The Red Chipmunk Mystery (10 page)

After a bit Mr. Scissors came back from the field with the long row of cutting blades he had taken from the mowing machine that stood there with two horses hitched to it.

“C’mon, boys,” he said and went very carefully up the ladder to the top of the wagon with the row of blades.

“Now, we ain’t got no shade here an’ the sun’s pretty hot,” Mr. Scissors said, as he turned the faucet in the can of water above the grindstone, “so you boys take it easy and I’ll try not to bear down too hard as you turn.”

Djuna and Buddy each took hold of a crank and started the slow, hard work of turning the heavy wheel while Mr. Scissors put an edge on the dull cutting knives. It took pretty skilful handling for Mr. Scissors to hold the long bar of knives and sharpen just one edge at a time; and the hot morning sun beating down on them didn’t help any.

“Some day,” Mr. Scissors said, when he had nearly finished, “when my ship comes in, I’m going to get me one of them new emery wheels to sharpen mowing machine blades. The wheel itself is made like a V, so you can just slip each blade in it an’ sharpen both sides at one time Goes quicker’n a Injun can skin a catfish.”

When Mr. Scissors had entirely finished, by touching up the blades with an oilstone, he took the cutting blades back across the field and awakened Mr. Doomont—who after his fit of anger was sound asleep under the mowing machine—and helped him put them back in the cutting bar. As they started towards Cliffton Valley again they could hear Mr. Doomont’s mowing machine whirring away in the field and Mr. Doomont was singing at the top of his voice.

“Funny people, them Frenchmen,” Mr. Scissors said, and he chuckled. “You know they’re great for eatin’ frogs’ legs. You boys ever eat any frogs’ legs?”

“Oh,
I
have,” Djuna said. “I’ve caught lots of them in a pond at Edenboro. Miss Annie Ellery and I like them very much.”

“So do I, Djuna,” Mr. Scissors said, and then he chuckled again and added, “Did I ever tell you about the big mess of frogs’ legs I got one time?”

“I don’t think you did, Mr. Scissors,” Djuna said, and Joan giggled.

“Well, it wasn’t around here,” Mr. Scissors said. “It was in another part of the country where the weather makes very sudden changes. One minute it will be hot and the sun’ll be shinin’ an’ the next minute it’ll be cloudy and, maybe, snowin’.”

“
Jeepers!
I didn’t know there was any place like that,” Buddy said.

“Oh,
yes
. Yes! Yes!
Yes!
” Mr. Scissors said. “Well, this day I was kinda fancyin’ the idea of a nice mess of frogs’ legs for supper; so along about dusk as I went by a pond that had a lot of lily pads on it I tied up Old Blade and got out my frog net.

“’Twasn’t but a short way from the road, but as I was walkin’ down across the field I could feel somethin’ in the air that told me we was a-goin’ to have a sudden change of weather.

“Well, I got right down to the edge of the pond and I could see maybe fifty or sixty nice big fat frogs sittin’ on the lily pads. So, I stole up very careful-like, and raised my net very careful, too, but all the frogs saw me a’ all fifty or sixty of them rose up on their hind legs and did a high dive off the lily pads into the water.”

“Didn’t you get
any
, Mr. Scissors?” Djuna asked, and he remembered how many times he had been disappointed when he had missed a frog.

“Oh,
yes
. Yes! Yes!
Yes!
” Mr. Scissors said. “I got
all
of them! Just as the frogs dived into the water the weather changed real quick, like it did sometimes in that part of the country. You see just in that tenth of a second while the frogs dived off the lily pads and before they got all the way into the water the temperature went down to zero and the pond froze solid. The half of the frogs that was in the water just froze there with all their hind legs stickin’ up in the air. All I had to do was walk out on the ice and cut ’em off. Made me a fine supper.”

Mr. Scissors stopped to chuckle, and Joan began to giggle again.

“
Jiminy crimps!
” Djuna and Buddy said together. “Is there really a country like that, Mr. Scissors?”

“We-e-e-ll, what do
you
think?” Mr. Scissors asked as he turned Old Blade into the driveway of a farmhouse. Djuna and Buddy didn’t know
what
to think and before they could ask him any more questions they had to get to work turning the grindstone again.

After they left that farmhouse Mr. Scissors got some knives, or some scissors, or something to sharpen in almost every farmhouse they passed all the way to Cliffton Valley. Around one o’clock they pulled up in the shade by a spring that was near the road, and ate all of the delicious egg-salad sandwiches Joan had fixed that morning, and finished up all of the milk in the thermos jug.

When they had finished, Mr. Scissors got out his accordion and played “Shall We Gather by the River” while Joan sang it all by herself. Heat was rising off the dusty road in waves, and even the birds in the trees seemed to droop before she began to sing. But before she had finished the second verse some of the birds began to sing with her, and it seemed so cool nobody minded the heat.

“
Jeepers
, but she has a nice voice!” Buddy whispered to Djuna when she had finished.

“It’s the nicest voice I
ever
heard!” Djuna whispered back. Joan must have heard them because she began to blush furiously, and Mr. Scissors chuckled so hard he shook the whole front of the wagon, and although he had said he would play only one song after luncheon he began to play “Pop! Goes the Weasel” and Joan sang it very fast to hide her confusion.

About four o’clock the little town of Cliffton Valley came into sight across the fields. Mr. Scissors told Djuna, who was driving, to pull into a shady spot opposite the road that ran through the village. When he got down on the ground and started to take Old Blade out of the wagon shafts Djuna said, “Say, Mr. Scissors, I can help with that. I’ve helped Mr. Pindler in Edenboro harness and unharness his horse a lot of times.”

“Okay!” Mr. Scissors said. “I’ll just loosen the check-rein so he can graze, and you can do the rest.”

Djuna climbed down and unfastened the tugs and hold-back straps and traces the way Mr. Pindler had taught him. Then he led Old Blade out of the shafts while Mr. Scissors held them.

“I knew you boys would more than earn your bed and board if you came with me,” Mr. Scissors said with his eyes twinkling. “Now, I tell you what you do, Djuna. Fetch a part of a bucket of water from that little stream over there and give Blade a drink while we’re gone. Then keep an eye on him so he don’t wander out into the road and away.

“Buddy, you come with me while I ring a few door bells in the village. I only get small stuff to sharpen here, so it’s easier to collect it and do it all at one time. Then I don’t have to climb up and down the ladder so many times. Just bring one of them collapsible buckets with you to carry the stuff in, Buddy.”

“Yes, sir,” Buddy said and his red head disappeared into the wagon.

“And, Joan,” Mr. Scissors went on, “I want you to take that pair of moccasins of yours that need re-soling up to Mike Tromboni’s and leave ’em to be re-soled. Tell him we’ll pick ’em up on our way back. And if he ain’t already fixed Old Blade’s bridle tell him I want it for sure on our way back. Tell him Old Blade acts kind of unhappy without it.”

“Yes, Granpa,” Joan said, and Mr. Scissors took a thoughtful look around to see if he had forgotten about anything.

“We’ll be back in a little while, Djuna. Just keep an eye on things, and mind Old Blade,” Mr. Scissors finished.

When they had all gone, Djuna sat down on the grassy bank in the shade and Champ sat down beside him. He sat there for about five minutes admiring Mr. Scissors’ wagon and then he remembered about the water for Old Blade. He scooped a half-bucketful from the little stream that ran through a culvert under the road and wound down through the fields to the Herring River. After Old Blade had drunk all he wanted he snorted a couple of times to let Djuna know he’d had enough, and Djuna went back and sat down again. As he sat down this time the wallet in his hip pocket jabbed into him and reminded him how lucky he had been to meet Buddy and get it back. After that he thought that he had also been very lucky when he
lost
the wallet, because if he hadn’t lost it he wouldn’t ever have tried to hitch-hike to Riverton. And if he hadn’t tried to hitch-hike to Riverton he
never
would have met Joan and Mr. Scissors and Old Blade.

By the time he had finished going over the events of the past couple of days in his mind he was pretty tired, so he stretched out on the bank with his head on his arm so that he could keep a keen eye on Old Blade. He didn’t even remember falling asleep.

He was awakened a few minutes later by Champ’s furious barking. He sat up quickly and looked around to be sure that Old Blade was all right, and then he saw what Champ had been barking at. He was barking at two men who had got out of a black sedan that was parked along the edge of the road and were now standing beside Old Blade.

Both of the men were talking angrily in low voices, and all of their anger seemed to be directed at Old Blade as though he had done something they didn’t like. And Old Blade was looking down his nose at them as though he didn’t like them any better than they liked him.

Then the awful thought came to Djuna that while he had been asleep Old Blade had wandered out into the road and they had grazed him with their car, or they had been forced to put on their brakes very hard to keep from hitting him and had hit their own heads on their windshield. He scrambled to his feet and shouted, “I’m sorry if he got in your way.”

The two men turned around quickly when they heard Djuna’s voice, and when Djuna saw their faces he almost slipped back into the grass again.

He recognised them as the two pasty-faced men who had almost run over him and Champ outside of Thompsonville two days before, when they went tearing by in the same black sedan that was now standing by the road!

Djuna felt a little angry himself as he recognised them, because he knew that if they had been driving as recklessly as they had when they passed him they wouldn’t even have tried to miss Old Blade if he was in the way. One of the men was tall and thin and had a very mean face, and the other one was short and round and had eyes that were set so close together he looked cross-eyed. The tall one snarled something out of the corner of his mouth at the short one and they both started towards Djuna.

“What’s that you said, buddy?” the tall one said as they came up to Djuna. But he wasn’t looking at Djuna. His eyes were roving over the wagon and the things on top of the wagon.

“I just said I was sorry if Old Blade got in your way,” Djuna said. “I was supposed to watch him and see that he didn’t wander out into the road, but I guess I fell asleep.”

“No, he didn’t get in our way,” the short one said. “Where’s the guy that owns this outfit?”

“He’s just over in Cliffton Valley there,” Djuna said, pointing. “He’s getting things to sharpen. He’ll be back in a little bit.”

“He will, eh?” the tall one said. “He’s the guy they call Mr. Scissors?”

“Yes, sir,” Djuna said and added eagerly, “Did you have something you want sharpened? I’ll—–”

“
Yeah!
” the tall one said. “We got a couple a things we want sharpened and I hope no one gets stuck with ’em after they’re sharpened. Eh, Louie?” He laughed, and the short one bobbed his head back and forth. “Quite an outfit you got here,” he went on, as he climbed up on the front seat and looked into the wagon. He opened the door of the little ice-box, moved a couple of things around to search it, and closed it again. He looked down at the short one and snarled, “Don’t stand there like a dumb dodo! Get up on top an’ go through everything.”

The short one, moving very swiftly, climbed up on the front seat and stuck his head over the railing on the top of the wagon. He jumped quickly and caught hold of the iron base of the grindstone and pulled himself over the railing with his legs kicking out behind, before Djuna realised what he was going to do. While he did it the tall one had lifted one of the mess boxes on to the front seat and had opened it and was going through it just as swiftly. Djuna stared at them in utter amazement, and when he opened his lips to protest he was so upset that he couldn’t speak. Finally, he found his voice.

“
Say!
” he said. “You
can’t
do that. Mr. Scissors left me to watch things until he came back and—–”

“Hey, Louie!” the tall one shouted, interrupting Djuna, “keep an eye peeled down the road there. We’ve got to lam, if any one shows.”

“Right!” Louie shouted back, and Djuna could see him throwing Mr. Scissors’ tools around on top of the wagon.

“If you don’t get away from here I’ll go for the police!” Djuna shouted, and he moved closer to the wagon. The tall one lifted his head as he dumped a box of dry cereal on the ground and as he looked at Djuna his eyes were just like the eyes of a snake.

“You keep your little trap shut or I’ll beat your brains out!” he snarled. He threw the empty box at Djuna’s head and stepped over the front seat into the wagon.

Djuna stood there helplessly, quivering with rage as he watched them search every nook and cranny of Mr. Scissors’ wagon with a speed and thoroughness that amazed him. After a few minutes, the short one dropped off the top of the wagon and said, “Nuttin’ up there.” The tall one didn’t answer. He went on emptying the drawers of Joan’s little bureau on the floor of the wagon and then walking on the things after he had dumped them.

When the inside of the wagon looked as though a hurricane had struck it they searched under the wagon, and pulled all of the things out from under the front seat and searched there, too.

Finally, they stopped, and stood side by side in silent fury. Then they snarled at each other for a few minutes with angry voices that were so low-pitched that Djuna could catch only a word or two of what they were saying. But when the tall one turned to stare at Djuna and Djuna saw the evil that was written in his eyes he was really frightened.