Ginger Pye (3 page)

Naturally Rachel would help Jerry get the dollar, only she just couldn't think how, aside from the mite boxes which were the only idea that had occurred to her so far. Even if there had been time for mite boxes they were not such a good idea after all, she corrected herself. She had guiltily remembered the way hers always looked when she turned it in in Sunday school, the slot for the pennies all stretched and torn from taking pennies out again. It was not a neat and tidy mite box the way Beulah Ball's was; it was a dirty, torn, loose mite box, and so was Jerry's.

To tell the truth Jerry was not at all certain how he was going to earn that dollar either but he did not doubt that he would find some way. If Papa's book that he was writing on birds sold a lot of copies
Jerry could ask Papa for the dollar. But it would be a long time before that was finished. The puppy would certainly be grown up and belonging to someone else long before then. The book probably would not sell a lot of copies anyway. It was for scholars.

Papa was a great bird man and for a few minutes Jerry thought proudly about him. He was off now on a trip to the Everglades to study birds in their habitat there. Men in Washington were always quoting Mr. Pye's articles on birds. When some question on the conservation of birds came up, "Call in Mr. Pye," was the first thing the men in Washington said. They would pay his fare to Washington but that was all they would pay aside from the respect.

Outside of the family and the ladies of the Far and Near Society, who subscribed to the
National Geographic
and frequently saw his name in print, few people in Cranbury knew that Mr. Pye was such a famous bird man; for of course he did not run around saying, "I, I, I."

It was thought that since Mr. Pye did not work in an office or a factory, and did not teach school either, he must naturally be wealthy, traveling all around the way he did. Nothing could have been further from the truth. His pocket and Mama's pocketbook were almost always practically empty. So

getting the dollar for the puppy from Mama or Papa was not to be considered.

Rachel was thinking about Papa too. The way he loves birds! she thought. He could not bear to think of harm coming to any of them and he pleaded with his neighbors to put bells around their cats' necks, the way Gracie had around hers. There were more belled cats in this neighborhood than anywhere else in Cranbury and, maybe, the world.

One day Papa read in the paper that birds had rained on New York City, little birds that had missed their course in migration and bumped into the high buildings. Hundreds died. Papa had not been able to eat or sleep. He took a train down to New York to study the whole sad matter and make a report on it. "The way Papa loves birds is the way I love, the way I love..." Rachel thought hard. "The way I love birds, too." She remembered she was going to be a bird man just like Papa when she grew up. She would accompany Papa on his bird trips and when the big fellows in Washington said, "Call in Mr. Pye," they would add, "And his little girl."

Whereas Rachel collected bird nests and feathers and anything to do with birds that she could find, Jerry collected stones and rocks, and his room was filled with them.

Picking up a rock, when she and Jerry were on a searching expedition, Rachel would ask, "Is this quartz?"

"No," Jerry would say.

"What is it then?" asked Rachel, because Jerry was going to be a rock man, a quartz man, when he grew up and he knew everything.

"It's just plain rock," answered Jerry.

"One thing," said Jerry so suddenly Rachel started. Her thinking had wandered far from the puppy and how Jerry was going to get the dollar.

"M-m-m," she said.

"This puppy that I'm going to buy for one dollar that was born in Speedys' barn had his tail cut off yesterday. They all did."

"His tail cut off!" said Rachel, horrified. "Didn't it hurt? And he's not a whole dog then? He should cost less than one dollar."

Mama said quickly, "They know how to cut off puppy dogs' tails so fast it doesn't hurt at all and it helps the beauty of them when they grow up not to have the long lanky tail."

"Most dogs I know have tails," said Rachel.

"Not fox terriers," said Jerry.

"I thought they were born without them."

"No. Anyway it didn't hurt, Mama said," af
firmed Jerry rather doubtfully for this was hard to take in.

Since it had grown cooler, Mama went into the house to get some typing done on one of Papa's articles on birds, this one—
The terns;
and soon, clickety-clickety, they could hear her racing along. Rachel and Jerry sat awhile longer wondering how they could earn a dollar.

Jerry had only until tomorrow night at six o'clock to raise the dollar because Mrs. Speedy said so. She said, "I'd like for you to have this puppy you're so crazy about, Jerry. But there's someone else wants him too. And he keeps after me, you bet." Mrs. Speedy always put a great many "you bets" into her conversation and the Pyes all called her "Mrs. Speedy, you bet," or just plain, "You bet."

"He's always hanging around, this other fellow, waving the dollar," Mrs. Speedy told Jerry and the words were harping in his ears now. She also said, "I said to him, I said, if Jerry is not here by six o'clock Saturday then you can have the puppy. You bet."

When Jerry told Rachel this, she whistled. "Phew," she said. "We only have tonight and tomorrow."

But the evening came to an end, and they went
to bed with no idea how the dollar was to be earned. The only thing that was settled was that Gracie-the-cat would probably not be jealous, that and the fact that Mama said it would be all right for them to have a dog. But there was all day tomorrow and something would surely happen.

At night, when Jerry and Rachel went to bed they had the habit of making up stories, or rather one long continuous story that never ended. This story was all about the adventures of Martin Boombernickles, a character that could change itself into a horse, a boy, a man, a dog, anything, whenever it felt like it. They almost never went to sleep without adding an episode.

It was cozy in the night to hear Jerry call out from his narrow iron bed in his room, to Rachel in her narrow iron bed in her room, the next room, "Rachel, are you asleep? We haven't done the episode yet."

Rachel never went to sleep before Jerry even though she was a whole year younger, pinching herself to stay awake, if necessary, in order not to miss adding to the story. In delight, she would call out, "No. Oh, Boombernickles." Because it was the one who said "Boombernickles" first who was allowed to commence the episode.

Boombernickles had been going on for years and years. It was Rachel who had named it. "Oh, Boombernickles," she used always to say whenever she had to do something she didn't particularly like.

"Wherever did you get that word, boombernickles?" her mother asked.

"I don't know," said Rachel. But "Boombernickles" came to be the name of the character that could do anything,
anything,
in the nighttime stories she and Jerry made up.

Tonight, after the episode was finished, before he went to sleep, Jerry said, "Rache. I'll get the puppy, won't I? Something'll happen. I'll get the dollar, won't I?"

"Sure," muttered Rachel drowsily. "Something'll happen."

Something did happen the next day, but not until Jerry had begun to feel very worried about his dog and his dollar. It was a hot day. Gramma had come early in the morning and left Uncle Bennie with the Pyes. From a long way off they could always hear Gramma pushing Uncle Bennie in his go-cart because it had a squeak in it, or pulling him in his express wagon which also had a squeak in it and in which he had arrived today.

Now, it was twelve o'clock noon. During the morning Jerry had exhausted all the possible ways he knew of to earn a dollar in one day. He had even offered to wash Mrs. Carruthers' windows—they were very dirty. But she said, "No." She did them herself twice a year and it was not time to do them for this half the year yet.

Jerry still had the afternoon, of course. But Sat
urday afternoon was never a good time for odd jobs. Saturday morning was, but not Saturday afternoon. On Saturday afternoon the men were likely to be home, the smell of tobacco would be wafted from the homes, and either the men would be napping on their couches, their shoes off and their old coats on, or else they would be digging and poking in the earth and leaves. It was useless to look for an odd job on Saturday afternoon.

Still, there were six hours to go before the puppy would be lost to them forevermore. Uncle Bennie and Jerry and Rachel were having their lunch. They had vegetable soup because Mama believed in something hot in the stomach even on warm days. And then they had applesauce. For Uncle Bennie's amusement Mama sang a little song. She sang:

"Brother Morgan plays the organ,
Father plays the drum,
Sister plays the tamborina,
And Baby goes bum bum bum."

To show his appreciation Uncle Bennie counted for them, up to ten. "One, two, three, GO, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."

He always said, "Go," after "three," instead of "four" because when he was swinging or getting ready to race with Jerry and Rachel, they always said, "One, two, three, GO!" Naturally he thought go came after three and that was where he always put it, in counting.

Uncle Bennie was famous in Cranbury. He was a hero because here he was, only three years old, and yet he was an uncle. All the children came and gaped at him when he came to visit Jerry and Rachel, which was just about every Saturday. His mother, who was Jerry and Rachel's grandmother, would leave him at the Pyes' when she went to town to do the marketing, and children in the neighborhood would gather around and study Uncle Bennie because he was an uncle at the age of three.

He was given special privileges and allowed to do things with the older children even though he was still practically a baby, all on account of being an uncle. "A venerable uncle," said Mrs. Badger, the next-door neighbor. "God keep him," she would say. Uncle Bennie could go anywhere he liked with the older boys and girls merely because he was an uncle.

"Play with the children your own age," his mother would plead, expecting he would get knocked down. "Play with the children your own age."

"Not innerested," said Uncle Bennie.

Or, "Take a little nap," she'd plead. "Take a little nap." (Most grown-ups said things twice to Uncle Bennie thinking, wrongly, that since he was so little, he would not have heard the first time.)

"Not innerested," he'd say. You'd think he was a grown-up man, the way he did not like to take naps.

Because he was a baby uncle, Bennie usually got the best of everything. At the Stokeses' big birthday party, to which almost all the children of Cranbury were invited, the ice cream served was molded into different interesting shapes. And Uncle Bennie got the most exciting ice cream of all. Mrs. Stokes thought of what was right for everybody and since Uncle Bennie lived over near the water and loved to watch the steamboat, the
Richard Peck,
he was given an ice cream steamboat!

At this party Rachel got a bird ice cream because of her father, not because of herself, because no one in town knew she was going to be a bird man when she grew up. But Mrs. Stokes belonged to the Far and Near Society and she knew how famous a bird man Mr. Pye was. So she had given Rachel an ice cream robin, chocolate on top and orange ice beneath. To Jerry, since likewise, no one in town
knew he was going to be a rock man, she just happened to give a pickax. Imagine an ice cream pickax! But that he had. It was eerie the way Mrs. Stokes had everything figured. But Uncle Bennie's steamboat attracted the most oh's and ah's.

"What's your name?" people would say to Bennie.

"Uncle Bennie," he would answer. And like as not someone would give him a nickel or a penny merely for being an uncle. It was the easiest way of picking up pennies Jerry had ever heard of. But it certainly was not the solution to his picking up one hundred of them for the puppy he wanted to buy at Speedys' barn, and he puckered his brow and considered.