Mr. Popper's Penguins (4 page)

V
ERY RELUCTANTLY,
J
ANIE AND
Bill had to leave Captain Cook and go to school. Mrs. Popper was busy in the kitchen, rather belatedly doing the breakfast dishes; and while she dimly realized that the penguin was going in and out the refrigerator pretty frequently, she thought nothing of it at first.

Meanwhile Mr. Popper had abandoned his telephoning and was now busy shaving and making himself neat in honor of being the owner of such a splendid bird as Captain Cook.

But the penguin, though thus neglected for the moment, was by no means idle.

With the unusual excitement, and having to go to market earlier than usual, Mrs. Popper had not yet got around to straightening the house. She was an excellent housekeeper. Still, with two children like Janie and Bill and a husband with such untidy ways, there is no denying the fact that she had to pick up the place rather frequently.

Captain Cook was now attending to the picking up.

Into the corners of every room he prowled and poked and pecked with a busy thoroughness; into every closet he stared with his white-circled eyes; under and behind all the furniture he crowded his plump figure, with little subdued cries of curiosity, surprise, and pleasure.

And each time he found what he seemed to be looking for, he picked it up in the black end of his red beak, and carried it, waddling proudly on his wide, pink feet, into the kitchen, and into the icebox.

At last it occurred to Mrs. Popper to wonder what on earth the busy bird was up to. When she looked, she could only scream to Mr. Popper to come quickly and see what Captain Cook had done now.

Mr. Popper, himself looking rather remarkable, as Mrs. Popper noticed later, joined her in staring with astonishment into the refrigerator.

Captain Cook came up, too, and helped them look. “
Ork, ork,
” he said with triumph.

Mrs. Popper laughed, and Mr. Popper gasped as they saw the results of Captain Cook’s trips through the house.

Two spools of thread, one white chess bishop, and six parts of a jigsaw puzzle ... A teaspoon and a closed box of safety matches ... A radish, two pennies, a nickel, and a golf ball. Two pencil stubs, one bent playing card, and a small ash tray.

Five hairpins, an olive, two dominoes, and a sock ... A nailfile, four buttons of various sizes, a telephone slug, seven marbles, and a tiny doll’s chair ...

Five checker pieces, a bit of graham cracker, a parchesi cup, and an eraser ... A door key, a buttonhook, and a crumpled piece of tinfoil ... Half of a very old lemon, the head of a china doll, Mr. Popper’s pipe, and a ginger-ale cap ... An inkbottle cork, two screws, and a belt buckle ...

Six beads from a child’s necklace, five building blocks, a darning egg, a bone, a small harmonica, and a partly consumed lollipop. Two toothpaste lids and a small red notebook.

“I guess this is what you call the rookery,” said Mr. Popper. “Only he couldn’t find any stones to build his nest with.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Popper, “those penguins may have heathen ways at the South Pole, but I declare I think this one is going to be quite a help around the house.”

“
Ork!
” said Captain Cook, and strutting into the living room, he knocked over the best lamp.

“I think, Papa,” said Mrs. Popper, “that you had better take Captain Cook outside for a little exercise. Good gracious, but you’re all dressed up. Why, you look almost like a penguin yourself.”

Mr. Popper had smoothed down his hair and shaved off his whiskers. Never again would Mrs. Popper have to reproach him for looking as wild as a lion. He had put on a white shirt with a white tie and white flannel trousers, and a pair of bright tan, oxblood shoes. He had got out of the cedar chest his old black evening tailcoat, that he had been married in, and brushed it carefully, and put it on, too.

He did indeed look a little like a penguin. He turned and strutted like one now, for Mrs. Popper.

But he did not forget his duty to Captain Cook.

“Can I have a few yards of clothesline, please, Mamma?” asked Mr. Popper.

M
R.
P
OPPER SOON FOUND
that it was not so easy to take a penguin for a stroll.

Captain Cook did not care at first for the idea of being put on a leash. However, Mr. Popper was firm. He tied one end of the clothesline to the penguin’s fat throat and the other to his own wrist.

“
Ork!
” said Captain Cook indignantly. Still, he was a very reasonable sort of bird, and when he saw that protesting did him no good, he recovered his customary dignity and decided to let Mr. Popper lead him.

Mr. Popper put on his best Sunday derby and opened the front door with Captain Cook waddling graciously beside him.

“
Gaw,
” said the penguin, stopping at the edge of the porch to look down at the steps.

Mr. Popper gave him plenty of clothesline leash.

“
Gook!
” said Captain Cook, and raising his flippers, he leaned forward bravely and tobogganed down the steps on his stomach.

Mr. Popper followed, though not in the same way. Captain Cook quickly got up on his feet again and strutted to the street ahead of Mr. Popper with many quick turns of his head and pleased comments on the new scene.

Down Proudfoot Avenue came a neighbor of the Poppers, Mrs. Callahan, with her arms full of groceries. She stared in astonishment when she saw Captain Cook and Mr. Popper, looking like a larger penguin himself in his black tailcoat.

“Heavens have mercy on us!” she exclaimed as the bird began to investigate the striped stockings under her house dress. “It isn’t an owl and it isn’t a goose.”

“It isn’t,” said Mr. Popper, tipping his Sunday derby. “It’s an Antarctic penguin, Mrs. Callahan.”

“Get away from me,” said Mrs. Callahan to Captain Cook. “An anteater, is it?”

“Not anteater,” explained Mr. Popper. “Antarctic. It was sent to me from the South Pole.”

“Take your South Pole goose away from me at once,” said Mrs. Callahan.

Mr. Popper pulled obediently at the clothesline, while Captain Cook took a parting peck at Mrs. Callahan’s striped stockings.

“Heaven preserve us!” said Mrs. Callahan. “I must stop in and see Mrs. Popper at once. I would never have believed it. I will be going now.”

“So will I,” said Mr. Popper as Captain Cook dragged him off down the street.

Their next stop was at the drugstore at the corner of Proudfoot Avenue and Main Street. Here Captain Cook insisted on looking over the window display, which consisted of several open packages of shiny white boric crystals. These he evidently mistook for polar snow, for he began to peck at the window vigorously.

Suddenly a car wheeled to the near-by curb with a shriek of its brakes, and two young men sprang out, one of them bearing a camera.

“This must be it,” said the first young man to the other.

“It’s them, all right,” said the second young man.

The cameraman set up his tripod on the sidewalk. By this time a small crowd had gathered around, and two men in white coats had even come out of the drugstore to watch. Captain Cook, however, was still too much interested in the window exhibits to bother to turn around.

“You’re Mr. Popper of 432 Proudfoot Avenue, aren’t you?” asked the second young man, pulling a notebook out of his pocket.

“Yes,” said Mr. Popper, realizing that his picture was about to be taken for the newspaper. The two young men had, as a matter of fact, heard about the strange bird from the policeman, and had been on their way to the Popper house, to get an interview, when they saw Captain Cook.

“Hey, pelican, turn around and see the pretty birdie,” said the photographer.

“That’s no pelican,” said the other, who was a reporter. “Pelicans have a pouch in their bills.”

“I’d think it was a dodo, only dodos are extinct. This will make an elegant picture, if I can ever get her to turn around.”

“It’s a penguin,” said Mr. Popper proudly. “Its name is Captain Cook.”

“
Gook!
” said the penguin, turning around, now that they were talking about him. Spying the camera tripod, he walked over and examined it.

“Probably thinks it’s a three-legged stork,” said the photographer.

“This bird of yours — ” said the reporter. “Is it a he or a she? The public will want to know.”

Mr. Popper hesitated. “Well, I call it Captain Cook.”

“That makes it a he,” said the reporter, writing rapidly in his notebook.

Still curious, Captain Cook started walking round and round the tripod, till the clothesline, the penguin, Mr. Popper and the tripod were all tangled up. At the advice of one of the bystanders, the tangle was finally straightened out by Mr. Popper’s walking around the tripod three times in the opposite direction. At last, Captain Cook, standing still beside Mr. Popper, consented to pose.

Mr. Popper straightened his tie, and the cameraman snapped the picture. Captain Cook shut his eyes, and this is the way his picture appeared later in all the newspapers.

“One last question,” said the reporter. “Where did you get your strange pet?”

“From Admiral Drake, the South Pole explorer. He sent him to me for a present.”

“Yeah,” said the reporter. “Anyway, it’s a good story.”

The two young men jumped into their car. Mr. Popper and Captain Cook continued their walk, with quite a crowd following and asking questions. The crowd was getting so thick that, in order to escape, Mr. Popper led Captain Cook into a barbershop.

The man who kept the barbershop had, up to this time, been a very good friend of Mr. Popper’s.

I
T WAS VERY QUIET
in the barbershop. The barber was shaving an elderly gentleman.

Captain Cook found this spectacle very interesting, and in order to get a better view, he jumped up on the mirror ledge.

“Good night!” said the barber.

The gentleman in the barber’s chair, his face already white with lather, half-lifted his head to see what had happened.

“
Gook!
” said the penguin, flapping his flippers and reaching out his long beak toward the lather on the gentleman’s face.