Henry and the Paper Route (2 page)

Since Henry liked old junk, he had enjoyed his mother's part in the rummage sale and had been sorry to see the old dishes and lampshades and baby buggies hauled
away to be sold. He had been especially sorry to see a pair of old laundry tubs taken away, because he was sure they would come in handy someday for something—he didn't quite know what. But his mother had said firmly that he could not keep old laundry tubs in his room or in the garage either, for that matter.

Naturally, even though Henry was in a hurry, he had to stop to see how all the junk in this vacant lot compared to his mother's collection of rummage. He leaned his bicycle against a telephone pole and joined the crowd.

Racks of old clothes hung in the corner of the lot under a couple of billboards. Nearby was the furniture department: old-fashioned iceboxes, chairs with three legs, sofas with the springs popping out. All sorts of odds and ends were heaped on the board tables. Henry decided it was pretty good
junk. He paused in front of an old electric fan. There were lots of things a boy could do with an electric fan, especially if it worked. Just what, Henry could not decide at the moment, but he was sure there must be lots.

“How much is the fan?” Henry asked the lady behind the table.

“Twenty-five cents,” was the answer.

The trouble was that Henry could not very well carry an old electric fan when he went to ask Mr. Capper for a job. It wouldn't look businesslike.

“If I pay for the fan now, could you hold it for me until I come back in about half an hour?” Henry asked.

“I'm sorry, but the sale ends at five-thirty,” the lady told him. “A junk man will come and buy up everything that is left over.”

“Oh.” Henry was disappointed. Oh, well, a job delivering papers was more important
than an old electric fan. Besides, when he got his route, he could buy a new fan if he wanted one.

As Henry started to leave, he glanced into a carton and what he saw was a great surprise. Four kittens, one black-and-white, one gray with white paws, and two yellow-and-white-striped, lay sleeping in a corner of the box. They looked tiny and helpless, poor little things. But there must be some mistake. Kittens were not junk.

“These kittens aren't for sale, are they?” Henry asked a lady who was standing nearby.

“Yes, they are,” answered the lady cheerfully. “Fifteen cents apiece. They're very nice kittens. Their grandmother was a long-haired cat.”

Henry did not like the idea at all. People shouldn't go around selling kittens for rummage, as if they were old teakettles or something. “If nobody buys them by five-thirty,
will the junk man take them?” Henry asked anxiously. Henry was so upset about the kittens that he forgot he was in a hurry. For a minute he even forgot that he wanted a paper route.

“Oh, no,” answered the lady. “I suppose someone will take them to the pound.” She spoke as if kittens were not very important.

The black-and-white kitten stirred and blinked its gray eyes. Henry could not keep from touching the soft furry head. The kitten yawned and showed its tiny pink tongue. Then it climbed on top of the other three kittens, curled itself into a ball, and went to sleep again.

This was too much for Henry. “I don't think you should let them go to the pound,” he said.

“I don't, either,” agreed the lady. “I'll tell you what I'll do. Since the sale is just about over, I'll mark them down for you from
fifteen cents to five cents apiece.”

A nickel for a kitten! That was a real bargain. Henry gently stroked the black-and-white kitten with one finger and thought it
over. If he bought the four tiny kittens he would be saving them from the pound, and that was even more important than getting a bargain. Of course his mother wouldn't let him keep all of them, but it should be easy to find good homes for the others.

Then Henry remembered the paper route. He could not carry a box of kittens with him when he went to ask Mr. Capper for a job. That would be even less businesslike than carrying an electric fan. And nothing was going to keep him from getting that paper route, not even kittens.

“Well…no, I guess not,” Henry said to the lady. “They're awfully nice kittens, though.”

The black-and-white kitten snuggled deeper into the fur of the other three kittens. No, Henry told himself, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to buy them even if they are only a nickel apiece. My route comes first.

A yellow kitten mewed in its sleep. “It's sort of squashed,” Henry remarked to the lady, as he carefully pulled the little bundle of fur out from under the other kittens. Every minute made it more difficult for Henry to leave. Henry fingered the money in his pocket. Maybe he could leave the kittens someplace along the way and pick them up after he had talked to Mr. Capper. No, that wouldn't work. A dog might get them. They were too little to know how to climb trees. And yet there must be some way to save them.

Henry thought hard. His jacket! It was just the thing. It was roomy, it had a tight knitted band around the waist, and it was a cloth jacket, so air could get through it. He could tuck four tiny sleeping kittens inside, zip it up, and no one would know the difference.

“I'll take all four,” said Henry, and quickly
produced two dimes from his pocket. Gently he lifted the kittens, one by one, and slipped them inside his jacket. Then he pulled up the zipper. Maybe he looked a little plump around the middle, but no one would ever guess that he was hiding four kittens.

It was late, Henry realized, as he got on his bicycle and tried to ride without joggling his kittens. He had spent too much time at the rummage sale. When he reached the district manager's house he leaned his bicycle against the chestnut tree, ran his hand over his hair, stood up straight, and tried to feel eleven years old. All at once his mouth felt dry. “Good afternoon, Mr. Capper,” he whispered to himself. “My name is Henry Huggins.” He walked up the steps and rang the doorbell. While he waited he could feel his heart pounding.

The door opened and Henry found himself facing, not Mr. Capper, but his daughter,
who was, Henry knew, practically grown-up. She went to high school.

“Uh…is Mr. Capper home?” Henry managed to say to the girl. She was waving one hand back and forth to dry her red nail polish.

“Just a minute,” the girl answered. “Daddy!” she called. “A boy wants to see you.” She continued to stand in the doorway, blowing on her red fingertips and ignoring Henry as if he were too young to bother about.

Henry stood up even straighter and in a moment a tall, thin man with crinkly gray hair appeared. He was wearing paint-spattered overalls and wiping his hands on a smeary rag, which he then stuffed into his hip pocket.

“Hello there,” said Mr. Capper pleasantly. “What can I do for you?”

“Good afternoon,” Henry recited, in what
he hoped was a businesslike voice, while he tried to look eleven years old. “My name…” Henry stopped. He felt something move under his jacket. “My name…” he began again and stopped once more. A large police dog appeared from somewhere back of the house and joined Mr. Capper, who stood rubbing the dog's head and waiting for Henry to continue.

Henry eyed the dog. The dog eyed Henry. Henry's already dry mouth felt like old flannel. Again something moved under his jacket. “My name is Henry Huggins,” he managed to say, and gulped. His name sounded peculiar when he said it aloud—almost as if it were someone else's name. For an instant Henry had a funny feeling that maybe he wasn't really Henry Huggins after all.

“How do you do?” answered Mr. Capper, by now plainly puzzled as to what Henry's visit was all about.

“How do you do?” said Henry. No! That wasn't right. That wasn't what he meant to say. Now everything was all mixed up.

Mr. Capper's daughter giggled, and Henry felt his face grow hot. He did not feel businesslike at all. He unzipped his jacket a couple of inches. The dog stepped forward and sniffed at Henry. His ears perked up, giving him an alert look.

“Here, Major!” said Mr. Capper sharply.

Major barked. He looked eager and his teeth were long and white.

Henry's jacket began to move and then to heave. Henry no longer felt eleven years old. He did not even feel ten years old. He winced as a kitten dug its sharp little claws into his skin.

“R-ruf!” said Major.

Mr. Capper grabbed the dog by the collar and jerked him back. The kittens began to scramble around under Henry's jacket.
Henry felt one of them climbing up the back of his T-shirt. The pinpricks of its tiny claws made him squirm. He clasped his hands around his waist and tried to hold the other kittens down.

Mr. Capper looked amused and puzzled at the same time. Major strained at his collar. “What have you got inside your jacket, son?” Mr. Capper asked kindly.

“Uh…” said Henry, keeping one eye on the dog and at the same time reaching around and poking through his jacket at the kitten between his shoulder blades. Another kitten scrambled up the front of his T-shirt, and before Henry could answer Mr. Capper, it poked its head out of Henry's jacket and announced its presence with a small mew. Mr. Capper grinned, and his daughter went off into a gale of giggles.

Hastily Henry stuffed the kitten back into his jacket, but the kitten promptly
popped out again. Henry stuffed it back and pulled the zipper all the way up. “Just some kittens I got at a rummage sale,” he explained, as his jacket rose and fell.

Mr. Capper's daughter thought this was very, very funny. Henry did not see anything funny about it at all. The kittens grew more and more lively. Henry could not think what to say next, with that dog staring at him. He wished he could turn and run down the steps, but he knew he could not do that. Mr. Capper would want to know why he happened to be standing on the porch, with his jacket full of kittens.

“R-ruf!” said Major eagerly.

Quickly Henry decided the best thing to do, now that Mr. Capper knew what was making his jacket behave so strangely, was to ignore the kittens and the dog as best he could and end his visit quickly. “Mr. Capper, could I have that paper route?” he blurted,
and instantly he was sorry. That was not the way he had meant to ask for the job.

“Well, Henry, I'll tell you what you do,” said Mr. Capper kindly, and for an instant Henry felt hopeful. “You wait until you are a year or two older, and then come back and talk to me about a paper route.”

Still Henry could not give up. “I know I'm not very tall for my age, but I can ride a bike, and throw straight, and…things.”

“There's more to a paper route than riding a bicycle and throwing papers,” said Mr. Capper. “A boy has to be able to handle money and see that the papers are delivered on time in every kind of weather and left on the porch, or in the mailbox, or wherever the subscribers want them delivered. There is more to a paper route than most people know about.”

“Ouch!” Henry could not help exclaiming, as he reached inside his jacket and
unhooked a kitten's claws from his T-shirt. “I mean, I'm sure I can do all those things, Mr. Capper.”

“I'm sure you can, too, in a year or two,” said Mr. Capper.

His smile was friendly, but Henry knew he meant what he said. “Well…thank you just the same,” said Henry uncertainly. He turned and started down the steps.

“Thank you for coming to see me,” said Mr. Capper. “And don't forget what I said. Come back in a year or two.”

“R-ruf!” said Major.

A year or two, thought Henry, as he walked down the steps. Didn't Mr. Capper realize that a year or two was practically forever?

Just before Mr. Capper shut the door, Henry heard his daughter exclaim, “Oh, Daddy, did you ever see anything so funny in your whole life? Can you imagine carrying
kittens around inside a jacket? I thought I'd die laughing!”

How unbusinesslike can I get, anyway, Henry wondered, as he rode glumly toward home. Nothing ever turned out the way he planned. He started out to get a paper route, and what did he have instead? Kittens. Four little old kittens. That was what he had. And what, Henry began to wonder, would his mother say about his bringing home four kittens? And what would Ribsy do?