The Red Chipmunk Mystery (8 page)

He picked up a chisel, looked at it carefully and said to Buddy, “Now just pedal easy like. You ain’t in a race.”

He held the handle of the chisel in his right hand and rested the palm of his left hand upon the blade. Very carefully he lowered the edge of the chisel upon the whirling wheel at just the right angle. Then he bore down on the blade of the chisel with the palm of his left hand until the bright line of the dull cutting edge had disappeared. He repeated this quickly with each one of the half-dozen chisels he had beside him. Then, with the same care, and just as quickly, he ground both sides of the blades of the knives and hatchets.

“Now,” Mr. Scissors said, “just bring along the rest of these things, Djuna, and we’ll touch ’em up a little on the grindstone.”

They moved over to another part of the wagon top, where there was a small grindstone with a crank on each side that was bolted down. Fastened on top was a can of water with a tiny faucet in it to wet the stone. Mr. Scissors chuckled as he noticed the perspiration streaming down Buddy’s face and the way he was panting from pedalling the emery wheel.

“Each of you get on opposite sides of the stone and turn it towards me,” said Mr. Scissors. As the boys began to turn the heavy wheel Mr. Scissors opened the faucet in the can of water a trifle so that there was a steady trickle on the grindstone. He went through the same things he had done on the emery wheel, taking great care to keep the angle of the bevel on the chisels just right. Before he was through, both of the boys were puffing a little bit from turning the heavy stone.

“Well, we’re comin’ along pretty fast,” Mr. Scissors said as he turned off the faucet in the can of water and moved the stuff over on his work-bench. “You see, the edges of these tools are still in a pretty rough condition,” he went on; and the boys, looking carefully, saw that they were.

Mr. Scissors opened a long, metal box that stood on a shelf beside his work-bench and took out a whetstone. After he had placed the whetstone just the way he wanted it he very carefully rubbed up the edges of all the tolls on it until they each had a perfect cutting edge and he was satisfied with them.

“You have to be very, very careful with tools,” Mr. Scissors said, as he seemed to sense that both Djuna and Buddy were getting restless. “I always take a lot of care to be sure that their cutting edges are just the right shape to serve their different purposes. Lots of people try to give me things to grind that don’t need no grinding. All they need is a little rubbing on the whetstone to put ’em in shape.” He reached over and pulled into view a short piece of leather that was fastened to his work-bench. “Sometimes I even use a
strop
to put a special fine edge on a tool,” he said. “On razors especially. Tools are like money—if you take good care of them they’ll take good care of you.”

“What do you use all the files for, Mr. Scissors?” Djuna asked, pointing at a row of files stuck into different-sized holes cut in the back of the work-bench.

“Oh, for sharpenin’ saws and things like that,” said Mr. Scissors. “And that little anvil, there, I use to do repair work every once in a while. Farm machinery, or almost anything. I got a fine kit of tools in my box there. People ask me to fix the strangest things. One time a man asked me to—but,
say
! I’ve got to take this stuff back and we’ve got to be gettin’ on our way. While I’m gone you boys lash the ladder back under the wagon.”

“Shall we put the tarpaulin back on, too, Mr, Scissors?” Djuna asked.

“No. Just leave it where it is until to-night,” Mr. Scissors said as he went down the ladder.

“
Gee!
Did you
ever
see anything like this in your life before?” Buddy asked Djuna, when Mr. Scissors had gone, as he looked at the anvil and work-bench, the emery wheel that rode like a bicycle and the heavy grindstone, and all the different kinds of tools.

“I should say not!” Djuna said. “I bet there’s not anything like it any place else in the world.”

“I don’t expect there is,” Buddy said. “I guess we better get down and put the ladder away so we can be ready to go when Mr. Scissors comes back.”

After the boys had finished with the ladder Djuna rescued Champ from three children who were all trying to carry him in different directions at one time. He put him in the back of the wagon and Champ climbed under Joan’s bunk with a big sign of relief.

When Mr. Scissors came back he gave Old Blade a half-lump of sugar and snapped his over-check rein on the check-hook and climbed up on the front seat beside Joan and Buddy and Djuna. He reached back and took his accordion off the top of the ice-box and looked down at the circle of beaming faces around the wagon. “Now!” he said. “What’ll it be?”

He pumped the bellows and ran his fingers over the keys with a flourish as eight or ten children began to scream the names of different songs at the same time. They made such an awful din that Champ began to bark and Old Blade turned his head and raised his eyebrows.

“I don’t know what
any
of you are saying!” Mr. Scissors shouted, and
he
couldn’t hear what he was saying, so he began to play “The Mulberry Bush” and all the children began to march around in a circle and sing:

After that he played “Annie Laurie” and all the kids stood very silent while Joan and Mr. Scissors sang it. And some of the mothers who had gathered on the other side of the road to listen wiped their eyes with their aprons when it was over. So, to cheer them up again, Joan and Mr. Scissors sang “Polly-Wolly-Doodle” and Mr. Scissors put a lot of extra flourishes in it, his fingers skimming over the keys. Then, at a signal from Mr. Scissors, Joan sang a verse all by herself that went:

Then Mr. Scissors joined in the chorus and he waved his hand at the kids and most of them began to sing too, and the mothers across the road began to sing, and one farmer who had come wandering up from the barn tried to do a clog dance in the middle of the road and almost fell down.

Finally, when Mr. Scissors’ hands were so tired he could hardly play any more, he stopped the music for an instant to shout, “GIDDAP, BLADE!” Joan picked up the reins and began to manœuvre Old Blade around as Mr. Scissors started to play “Auld Lang Syne.” He played it sort of low while he and Joan sang it slowly and Old Blade started plodding down the dusty road with the refrain wafting back behind them. Some of the children began to cry and
all
of the mothers were wiping their eyes with their aprons as they waved good-bye to them. Djuna and Buddy had a funny lump in their throats, too, and Buddy was looking fierce so that nobody would notice the mist in his eyes.

They sang three verses of the wistful song and were just finishing the last chorus as Joan reined Old Blade on to the Frenchtown road. All the people in Dean’s Mills were standing in the road waving as they disappeared from sight, and Djuna was surprised as he looked at Mr. Scissors and saw that his eyes were wet.

“Drat that dust, anyhow!” Mr. Scissors said as he stopped playing and blew his nose loudly. “Always gits in my eyes!”

“Will you teach us some of those songs, Mr. Scissors?” Djuna asked, as he put the accordion away.

“Of course
we
will,” he answered. “Joan’s the real singer in the family.”

“Granpa! To hear you talk!” Joan said, and then she said to Djuna, “Would you like to drive?”

“
Jeepers!
Can I?”

“Certainly, you can,” Mr. Scissors said, and added with a chuckle, “if Old Blade starts to run away just jump off the wagon and run up in front of him and grab his bridle.”

After Djuna had driven for about a mile Mr. Scissors looked up at the sun high overhead and then looked at his big silver watch.

“Just pull over in the shade there, Djuna,” he said, “and we’ll have a bite to eat. Or we can go on further if you boys ain’t hungry yet,” he added, looking at them.

“Oh, no, don’t bother!” Buddy said quickly.

“Oh, no, don’t bother—
what
?” Mr. Scissors said as he chuckled.

“Going on any further,” Buddy said. “This looks like a very nice place to eat.”

Mr. Scissors got down and loosened Old Blade’s check-rein again so that he could nibble at the grass around him, while Joan got out the plate of sandwiches she had made and the thermos jug of milk.

When they had finished the sandwiches Mr. Scissors took another look at the sun and said they had better be getting along, as he wanted to get to Frenchtown before dark. On the way to Frenchtown he got several jobs to do and Buddy and Djuna took turns riding on the saddle of the emery wheel, and they turned the grindstone together.

It was hot work, and pretty hard, too, but they didn’t mind that because they had the fine feeling that they were earning their way to Farmholme.

Dusk was falling when Mr. Scissors finished up the work in Frenchtown and they drove away singing “Auld Lang Syne” again. They could just see the children and older people standing in the road as they turned on the main road towards Cliffton Village.

“We just go a little way out of town to a place where they let us collect firewood and camp,” Mr. Scissors said.

After they had driven about half a mile Mr. Scissors took Old Blade’s reins from Joan and guided the old horse on to a narrow little lane to the right. When they had creaked and rocked for about four hundred yards, Mr. Scissors pulled Old Blade into a tiny clearing in the lee of a high knoll. Although it was entirely dark except for the light of the moon hanging overhead and the light of the lantern Mr. Scissors had hung on the back of the wagon, Old Blade seemed to know exactly where he was, because he came to a weary halt before Mr. Scissors shouted, “Ho! Blade!”

“Now, Djuna,” Mr. Scissors said, “if you’ll just go back and get the lantern and bring it up here I’ll start up a fire to see by and to cook supper.”

“Do you want us to get some firewood, Mr. Scissors?” Djuna asked, when he brought the lantern and put it at Mr. Scissors’ feet.

“I should say not,” Mr. Scissors said. “I’ve got some shellbark hickory and some white ash and pine cones stored there under an overhangin’ rock at the foot of that knoll. You’ve got to be prepared ahead of time when you live the kind of gipsy life we live.”

He reached under the front seat and brought out three pieces of white pine about fifteen inches long and laid them across his knees before he took his hunting knife out of its sheath. “You boys ever make a fuzz stick?” he asked.

“I never even heard of one,” Djuna confessed.

Mr. Scissors selected one of the pieces of white pine and set to work with a speed that fascinated Buddy and Djuna.

“Well, here we go,” Mr. Scissors said, and he shaved a sliver almost the full length of the piece of pine, taking great care not to cut it off the stick. Then he cut another, and another, making them all very thin and feathery until he had almost the whole stick cut away so that it looked a little like a feather duster. When he had finished the third one Joan and Buddy and Djuna were all almost asleep from watching his knife fly back and forth with quick precision. They all sat up and laughed when a snore came from Champ in the back of the wagon. Mr. Scissors chuckled as he picked up the lantern and the three fuzz sticks and said, “C’mon, boys. Now you can give me a hand.”

He led them over to a spot near the base of the knoll where a short pole with a crotch in the top had been driven into the ground. Lying through the crotch was a long pole, with one end fastened to the ground by another crotch driven into the ground. Wired to the other end were a couple of crotched sticks upon which kettles or other cooking utensils could be hung. Mr. Scissors stuck the three fuzz sticks upside down under that end of the pole so that the shaved parts were leaning together.

“Now, boys,” he said as he gathered some small, dry branches and arranged them over and around the fuzz sticks, “if you’ll just bring me some of them short logs from under the stone we’ll have an Indian camp-fire in no time.”

Buddy and Djuna each brought an armful of wood from under the rock and Mr. Scissors selected about a dozen of them and laid them around the fuzz sticks like the spokes of a wheel. Over these he arranged some smaller sticks, pine cones and bark. Then he took one match from the end of his hunting knife, cupped it carefully in his hands after he had lit it, and touched off the soft pine of the fuzz sticks. Buddy and Djuna watched in rapt wonder as the fuzz sticks caught fire and the fire spread to the larger sticks around them.

“There we go, boys,” Mr. Scissors said with a merry voice. “The ends of the spokes will catch in a minute and we’ll just keep pushing them together as we add small sticks from time to time.”

“Is that a
real
Indian camp-fire, Mr. Scissors?” Buddy asked.

“Sure it is!” Mr. Scissors said, and he put his hand over his mouth and kept taking it away as he shouted. The knoll behind him acted as a sounding board as his voice carried out into the shadows and down the valley in a high-pitched, “
Woo! woo! woo! woo! WOO!
”

Champ woke up and stuck his head out of the back of the wagon to bark a couple of times, and Old Blade shook his harness so that it seemed to say, “All right, Sitting Bull, but what about some supper?”

After they had all stopped laughing Mr. Scissors said, “Now, boys, you get out the mess boxes for Joan and open ’em up while I take care of Old Blade and give him some supper. After you get the mess boxes open, take the lantern and the two buckets and fill ’em with water at the little spring you’ll find around on the other side of the knoll.”

“Gee! There’s
everything
around here,” Djuna said as he opened the trap in the back of the wagon and put the folding steps in place.

A half-hour later Joan banged on the bottom of a tin cup with a heavy spoon and shouted, “
Come and get it!
” Buddy and Djuna dumped the small wood they had been collecting beside the fire and Mr. Scissors hung up the last piece of Old Blade’s harness and they all lined up with their soup bowls. Joan dished them out an over-flowing bowl of vegetable soup from the steaming kettle hanging over the fire, and after they had devoured that they lined up again for a large plate of pork and beans. After they had finished they all sat back in tired contentment with the flickering light of the camp-fire playing across the table and making strange shadows in the darkness.