other places, in other mirrors, in the windowpanes, even in Ginger's own eating pan, eating up Ginger's dinner. And outside the house, he might be met up with too. For he was also a water dog, staying in puddles, the reservoir, the harbor, and the Sound.

Once Jerry and Rachel took Ginger for a walk over to Gramma's. They went by way of the shore instead of the street and it was a most interesting excursion. The tide was low. Periwinkles and horseshoe crabs lay on the beaches, and clams were spouting here and there in the wet mud of low tide. The children crawled under every little red boathouse, smelling the wonderful stale sea smells there. They walked out on every wobbly little wooden pier. And everywhere Ginger delightedly frisked ahead of them.

It went to Ginger's head to be with Jerry and Rachel on such an unusual expedition. He picked
up dry chunks of wood for them to throw and he tried to nudge the horseshoe crabs into getting a move on. He had no thought of the enemy dog. He was a carefree happy dog and he was always the first one out to the end of the little piers. There he barked at the water endlessly stretching, at the sky, the singing gulls, the bobbing buoys.

At the end of one weather-beaten shaky old pier, to which a little boat was tied and placidly rocking, Ginger happened, for the first time, to look straight down into the queer green water. And there, looking up at him, was his enemy, the dog!