The Clockwork Twin (11 page)

They both started explaining at once, how the boy had refused his breakfast, and how they always fed him well, and how good they were to him.

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Dr. Murdock impatiently. “I know all about that. I heard him yelling this morning when I stopped in to see old Mrs. Scrunch's rheumatism. Guess you licked him a little too hard, eh?”

Then he bent down and put his ear to Bertram's chest to listen to his heart.

“Doctor,” whispered Ronald. “I want to tell you something. Send them away.”

Dr. Murdock started violently when he heard this whisper coming out of a chest where a heart should have been beating. But like most doctors, he was never very much surprised at anything he found inside his patients, and when he had recovered his glasses, which had fallen off when he jumped, he sent Adoniram's uncle and aunt away. They didn't want to go very much, but he made them.

“Turn me over, doctor,” said Ronald, and with a good deal of heaving and grunting, and remarks about what a husky boy Adoniram was, to be sure, the doctor turned him on his face. And Ronald opened the door and came out.

Well, this did surprise Dr. Murdock, for he had never found a rooster in any of his patients before. “Upon my soul!” he exclaimed. “A rooster!”

“Yes, sir,” said Ronald. And then he told the doctor the whole story.

“Humph,” said the doctor when he had finished. “Well, there's one thing I'll say: you're the easiest case to cure I ever had.” And he took hold of the key and wound Bertram up. “How long do you plan to stay here?”

“I don't know,” said Ronald. “I expect I could go back most any time now. I don't suppose they'll come for Adoniram again, do you? After this?”

“I shouldn't think so,” said Dr. Murdock. “I should think they'd be glad to have this Mr. Bean adopt him. But I don't know. They're mean people. I think if you could stay a few more days, so they will realize thoroughly that there's no more work to be got out of you—and maybe you'll think up some other ways of being disagreeable. They've mistreated that boy shamefully. They deserve any unpleasantness you can make for them. And, of course, I'll tell them that I have to see you every day for a few days—so I can come over and keep Bertram, here, wound up, you see?”

So then Ronald got back into the control room and showed Dr. Murdock a few of the things Bertram could do, and then the doctor went up to the house.

Adoniram's aunt and uncle were pretty mad at having to pay the doctor, especially as he said the boy oughtn't to do any work for a while. They tried to make Bertram do some more hoeing that afternoon, but he just refused and went off and took a walk. The next day was about the same, and in the afternoon Dr. Murdock came and wound Bertram up. And that evening Adoniram's uncle and aunt came down to the barn.

They came very quietly, an hour after Bertram had gone to bed, but Ronald heard them coming. Roosters have small ears, but they don't miss much. Bertram was standing by the window again, but Ronald had him lie down quickly, and Bertram's adjustable eyelids clicked shut. And when Adoniram's aunt bent over to look at him, Ronald made sleeping sounds.

“Psst!” said Adoniram's aunt, and Adoniram's uncle rushed in with a lantern and a clothes-line and quickly tied Bertram's arms tight to his sides while his wife knotted a towel over his mouth so he couldn't yell.

“And now,” said Adoniram's uncle, reaching for the whip, “get up on your feet, Adoniram. I've spanked you with hands and hairbrushes and basting spoons and I've licked you with shingles and carriage whips and dust mops and I've whaled you with straps and broom handles and yardsticks and old pieces of pipe. But after all that, you're just the same stubborn, good-for-nothing, lazy lummox you always were. So I'm going to give you the most everlasting high-powered father and mother of a lambasting you ever had in your life. And then I guess you'll do as you're told. Take off your coat.”

Now Bertram couldn't take his coat off when his hands were tied, and anyway Ronald knew that if he did, a lot of machinery would be visible. While he got Bertram to his feet he was wondering what to do. “I guess,” he said to himself, “that now is the time to take the doctor's advice and be kind of unpleasant.” So as Adoniram's uncle swung the whip back, Bertram just raised his arms, and the clothes line snapped like string and dropped to the floor.

“Look out!” yelled Adoniram's aunt, and ran for the door. Her husband dashed after her, and before Bertram could follow they had slammed the heavy barn door shut and wedged it tight with a piece of timber.

“There,” shouted Adoniram's uncle, “now we'll see who's master around here. You'll stay there until you're ready to do as you're told.” And they both laughed nastily.

But Bertram walked up to the door and drew back his fists and punched—right, left, right, left—and each time a fist went splintering right through the planks. When they were pretty well weakened, he put his shoulder against them and pushed, and then he was out in the open, walking slowly along after his two persecutors, who were scuttling off toward the house.

The front door was locked when he got to the house, but he just walked into it and it went down—bang! He heard a squeal of fright, and footsteps racing up the stairs. He followed them. Everything was quiet on the second floor. But all the doors were open except the one to the attic stairs. He kicked that down and went up the stairs—clump, clump, clump. And there, cowering behind a trunk, he found them.

He reached out one hand and caught Adoniram's uncle by the collar and pulled him out. Adoniram's uncle struggled and hit out, but he only hit Bertram on the nose and bruised his knuckles. He didn't even chip the paint. And Bertram caught him by the waist and swung him up and hung him by the coat collar on a big hook that was screwed into one of the rafters.

“Let me down,” roared Adoniram's uncle. “I was only whipping you for your own good, Adoniram. It hurt me worse than it did you.”

“I guess it did, at that,” said Bertram.

“Oh, don't hurt him,” begged Adoniram's aunt. “We'll promise not to whip you again. We'll do whatever you want us to.”

“We don't want to make you do anything you don't want to do,” said her husband. “We'll even let those Bean people adopt you, if you say so.”

Well, this was just what Ronald wanted them to say. But he thought he'd have a little more fun before he left. “I don't know,” he said doubtfully. “After all, you're my aunt and uncle. I expect probably I'd better stay here.”

“But we're
not
your aunt and uncle,” said Mrs. Smith. (I suppose we'd better call her that now, since she was really not Adoniram's aunt at all.) “We really haven't any claim on you at all, so if the Beans want you, for mercy's sake go live with them.”

Ronald was pretty puzzled at this. You can see why. He was Ronald, pretending to be Bertram, who was in turn pretending to be Adoniram. And now Adoniram was somebody else.

“Well, then,” he said, “who am I?”

“There was a flood six years ago, almost as bad as the one this spring,” said Mrs. Smith, “and you came floating down on a barn. We rescued you. You were too little to know where you came from, but you told us your name was Adoniram. You said you had another name, beginning with R, but you wouldn't ever tell us what it was. That's all we know.”

“But didn't you ever try to find my people?”

“How could we?” said Mrs. Smith. “We're too busy to go traipsing around the country looking for them. If they wanted you, why didn't they look for you themselves?”

“You wanted to keep me so I could work for you when I grew up, I guess.”

“Well, what if we did? We saved your life, didn't we? And a fine, grateful boy you turned out to be! Well, go your own way. We'll be glad to be rid of you.”

“Oh, stop talking,” groaned Mr. Smith, “and let me down. Let him go, Luella, and a good riddance.”

So Bertram lifted Mr. Smith down from the hook, and then they went downstairs and signed the papers that would let the Beans adopt Adoniram, and Bertram put them in his pocket and walked out of the house.

He went first to Dr. Murdock's and told him the whole story, and Dr. Murdock said he'd make inquiries and see if he could find out who Adoniram's parents really were. And then he wound up Bertram good and tight.

“You've got a long way to go,” he said, “and you'll have to get wound up several times on the road, unless you're lucky enough to get a lift all the way. So I'd advise you to appeal to a policeman when you find yourself running down. They'll wind you up without any nonsense and you can trust them. Good-by and good luck.”

Ronald had pretty good luck. He had gone barely half a mile when he came up to a car at the roadside. There was a man sitting on the running board.

“Hello, boy,” he said. “I don't suppose you know where I can find a jack around here, do you? I've got a flat tire, and no jack to lift the axle, and none of these cars that are going by will stop so I can borrow one.”

“I guess I can help you,” said Bertram. And he caught hold of the rear bumper and lifted the wheel clear of the ground. “I'll hold it while you get your spare tire on.”

The man stared. “Great Scott, boy!” he exclaimed. “You ought to be in a circus. You ain't human!”

“You're right, I'm not,” said Bertram. “But hurry. I can't hold this all day.”

So the man put the tire on, and in return gave Bertram a lift for about fifty miles.

After that, Bertram walked for a mile or so more, and then he heard a horn blowing continuously behind him, coming nearer, and a big truck passed him and then drew up at the side of the road. The horn kept on blowing, and the driver got out and began poking around under the hood. “Guess I can't fix it,” he said disconsolately as Bertram came up. “I'll have to let her blow. Don't dare shut it off altogether and drive without any horn at all.”

“If you'll give me a lift, I'll be your horn,” said Ronald, and he turned up the microphone and said: “Oo-hoo! Oo-hoooo!”

“Gosh,” said the truckman, “that's a trick and a half, that is. That's odd trick
and
rubber. Get aboard, boy. I'll take you anywhere this side of Albany.”

So Bertram got aboard. When the truckman wanted to pass anybody, he just said: “Horn,” and Ronald would blow. And in between whiles they talked. The truckman wanted to learn how to make the horn noise, because he said he was pretty good at imitations, but Ronald said he didn't really know how he did it himself. Then the truckman did some of his imitations, and one of them was an imitation of a rooster.

“I can do a rooster myself,” said Ronald, and he crowed.

“Pretty good,” said the truckman. “Not bad at all. But listen, try to make it more like this.”

Late in the afternoon Bertram got down from the truck, and he was within three miles of home.

He thanked the driver, and then he said: “There's just one thing. Do you still think your imitation of a rooster is better than mine?”

“Now listen, buddy,” said the man. “Your imitation is good, all right. But you need practice. I've been doing it for years. It stands to reason mine's better.”

“All right,” said Ronald. “Now watch.” He turned Bertram's back to the truckman, and then he stuck his head out of the little door and crowed. Then he shut the door and Bertram walked off up the hill road toward the Bean farm. But at the top of the hill he turned. The truck was still standing in the middle of the road, and seven cars were lined up behind it, blowing their horns to get by. But the truckman just sat motionless on his seat, staring after Bertram with his mouth open. And Ronald turned up the microphone and gave one last, trumpet-like crow, then waved his arm and went on over the brow of the hill.

And by and by the truckman shivered and threw in the clutch and drove on. But he never did any imitations again.