Ginger Pye (26 page)

"All the times we were right down there, calling him and looking for him!" said Jerry.

"Big dog! Keep out!" said Rachel indignantly. "Wally was probably holding his fist over Ginger's mouth every time he saw us coming."

"Ginger probably heard us and knew we were right there," said Jerry.

"Well," comforted Mrs. Pye. "That helped him to remember you and keep you in mind until the right moment came for his escape."

Anyway, sad as Ginger's life had been while he was away, he was—from now on—the happiest dog in Cranbury, and Jerry and Rachel and Uncle Bennie were the happiest children, since he was back. They did love him so.

It got to be noontime. The children all had some dinner and then they had ice cream. Ginger had some too. But the children didn't even realize they were eating ice cream, they were so excited. If there had been lumps of frozen peach in it as at Gramma's, they might have known. But there weren't lumps. This was bought ice cream though not steamboats, pickaxes, or robins.

Sam Doody had some ice cream too, and so did the Chief of Police. He came by just then, having had his buns and coffee at last, to make a report on
latest developments. When the Pyes could finally persuade Ginger to stop barking at him, Chief Larrimer said, "I telephoned down the line when I got home. And I ordered the Banker's Express stopped and searched in Westport. Your dog is not on it," he said.

Chief Larrimer was not yet aware that the dog who had been barking at him was the long-missing, famous Ginger. When he was told this, and that the quest was ended, he looked a shade disappointed. It was obvious that he had other plans, such as ordering all dogs in shows examined carefully to see if they might be Ginger. However, Jerry and Rachel looked at him so admiringly—he had, sifter all, thought of marvelous ways of tracing their dog, having the Banker's Express itself stopped, for example—that the Chief's ruffled spirits were smoothed.

Nevertheless, in case the Chief might feel it was a reflection on his office that Ginger had not been found by him, but had been found by Uncle Bennie, a three-year-old, one of Cranbury's youngest citizens, he said, "The young-uns threw me off the track with that picture they drewed of the man."

"We thought Wally Bullwinkle was just a boy in my class," explained Jerry apologetically, for now
it seemed as though, from the beginning, it should have been as plain as the nose on his face that Wally
had
been the thief. "We didn't know Wally was a thief and he didn't look like the picture we drew of the unsavory character. We didn't know an unsavory character could be just a boy in my class," said Jerry.

"Wally hasn't any mother," said Rachel. She didn't want Wally to go to jail. She wanted someone to be nice to him and make him nice. "His father probably didn't know he had stolen Ginger," she said, making excuses for Mr. Bullwinkle also.

"That may well be," said Chief Larrimer. "But if you have any more thefts," he said, "don't draw me the thief." And he tramped off up the street, having to get to the bank before it closed.

The next who came by were Mr. Badger and Dick Badger and Duke. They had been out in Cheshire and missed all the excitement. Mr. Badger wanted some pictures for the
Cranbury Chronicle
and Sam Doody took them. One picture he took he called "A happy reunion." It showed all the family gathered around Ginger while Ginger scratched the fleas of Gracie-the-cat. Another picture he took of just Uncle Bennie and Ginger. Sam Doody named Uncle Bennie "The hero of the day." Uncle Bennie had been a hero before, just for being an uncle at the age of three. Now he was a hero also for being the one to find Ginger.

For it was Uncle Bennie, after all, who insisted that Ginger was Ginger and had persuaded Gramma to let him follow them to the Pyes'. "I knews it was Ginger," he affirmed importantly.

The picture that Sam Doody took of Uncle Bennie and Ginger would win the fifteen-dollar prize. That was what Jerry and Rachel thought. Not the pictures of East Rock at all, not even the GNU one which turned out to be a beauty.

"Uncle Bennie, Uncle Bennie, Uncle Bennie!" they all exclaimed affectionately. "Uncle Bennie, hero."

Uncle Bennie beamed.

How the day passed no one knew. But at last the great birthday day, the sort of a holiday, the day of Ginger Pye's dramatic return, came to an end. Everyone had gone, all the guests, the interested neighbors, Uncle Bennie, and Gramma. And it was night, that first night that Ginger was home and curled up sleeping on Jerry's feet as he used to; and there was, in the distance, the wonderful occasional sound of the trains running from New York to Boston, from Boston to New York; and Jerry said it first. He said, comfortably, hoping she was not asleep, "Rachel..."

"Um-m-m," said Rachel, squirming delightedly. She knew what was coming.

"Oh, Boombernickles," said Jerry. "Oh, Martin Boombernickles."

Rachel laughed softly. "Yes," she said. "And then what happened?" Just as though they had never stopped.

Ginger twitched his ears and the loose skin on his back and legs to let Jerry know he was here and he was happy. Then he lowered his head down on his paws again and he let out a deep sigh that sounded almost like a sob, there was in it so much relief and pain and pleasure and remembering.

Eleanor Estes
(1906–1988) grew up in West Haven, Connecticut, which she renamed Cranbury for her classic stories about the Moffat and Pye families. A children's librarian for many years, she launched her writing career with the publication of
The Moffats
in 1941. Two of her outstanding books about the Moffats—
Rufus M.
and
The Middle Moffat
—were awarded Newbery Honors, as was her short novel
The Hundred Dresses.
She won the Newbery Medal for
Ginger Pye
in 1952. The inspiration for Ginger Pye, the "intellectual dog," came from a real dog who appeared, pencil in mouth, in the window of the ivy-covered school of Eleanor Estes's childhood.