Rufus M.

by Eleanor Estes

  There was one thing that Rufus was really happy about. And that was that he had not seen Jolly Olga. He wasn’t scared of Jolly Olga, but who would want to see her on a day like this? Not Rufus! All the same he said to the biscuit boy just to make conversation, “Sorry you didn’t see Jolly Olga, the big lady,” and presto! Just as he said this, presto! There she was! Jolly Olga! Walking through the fog right toward him! Rufus stopped. He hoped she would not bump into him. He could just barely see her head, just the shadowy outline of it way up there in the fog.

  Rufus crowded as close as possible to the soft-shell-crab counter. Goodness, how big Jolly Olga looked in this fog! She was so big she took up all the space. How was Rufus going to get past her and go home? She stopped in front of the soft-shell-crab stand, and she stayed there, hemming him in. At last Rufus rang his bell. Jolly Olga or no, he had to go home.

  “Hey!” he yelled. He didn’t know whether to yell, “Hey, mister!” or “Hey, lady!” He just said, “Hey!”

  But the minute he yelled, Jolly Olga set her head to bobbing in her own inimitable manner and she bowed to Rufus and waved her hand. Jolly Olga never said anything. Just bobbed her head, shook hands, and appeared in unexpected places. That’s all she ever did. That’s what she did now, and then she disappeared in the fog. But Rufus saw the man inside. He was eating a soft-shell-crab sandwich.

  “A fake,” Rufus explained to his companion. “He eats. Who you like best, Jimmy or Jolly Olga?” he asked. “Jimmy,” he answered his own question, as he steered his bike down the slope under the archway with the wan lights overhead that spelled the Great White Way.

  The last thing he heard as he left the desolate amusement park was the faint music of the merry-go-round. “Good-bye, Jimmy,” he said, and he headed for home.

  “Don’t be scared,” he said to the cardboard boy. “It’s just one straight road home.”

  It’s true it was spooky and gloomy riding in this fog. Usually Rufus knew right where he was. When he smelled coffee, he knew he was passing the A & P. He recognized the odor of the steam from the Chinese laundry and the leathery smell from the shoemaker’s shop. But sometimes he really could not tell where he was and then he would take the postcard from the soldier named Al out of his pocket, hold it in his hand, and ride on, not quite so scared. Or at these times he would reach in his pocket for his empty Bull Durham tobacco pouch.

  “Here, fellow,” and his right hand gave the pouch to his left hand. “Put this in your pocket.” And he remembered the day the iceman gave it to him. “If you get scared, you can smell this tobacco,” he said to his cardboard friend.

  Gradually as he rode farther and farther away from Plum Beach, the music of the merry-go-round grew fainter and fainter. Then he didn’t hear it at all.

  Once the cardboard boy fell off. At first Rufus did not miss him, and when he did he wondered whether he should go back for him in all this fog. But, of course, he couldn’t leave him behind, so back he turned. Fortunately he didn’t have to go far before he found him. Rufus stopped and picked him up.

  “Why don’t you hang on?” he asked a little crossly. Then he settled the cardboard boy on the axle again, turned around, and steered for home.

  On he went through the fog.

  “Hope I don’t miss Pleasant Street,” said Rufus. And just then, plinkety-plink, plinkety-plink! Oh, the invisible piano player! Yes, there was only one music in the whole world that sounded like that to Rufus. He was glad to hear him play even though the invisible piano player was a fake, too. Because that meant he was right back at Pleasant Street and home was just around the corner.

  Rufus was cold and hungry and damp. “It’s lucky you have your rain clothes on,” he said to his companion. But if Rufus was glad to be nearing home, all the other Moffats would be gladder to have him there. They were standing on the little square porch, trying to pierce the fog with their eyes. Janey ran up and down the long green lawn.

  “Rufus!” she called every now and then. He might be a couple of doors away and not know where he was. He might wander off, she thought, and never be seen again. She thought of a sad, sad story she knew. This person was looking for that person. There was a fog or a blizzard. Nobody could see anything and these two people came within a dozen feet of each other and didn’t know it and passed on into the world, still searching . . .

  “Rufus!” she called again and again, so he would not pass right by his house and not know it. Then she listened. What was that? Ding-ding! Ding-ding!

  Rufus’s bike bell!

  “Rufus!” they all called. And as they yelled this time, the mist lifted a little and Rufus burst through the fog like a pony jumping through the paper hoop at the circus.

  “Where have you been in all this fog?” Mama demanded.

  “For a ride . . .” said Rufus.

  11

  Popcorn Partnership

  The people in the town said if they saw, much less ate, another popcorn ball they would pop themselves. Nevertheless they considered it their patriotic duty to buy and eat popcorn. Who started the popcorn craze in Cranbury? The Moffats. Rufus and Jane Moffat, to be exact.

  One day Rufus and Janey were sitting on the back fence and they were thinking how they could become a Victory Boy and a Victory Girl. To become one you had to earn money. Money given to you did not count. Not like war savings stamps where any money would do. To become a Victory Girl and a Victory Boy you must earn the money and give it to the War.

  Rufus thought about this. If you had an aunt or an uncle who said, “Here, Rufus, here’s fifty cents,” you could not use that fifty cents to become a Victory Boy. But if the aunt or uncle said, “Here, Rufus, here’s fifty cents for going to the store,” that was all right to put toward your Victory Boy fund because you had earned it.

  The most money Rufus had ever had he had found. That was the money in the ice. He didn’t know whether he had earned it or found it. Both, he figured. He had found it and then he had worked to get it out. So if he found some more that way he could use it for the Victory Boy fund. However, there was no ice on the ground right now. It was the middle of October and in school Columbus had only just discovered America.

  Jane racked her brain, too. In the Alger books the heroes earned more money than anyone else she knew about. Phil the fiddler! She didn’t have a fiddle. Tony the bootblack! Everybody in Cranbury blacked his own boots, even the oldest inhabitant.

  She thought about how other boys and girls were earning their victory buttons. Because once you were a Victory Girl you got a red button with V on it, and once you were a Victory Boy, a blue button. Some children were raking leaves, cleaning up backyards and cellars, and stacking the woodpiles. Jane and Rufus had already tried to do all of these things. But Cranbury was spotless. Everybody’s cellar and backyard glistened, due to the furious onslaught of hundreds of these half-sized odd-jobs men.

  Some children were going to get a fifty-cent piece for every “Excellent” they received on their report cards. In the Moffat family a hug or a kiss from Mama was what the children got for “Excellents.” This was pleasant but did not help toward becoming a Victory Boy or Girl. Nancy Stokes was one of those who was getting fifty cents for each “Excellent.” She offered to share her money with Jane because the two did their lessons together.

  “If you didn’t study with me, I probably wouldn’t study at all,” she argued. “And then I wouldn’t get one single ‘Excellent’ and no money, either.”

  Jane shook her head to this proposal.

  “Well, the physiology ‘Excellent,’ if I get it, is really all yours because you explained the medulla oblongata to me.”

  But Jane was firm. Nevertheless, she asked Rufus about this. He thought she could take half of the physiology money but that’s all. Jane still did not think so.

  “No,” she said. “But how are we going to earn the money?” Jane asked for the tenth time.

  “The best way to earn money is to sell things,” said Rufus. He was thinking of t
he men who came to the door selling things—the iceman and the baker, the scissors sharpener and the vegetable man. He thought of all the money jingling in their pockets. All they had to do was reach in and pull out a handful.

  “Yes,” Jane agreed, “but what can we sell?”

  “Peanuts,” suggested Rufus, for he was very fond of these.

  “No-o,” said Jane thoughtfully, “because we don’t have one of those things that whistle. But we could sell popcorn,” she said.

  So that’s what they did. That was the way Jane and Rufus’s popcorn business got started. And for some days it flourished. Jane did most of the popping. Some they rolled into popcorn balls and some they sold just hot and salted in paper bags. Mr. Buckle bought two bags the first week. He preferred the loose kind to the popcorn balls. For a while it looked as though popcorn was the very thing that all the residents of Cranbury had been waiting for, so fast did Rufus’s and Janey’s stock sell.

  Then it was that the news of how Jane and Rufus Moffat were earning their Victory money spread and then it was that the whole town became flooded with popcorn balls. All the children dropped their rakes and brooms and stopped trying for “Excellents” on their report cards. All popped corn and trudged the streets; up this one and down the next, ringing doorbells, and selling their popcorn balls. There was scarcely a house in Cranbury that did not have its bell rung at least a half dozen times a day by the popcorn vendors.

  Janey and Rufus began to have considerable difficulty in selling their popcorn. The Moffats were having to eat more and more of it themselves at the end of the day.

  “Don’t pop so much,” said Mama.

  One Saturday they had walked miles to sell their popcorn, way up to Shingle Hill, in fact. They knew of a certain house up there and it was so far from town they felt no other children would have tried it yet.

  “Of course no one would think to come way up here,” said Jane as they puffed up the hill.

  “Yes,” agreed Rufus, “we might sell the whole basket.”

  But when they got there and rang the bell, the door opened and an unmistakable odor of popcorn greeted them. The people in this house were popping corn themselves. So Rufus and Jane hurried away and down the hill without having sold so much as one single popcorn ball on the whole long trip.

  As they plodded wearily homeward, Jane said, “Now we ought to think of something else to sell. No one wants popcorn anymore.”

  “Uh-hum,” agreed Rufus.

  But everything they thought of was popcorn or popcorn balls or had to do with popcorn. “I know what!” said Rufus, all of a sudden. His head had seemed empty. Then all of a sudden this idea had popped into it. He told the idea to Jane. They stopped to talk about it excitedly.

  “What’s the thing makes people like Cracker Jacks?” he demanded.

  “The popcorn,” said Jane, “and the peanuts,” she added.

  “Two things. But what’s the real reason they like it?” he asked, and then answered his own question triumphantly. “Prizes!”

  “O-o-oh!” Jane danced up and down as the possibilities of this idea raced through her mind. “We could make the prizes,” she said.

  “Sure,” said Rufus.

  The two children hurried home. Jane made some flour-and-water paste, got the scissors and paper and paints, and went to work. She was going to make pretty pictures, paste them on squares of bright-colored paper, and put one of these in each bag of popcorn. Rufus sat there wondering what he could make for prizes. He could make whistles. Whistles were very popular prizes in Cracker Jack boxes but they took too long to make. Once he had gotten a prize in a box of Cracker Jacks and this prize was just a square piece of cardboard with the words. “The world’s your oyster,” written on it.

  “What does this mean?” he had asked Mama.

  “It’s your fortune,” Mama had said.

  Fortunes, that’s what you called cards like that. “Shall I write fortunes?” he asked Jane.

  She thought this was a wonderful idea. “Yes,” she said, “everybody loves to have their fortune told.”

  So Rufus wrote fortunes. He wrote ten of them and on each one of them he wrote, “The world is your oyster.”

  Jane studied them. She thought they should not all be alike. “People don’t all want the same fortune,” she said.

  So to each one Rufus added an extra fortune, such as “You’ll be rich,” “You’ll be famous,” “You’ll be a fireman,” “You’ll be an iceman,” and several others. Jane agreed that these were fine.

  Then they popped corn until they had filled every empty bowl and pot and pan. Naturally they needed plenty of popcorn. They were confident that the minute the news spread that a prize came with the popcorn these new packages would go like hotcakes.

  “Put only one in each bag,” she told Rufus. “It would be silly if someone got two fortunes, one saying ‘You’ll be a fireman’ and another saying ‘You’ll be an iceman.’ How would they know what to believe?”

  They then rolled a fortune into every popcorn ball. This was even better than Cracker Jacks, they thought.

  At last they had finished. They piled the bags into a basket and out they went, thinking this time they would come home with their pockets full of money. Where would they go first? Why not begin here on their own street? They went up on Mrs. Price’s porch and rang the bell. Unfortunately they were unable to get beyond the word popcorn. Mr. Price, who answered the bell, was kind, but no, he said, he and his wife had reached their full popcorn capacity. Jane and Rufus wanted to explain that this popcorn was different. It had fortunes and pictures—surprise popcorn. Mr. Price did not give them a chance. In fact, nobody gave them a chance. The moment Jane said “Popcorn,” the doors closed slowly but firmly.

  Jane and Rufus passed other children with buttery-looking bags.

  They’re not having any better luck, thought Jane. But goodness, what were they going to do with this superabundance they had popped for the day? “We’ll sell them, but how?” Jane asked desperately.

  By now they had reached Green and their luck was not improving one bit. What should they do? Even the Moffats would have a hard time eating up all this popcorn. Nevertheless, Jane and Rufus were about to go home, for they heard the five o’clock whistle blow. Lights were beginning to come on in people’s houses and in the store windows.

  “If people only knew we had fortunes in our popcorn,” mourned Jane.

  First they stopped at the drinking trough opposite the Town Hall for a drink of water. In front of the Town Hall there was a big sign saying, “Reelect Harvey Rollins for Town Selectman!” But Rufus and Jane paid no attention to that and were just about to leave for home when the big doors of the Town Hall swung open and lights streamed out into the street. Shouts, laughter, and talking burst upon their ears and then, presto, hundreds of men began to pour out of the Town Hall. It was a Town Meeting to hear all about Harvey Rollins.

  “Oh, come on! Come on!” shouted Rufus to Jane. “All this many people haven’t had any popcorn today.”

  He and Jane ran across the street. The men filed by, talking excitedly to one another. Some shouted angrily when they thought their companions disagreed.

  “Look at the new sewers he built!” they exclaimed.

  “And the new school!” added others.

  But Rufus and Jane yelled above the men’s voices.

  “Buy some popcorn, mister! It’s got prizes!”

  First one man and then another did stop, and some bought popcorn balls and some bought loose popcorn. But in every case when they found their fortunes and read them aloud, they burst into loud guffaws. And many went home to dinner and their families in better humor than when they had left the Town Hall.

  The pile of popcorn dwindled. Jane’s voice became hoarse and Rufus’s was getting shrill with excitement. The last man to leave the meeting was Mr. Buckle, the oldest inhabitant. Jane and Rufus had just one package left. “Let’s give it to Mr. Buckle,” said Jane.

  And
Mr. Buckle seemed delighted to have this popcorn, especially when he learned that there was a fortune or a picture inside. He opened his package with trembling fingers and felt around for his prize.

  “You read this,” he said to Jane when he found it.

  “‘The world is your oyster. You will be a fireman.’”

  “Fine! Fine!” said the oldest inhabitant. “Just what I’ve always wanted to be.” And he shuffled up the street eating his popcorn.

  But Rufus and Jane sat down on the bench and counted their money. Now they had enough for their Victory buttons. And they went home tired and happy and hungry for their supper of baked beans—Rufus’s beans.

  12

  A Bona Fide Ventriloquist

  “Watch me!” said Rufus, as he ran past the oldest inhabitant, and he stuck a knife right into himself up to the hilt. Of course the knife was a rubber one he had bought at Miss Twilliger’s penny shop for two cents and it couldn’t hurt a flea. But how could the oldest inhabitant know that? Or anybody else? It looked real.

  “Did ya see that?” he’d ask, and plunge the rubber knife into his arm, stagger a bit, and laugh when people clutched their heads.

  The truth of the matter was that Rufus was taking up magic. He hadn’t been studying magic very long. But he knew three real tricks besides the rubber knife trick and he knew them well—the disappear-the-cards trick; the disappear-the-coins trick; and the handkerchief-and-match trick.

  Jane knew one trick. It was a card trick the oldest inhabitant had taught her. Put two cards on the edge of the table, flip them into the air, have them turn a somersault, and catch them before they fell back down. That was her trick. It was not as good as the disappear-the-cards trick, but Rufus would have liked to master it. So far he hadn’t been able to. He usually knocked the cards clear across the room in his desperate effort to catch them.