Dotty was smiling when she entered our parlor that evening just a few minutes after seven.
“We will study for half an hour,” Tom said, “and then I’ll read to you from Black Beauty for half an hour.”
“Pa told me,” she said and looked as if she’d just been given every present under a Christmas tree. “I’m ready to start learning.”
Tom had got my old set of blocks with the alphabet on them from our attic and had put them on the floor. He told Dotty to sit down opposite him on the floor with the blocks between them. He explained to her each of the blocks had a different letter of the alphabet on it.
“We will start with the first letter of the alphabet,” he said as he picked up the block with an A on it. “This is a vowel and called an A like in the word hay. It has other sounds when used in other words. We’ll study them later. Look at the letter close, and say out loud five times, ‘This is an A.’”
Then Tom pushed a ruled notebook over to Dotty and handed her a pencil.
“Now print the letter A in the notebook just like it is on the block ten times,” he said.
Tom continued teaching Dotty the alphabet this way until the half hour was up. By that time she had memorized A through G. She could pronounce them, write them in the notebook, and when Tom mixed up all the blocks on the floor, pick them out in alphabetical order. Tom was right. Dotty had a good mind.
Then Tom read Black Beauty to Dotty for half an hour, during which she sat spellbound with her eyes closed.
The next morning Dotty came to our house at ten o’clock, right after Tom and I had finished our Saturday chores. Tom was teaching Dotty more letters when the front door bell rang. I opened the door. There stood Sammy Leeds. He saw Dotty and Tom before I could step onto our front porch and shut the door. I could see Basil, Parley Benson, and Danny Forester standing on the front lawn.
“We’re going down to the blacksmith shop to watch Mr. Huddle,” Sammy said. “You and Tom want to come along?”
“We can’t go now,” I said. “Tom is helping Dotty.”
I knew from the triumphant look on Sammy’s face that I’d said the wrong thing.
Tom continued teaching Dotty the alphabet until the hour was up, and then he read Black Beauty to her for more than an hour until he’d finished it, just before our lunchtime.
“Starting Monday I’ll begin reading you the story of Cinderella,” he promised. “You can come and get Dusty right after lunch and have him all afternoon.”
After lunch Tom and I went to the Smiths’ vacant lot, where the kids were playing one-o-cat. The game stopped immediately as they crowded around us.
“Surprised to see you here, Tom,” Sammy said slyly. “We didn’t think we’d see much of you anymore, now that you’ve started playing with girls.”
Jimmie Peterson hitched up his britches, which were one size too big for him. “Only sissies play with girls,” he said.
If Jimmie hadn’t been younger and smaller than Tom, he would have got a punch on the nose for saying it. But I could tell from the looks on the other kids’ faces, they were all thinking the same thing.
“I don’t play with girls,” Tom said.
“I don’t know what else you would call it,” Sammy said. “Britches Dotty comes to your house every night and even on Saturdays. And you let her ride Dusty.”
Parley Benson pushed his coon-skin cap up on his head. “Next thing we know Tom will be playing jacks and hopscotch with Britches Dotty and might even start playing with dolls instead of with us boys.”
I figured for sure that Tom would challenge Parley to a fight, but he didn’t.
“You are one kid in town I haven’t whipped yet,” he said, “but I’ll get around to it one of these days. You fellows have got a right to be suspicious. But when I tell you what happened you’ll know that T.D. Fitzgerald isn’t a sissy. You haven’t seen me riding my new bike for a week, have you?”
The kids all shook their heads. Then Tom explained to them about Papa and Mamma taking away his bike and what he had to do to get it back.
Danny Forester was so shocked his eyelid that usually remained half shut suddenly flipped open. “You might as well kiss your bike good-bye,” he said.
“You said it,” Sammy said. “Teaching that dumb-dumb to read and write is impossible.”
Even Parley now seemed sympathetic. “And getting Britches Dotty to wear dresses is even more impossible,” he said.
“I know it sounds impossible,” Tom said, “but with my great brain, I can do it. I’ll have my bike back in no time.”
* * *
Monday morning Mr. Standish started giving the first graders their lesson. “I don’t suppose, Dotty,” he said as if he knew it was hopeless, “that you’ve changed your mind about getting an education.”
Dotty stood up. She looked proud. “I can go to the blackboard and write the letters of the alphabet up to the letter O,” she said.
Mr. Standish just stood with his mouth open as Dotty did it.
Tom had told me that he thought by reading the story of Cinderella to Dotty, it would make her want to dress and act like a girl, but it didn’t. He looked so dejected a week later during supper that Mamma couldn’t help but notice.
“What is bothering you, Tom D.?” she asked.
“I’ve got Dotty getting an education so fast that Mr. Standish might be able to promote her into the third grade next year,” Tom said. “But even my great brain can’t figure out a way to make her want to wear dresses and act like a girl.”
I was dumbfounded. It was the first time I’d ever heard my brother admit his great brain didn’t know everything.
“Maybe you need a woman’s help,” Mamma said.
“I could sure use it,” Tom said.
* * *
I was surprised the next evening after supper when Mamma started using her sewing machine. She had never used it before at night. She came into the parlor, where Tom was teaching Dotty how to spell and pronounce words phonetically.
“I wonder if I could borrow Dotty for a few moments,” Mamma said. ‘I’m making a dress and some things for a girl her size and need to do some measuring.”
Dotty went into the dining room with Mamma. It seemed to me that Mamma was doing a lot of measuring and writing down the size of Dotty’s waist and everything else. She even asked Dotty the size of the cowboy boots she was wearing.
Mamma spent all day Thursday and Friday at her sewing machine, leaving all the housework and cooking to Aunt Bertha. She was still at it on Saturday morning when Dotty came for her lessons with Tom.
“I’m sorry, Dotty,” Mamma said as she came into the parlor, “but I want you to do me a favor and try on a dress and some things for me.”
I could tell by this time that Dotty would have jumped off the Adenville Bank building if Mamma had asked her. She followed Mamma into her bedroom. Mamma told us when Papa came home for lunch what had happened in the bedroom. First she told Dotty to strip.
“I ain’t never taken my clothes off in front of anybody but my ma,” Dotty protested.
“Haven’t is the proper word and not ain’t,” Mamma said. “Just pretend I am your mother.”
Dotty took off her Levi britches, boy’s shirt, cowboy boots, and all the rest of her clothes. Then Mamma helped her get dressed with the things she’d made, and a pair of shoes, and a few other things Mamma had bought at the Z.C.M.I. store. A pretty gingham dress was the last thing Mamma helped Dotty put on. Then Mamma stood Dotty in front of the full-length mirror on her vanity.
“Look at yourself, Dotty,” she said. “That is the real you.”
Dotty stared at her reflection in the mirror with a stunned expression. “I look almost pretty,” she said in a whisper.
“You are a girl, my dear, and girls are meant to look pretty,” Mamma said.
Dotty patted the dress gently with her hands. “I never knew dresses could be so pretty,” she said.
“Everything you have on and several other
dresses and pretty things I have made are all for you,” Mamma said. “You are the girl I was talking about.”
Then Dotty began to cry. She threw her arms around Mamma. “I wish I could take them, but I can’t.”
“It isn’t charity,” Mamma said, patting Dotty on the head. “There is much more happiness in giving than in receiving. You will make me very happy by taking them. And happier still if you’ll let me be a sort of foster mother to you. Somebody you can come and talk to about things you don’t want to talk about to your father. Someone who will love you as your dear mother must have loved you.”
“I can’t on account of my pa,” Dotty sobbed. “He never really loved me because I was a girl, and he wanted a son. That’s why I always tried to be as much like a boy as I could. Pa let me get an education after Tom told him off good. But—”
“My son told your father off?” Mamma asked.
“He sure did,” Dotty said. “Pa was so upset about it when he came home from work that day, he couldn’t eat his supper.”
“Well,” Mamma said, “Tom D. isn’t the only one who told off your father. I had quite a chat with him the other day. And you are wrong about him not loving you. He loves you very much.”
When Mamma returned to the parlor with Dotty, my eyeballs must have popped six inches out of their sockets and then back again. Tom was plenty surprised too.
“You’re pretty,” he said sort of stunned like. “Just like Cinderella. You sure aren’t Britches Dotty anymore.”
Dotty smiled shyly. “Thanks, Tom.”
“Now to the corral,” Mamma said, “and I’ll prove to you, Dotty, how much your father really loves you.”
I couldn’t figure out why Mamma had got Dotty all dressed up like a girl to take her to our corral until we reached the gate. There in the corral was a strange sorrel mare, who had a white star on her forehead. She had on a saddle and bridle. She didn’t prick up her ears like a mare would upon seeing people. She just stood there sort of listless.
“Her name is Star,” Mamma said to Dotty. “I met Mr. and Mrs. Smedley in town a few days ago. They own a big ranch about five miles from town. The mare belonged to their daughter, Joan, who died of pneumonia just before Christmas. Mr. Smedley told me how much Star missed her mistress. He said the mare would hardly eat and was pining away from a broken heart. I told him I knew a girl who loved horses very, very much. A girl who needed the mare as much as the mare needed somebody to love.”
Dotty looked at Mamma with her big blue eyes full of wonder and hope. “You mean that mare is for me?” she asked breathlessly.
“Maybe,” Mamma said. “A ranch hand from the Bar S brought the mare into town yesterday. I had him put Star in the livery stable and not deliver her until a few moments ago.”
“You said maybe,” Dotty said. The hope left her eyes.
“There are three conditions,” Mamma said. “First, I promised Mr. and Mrs. Smedley the mare would have a good home. Right at this moment Mr. Jamison, the carpenter, is putting shingles on that old barn in back of the adobe house and doing any other repairs that might be needed. You and the boys can clean out the barn and make it into a nice stable for Star. Mr. Harmon at the Z.C.M.I. store is sending over a nosebag, a brush, and a curry comb. Mr. Brown of the Hay, Grain, and Feed Store is sending over a bag of oats. Several people who own livestock are sending over bales of hay. That takes care of the first condition. Star will have a good home.”
“But Pa won’t take charity,” Dotty protested.
“During my talk with your father, I convinced him there is a big difference between outright charity and just being neighborly,” Mamma said. “Now for the second condition. Star will need loving care until she becomes as fond of you as she was of Joan.”
“I promise to love her and take good care of her,” Dotty said quickly, as the look of hope returned to her blue eyes.
“And now for the last condition,” Mamma said. “You must accept the wardrobe I’ve prepared for you and dress and act like a girl and make friends with girls your age in town.”
“Pa don’t want me to dress and act like a girl,” she sobbed.
“Your father has changed his mind about that,” Mamma said. “And you see that saddle on Star? It is a present from your father. He is going to pay Mr. Stout a little each month for it.”
Dotty threw her arms around Mamma’s neck and kissed her.
Boy, it was sure getting mushy around there, but the worst was still to come.
“I know you are dying to ride Star,” Mamma said. “I think we can make allowances for your old clothes when you are riding Star. So off you go and change.”
Then that worst part of the mushy business came. Dotty looked at Tom and walked over to him. And I’ll be a four-legged frog if she didn’t kiss him right on the lips.
Poor old T.D.’s ears lit up like red-hot coals in a fireplace. The shock petrified his great brain. He just stood there with a dummy’s expression on his face as Mamma and Dotty walked toward our house. I waited for Tom to come out of his shock, and when he didn’t, I grabbed him by the shoulders and began shaking him.
“Did it hurt that much?” I asked.
I knew I would have probably dropped dead if a girl had kissed me.
Tom came out of it sudden-like. “Don’t be silly,” he said. “Dotty was just showing her appreciation for all my great brain did for her.”
“Boy!” I said. “I hope I never do anything that makes a girl appreciate it that much. If the fellows knew you’d been kissed by a girl, they would never speak to you again.”
“I’m sure not going to tell them, and neither are you,” Tom said.
My little brain saw a golden opportunity to get even with Tom for all the times he’d swindled me.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I said casually. “I think the fellows ought to know you’ve been kissed by a girl.”
Tom knew I had him over a barrel. “All right, J.D.,” he said. “How much not to tell?”
“How about doing all my chores for a week?” I asked.
“It’s a deal.” Tom answered so quickly I knew I hadn’t asked for enough.
“And how about letting me use your bike for a whole week?” I asked.
“All right,” Tom said.
Boy, I was enjoying this so much I couldn’t stop. “And we just might add ten cents in cash before we seal the bargain,” I said.
“Ten cents it is,” Tom said. “But before we shake hands on the deal, I just want you to know that it is going to break Papa’s and Mamma’s hearts when I tell them they have a son who is a blackmailer. And because I don’t want to associate with blackmailers, I’m giving you the silent treatment from now on.”
I sure didn’t want Papa and Mamma to think they had raised a blackmailer, and I knew from past experience that I’d rather be dead than have Tom give me the silent treatment.
“Forget the whole deal,” I said. “My word of honor I won’t tell.”
“Then you admit it was a shameful thing to try and blackmail your own brother?” Tom asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“So shameful you should be punished for it?” Tom asked.
“I guess so,” I said.
“Because you’re my brother, and I love you, I’m going to let you off easy,” Tom said. “Give me your word of honor that you’ll never tell the fellows Dotty kissed me, and do all my chores for a week, and we’ll call it even.”
“Word of honor,” I said, crossing my heart.
* * *
That evening after supper while Mamma and Aunt Bertha were doing the dishes, Tom and I were sitting on the floor in the parlor. Papa was smoking his pipe.
“You have done a wonderful thing for Dotty Blake,” Papa said to Tom.
“Thanks, Papa,” Tom said. Then he winked at me as he kept his face turned away from Papa. “You know, J.D., it is just too bad I won’t be tutoring Dotty anymore. Without my help Mr. Standish might not let her skip the second grade next year.”
“What’s this?” Papa asked as he removed his pipe from his mouth. “Of course, you will continue to help the girl.”
Tom turned around and faced Papa. “Why should I?” he asked. “I kept my part of the bargain with you and Mamma, and I have my bike back.”
“You will continue to help Dotty, and that is final,” Papa said.
Tom shrugged. “All right, Papa, but you’ll have to fix it up with Mamma when the trouble starts. You and Mamma can expect me to get into a fight with some kid almost every day. And I don’t want to be punished for something that is your fault.”
“And just why should you be getting into a fight every day?” Papa asked.
Tom stood up and folded his arms on his chest. “When you were my age, you didn’t have anything to do with girls, did you?”
“Well, no,” Papa answered.
“And when you were my age, any other boy who had anything to do with girls was called a sissy, wasn’t he?” Tom asked.
“You could say that,” Papa agreed.
“And if any boy had called you a sissy, you would have fought him. Right, Papa?”
Papa squirmed in his chair. “I suppose I would have,” he said.
“Well, what do you think is going to happen to me if I go on seeing Dotty and helping her?” Tom asked. “Every kid in town is going to start making fun of me and calling me a sissy. That means I’ll be getting into a fight almost every day. And I might even have to beat up a few kids smaller than me, just to make them stop calling me a sissy.”
“But you were helping Dotty before and didn’t get into any fights over it,” Papa said.
“Only because I explained to the other kids it was the only way I could get back my bike,” Tom said. “Now I’ve got my bike back. There is no excuse for me helping Dotty.”
Papa rubbed the stem of his pipe on his teeth. “There must be some way,” he said. “Your mother and I want to help that girl all we can.”
“There is a way, all right,” Tom said. “If the kids thought I was getting paid for tutoring Dotty, they would understand—because they all know I only use my great brain to make money or to get something. But if I tell them I’m getting paid when I’m not getting paid, that would be lying. And lying is worse than fighting.”
More Adventures of the Great Brain Page 5