Ginger Pye (9 page)

crabs and killifish. "You should see all the killies down there today," he'd say.

Dick was a thin wiry sort of boy. On fine days, when the water was sunny and clear, it was a very pleasant sight to see him go diving down, down, and swim awhile along the pebbly bottom of the reservoir, or the sandy bottom of the salt sea, and then shoot straight upwards again in his perpendicular fashion.

Everyone admired Dick for his special kind of swimming. But sometimes the other fellows would tire of trying to keep up with him under the water and would challenge him to a race on top of the sea. This he always good-naturedly consented to do. He would always start out with the others. But then, instead of dashing straight ahead for the goal—a buoy or a lobster pot—down he would shoot, down down down. He would come back up, laughing and gasping, just about when the others would be returning to the raft or rock from the race. This perpendicular swimming did not count as winning the top-of-the-water race. However, it did excite a great deal of admiration and Dick certainly held all records for it.

Of all those who admired Dick Badger for his perpendicular swimming, naturally Jerry, being his best friend, admired him the most. And he admired
his friend's big lanky dog, Duke, too, and liked to tickle his back to make him scratch his stomach. He appreciated the fact that he did not have to pay a nickel for this favor. Ginger was going to know a great many more tricks than that one. He was still just a tiny puppy. His tail wasn't completely healed although the bandage was off, and they had had him only since the day before yesterday at six o'clock. Yet he could already catch things in his mouth! Soon, he would know everything.

"I'll take Ginger pup," said Jerry proudly.

"Sure," said Dick. "Maybe he'll like a little swim."

"We can't let him in the water yet, he's too little. And I'll have to carry him most of the way," said Jerry fondly.

"Sure," said Dick.

"Rachel wants to come. OK?"

"Sure," said Dick. "She can watch Ginger while we're swimming so he doesn't get lost or drowned."

"Or so the unsavory character doesn't get him."

"Sure," said Dick. He had been told about the hat, the footsteps, the unsavory character, and he was very impressed with the mysterious aspect of the whole affair. "Uncle Bennie coming, too?" he asked.

"No. This ain't Saturday."

"Nope," said Dick.

"Rachel's got bee-bite."

"Got what?"

"Got bee-bite. Ts getting better though."

"Sure," said Dick Badger.

Just then Rachel ran up. She was holding a damp handkerchief over her mouth. "I have bee-bite," she said importantly.

In the middle of the night Rachel had waked up thinking,
what's the matter with my lip?
It felt as though someone had put a mud pie on it. She put her finger on her lower lip and touched it carefully. It was enormous. It didn't feel like a lip at all anymore. With her tongue she couldn't feel the end of it. Moreover her lip seemed to be getting bigger and bigger all the time instead of snapping back to normal as it would have had all this been a dream. What had happened? She had had a dreadful transformation in the night. Should she wake Mama up? Mama might not recognize her.

Was she under a spell, she wondered, as in the fairy tales? There was a maiden in one fairy tale who had had a spell cast on her and her lips stuck way way out just like this. For a time Rachel lay in bed and shuddered and waited for the next awful metamorphosis, a hand changed into a bird's claw, for example.

Then dawn began to come. A light the color of robins' eggs filled the sky. Rachel stole out of bed, trying to keep it and the floor from creaking and waking the household. Mustering all her courage she looked at herself in the mirror of her little blue chiffonier. She could not help gasping. How dreadful! Her lower lip had swelled way way out and she looked like the old witch in
The Tinder Box.
Even as she looked her lip seemed to be ballooning out. Supposing it never stopped ballooning? If it got any bigger she would have to employ a sling to hold it up. She surveyed herself in utter dismay. And school! School began tomorrow. What would they do with her in school? And who would stick up for her, the way she stuck up for Addie Egan?

"Ubangi," she murmured, thinking of the pictures in the books at the library. Might she be packed off to the Ubangis to live? Thoughts of the Ubangis, the ugly old witch, and the enchanted maidens in fairy tales sent her flying at last into Mama's room. So far she had not cried, but she almost cried in relief when Mama said, "Bee-bite. That's what it is."

"Will it ever go away?" Rachel asked, confiding her fears about being like the girl in the fairy tale with the long long lip.

"Oh, yes." Mama laughed. "We'll start right now fixing up that lip."

So all morning Rachel had been bathing her lower lip in something soothing that Mama had prepared. Now it was halfway back to normal. It still felt heavy, but the fact that it was swelling down, not up, was encouraging, to say the least.

Now Rachel had a little bottle of the wash in her hands because she was to keep bathing her lip even though she was going up to the reservoir with the boys. And she was not to go in swimming because of her lip and she was to sit in the shade and mind Ginger while Jerry swam.

It was a long walk to the reservoir. The way led past Speedys' barn, past the last houses straggling up the hills, past the old red mill, and, finally, through a narrow wooded wagon road until there they were at last—at the reservoir! In the middle of the pond the water sparkled in the sunlight, and at the edges where trees and bushes hung low over the water there were lovely shadows.

The children came out of the woods where a little dam separated the upper reservoir from the lower, and a waterfall tumbled over it. In the spring they could not cross the reservoir this way for there would be a regular Niagara here, the water roaring and tearing over the dam. Then they would have to go way around the reservoir to get to the other side. But this was the end of summer and there had not been much rain. The water was not very deep on the dam and the current not swift at all. So they took off their shoes and stockings and waded across the cool brick dam to the far side.

They stopped at their favorite rock, a large flat gray one, that was half in the shade and half out of it and from which Rachel could dangle her legs into the water if she wanted to. Jerry and Dick Badger had their swimming trunks on under their clothes. They lost no time in stripping off their shirts and pants, and into the water they went. Big lumbering Duke went in, too, making a terrible splash and he swam around with the boys for a time, bringing them
sticks to throw. But when Dick began his usual underwater swimming, Duke climbed out of the reservoir and sniffed off into the woods to chase whatever small animals he could find.

Ginger was so excited over seeing all this huge lot of water he kept barking and yapping and whining and quivering the nerves on his legs and forehead. It was all Rachel could do to keep him from jumping in. But after a while he contented himself with nosing acorns about on the rock. Rachel kept soaking her swollen lip and occasionally she studied her reflection in the pond. To her great relief she saw that the swelling was disappearing and by tomorrow it would probably be all right, as Mama said.

By now Ginger was tuckered out and he lay contentedly in Rachel's lap. Sometimes he dozed and sometimes he watched the boys swim, and whenever he heard Jerry's voice his little bit of tail wagged joyously.

Up here at the reservoir it was still and beautiful. Little could be heard but the twittering of birds and the splashing and shouts of the boys. No one else was up here today except, on the far side, a man in blue, sitting on a rock. From here it looked as though he was painting a picture. On his side of the reservoir, for just a few yards, the shining tracks of
the railroad could be seen, and occasionally a train shot by, leaving its trail of white smoke coiling low over the trees.

Rachel had often come to the reservoir with Papa. He liked to come here on quiet Sundays to listen to the birds and watch them. He wouldn't move a muscle and neither would she. And they would see the interesting things the birds did without the birds paying them the slightest attention. Rachel thought of all the smart birds she had ever known; especially she thought of some certain smart sparrows she had seen one day last May.

That day she had been sitting on the little top porch smelling all the flowering fruit trees and thinking, "This is spring!" Then she heard such a twittering down below she looked over the railing and what she saw was a very busy little sparrow. He was terribly excited about a piece of white tissue paper crumpled into a soft bunch that lay on the lawn. He pecked at it and stalked around it and now and then he looked quizzically up at the eaves of Dick Badger's barn. Dick's barn, which had once been a stable, was built right close to the sidewalk between his house and the Pyes. The sparrow kept chattering very noisily but finally he got this big piece of tissue paper in his mouth and flew up to the corner eave of Dick's barn.

For a moment or two he fluttered there, but he couldn't get into the small opening with his cargo. So he flew back down again and left the paper on the ground behind him. Then he returned to the eaves again and disappeared inside for a second. Soon, not only he came out, but his wife also, and they both cocked their heads and peered down at the piece of tissue paper. They were obviously formulating a plan.

With his wife watching intently, the sparrow flew back down to the grass. Again he managed to pick up the paper and again he flew back to the threshold of his house with it. He fluttered about, keeping his balance, just outside the opening to the eaves. As
he fluttered close by, his wife reached out her bill and took the tissue paper from him, backing into the opening with it, the triumphant husband following her in.

This was just about the smartest thing that Rachel had ever seen a bird do. What a fine sheet for the sparrows' nest the tissue paper must have made, she thought drowsily. When Rachel had written to Papa telling him about these smart sparrows, he had written back saying she was so observant he would have to make her his assistant.

What could ever be more wonderful than that? Rachel asked herself. "Call in Mr. Pye," the men in Washington would say, and, "Bring Rachel Pye too," they would surely add.

Rachel was getting very sleepy. After all she had been up since dawn with bee-bite. Through half-closed eyes she watched the perpendicular swimmer swimming downwards and swimming upwards; and she watched her brother Jerry swimming back and forth across the reservoir; and affectionately she watched the little puppy snoozing; and drowsily she watched the water flies skimming over the surface of the pond, darting zigzaggedly this way and that, bumping into one another like hockey players on ice; and she listened to Duke's happy hunting in
the woods behind her. And when Duke came back to the rock to rest himself and to keep an eye on his master, whose perpendicular swimming he had no use for, she lazily scratched his back and he sleepily scratched his stomach. And as she, lanky Duke, and little Ginger were drowsing on the sunny rock, she heard a rustling in the woods behind her.