The first thing I noticed about my Uncle Amos as soon as he slid out from under the cream-colored steering wheel and came around to let Mom hug him the way she does all our relatives when they come, was that he had three eyebrows—one above each of his two brown eyes and the other on his upper lip just below his long nose. He had a deep businesslike voice.
And as Dad and Mom and my red aunt and her three-eyebrowed husband told each other how glad they were to see each other, hardly noticing me at all, Wally and especially Alexander the Coppersmith started taking over the place.
In a second, the dog was running all over the yard, smelling everything and acting as if he had the heebie-jeebies. And then, as quick as a flash, I heard the rush of flying feet, which sounded like an excited wind with a bad cold. I looked around just in time to see a streak of black and white flashing from our side porch toward the grape arbor and a faster flash of copper streaking after it.
Boy oh boy, did Mixy ever run! She went up the round grape-arbor post like a streak of greased lightning. A second later, she was on the two-by-four crossbeam, and Wally’s mongrel was below with his tongue hanging out and panting and barking and jumping up and scratching at the corner post and acting as if there was any one thing he couldn’t stand in his dog world more than anything else, it was a black and white cat.
Anyway, that was the first two and one-half minutes of Wally’s visit, and there was a whole week ahead, with sixty minutes in each hour and twenty-four hours in a day and seven whole days before the week would finally be over. That would be ten thousand and eighty whole minutes—and each minute would have sixty seconds in it!
Thinking of that reminded me of my alarm clock and of another black and white kitty. Circus had saved the clock for me, and, after a few days of airing and oiling, it smelled like an alarm clock again. Right that second it was in my room upstairs, ticking off the minutes for me as fast as it could count.
Oh, well, I thought, the week is started anyway, and seven days from now it will all be over. Only there would be seven nights too, with a dog barking all night and a boy snoring and—but remembering Poetry’s and my plans to take Wally some night to our den in the loft of the toolshed, which had a family of skunks living under it, I sighed a sigh of worried relief.
At least Wally wasn’t in favor of what Alexander was doing. He untangled himself from himself and yelled across the yard, saying, “Alexander, stop that!” And picking up the mattress, he started on a good fast run toward the grape arbor. On the way he had to pass the board walk, which was slightly elevated. Looking over the top of his mattress at Alexander, he didn’t see the walk, and the next thing I heard was a tangled-up scramble of feet, and Wally went down ker-floppety-fluff-fluff on top of his mattress again.
“That boy!” My red aunt sighed anxiously. “I hope you folks live through the week. I hope he lives through it.”
And Uncle Amos said from under his third eyebrow, “It’s a good thing he brought his dog mattress along to fall down on, so he won’t break his neck.”
By the time Wally had gotten up again, Mixy had decided the grape arbor wasn’t a safe place. She streaked across the barnyard, followed by a barking copper-colored dog, scattering chickens in every direction as she hurried to the hole under the barn where she knew she would be safe.
And that was the first three and one-half minutes of Wally the Whirlwind’s visit. There were only ten thousand seventy-six and one-half more minutes, and the week would be history.
“What’s the mattress for?” I asked Wally.
He answered, “For Alexander to sleep on. It’s chemically treated to keep off fleas and ticks and nits and keep him off the ground when he sleeps. He gets nervous if he is bothered by fleas, and it’s not good for a dog to be nervous. It also helps to keep him from smelling like a dog. I brought his no-odor dog biscuits too, which we feed him every day. So don’t you dare give him anything else to eat while he is here. They’ve got chlorophyll in them.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Don’t you know? Didn’t you ever hear of chlorophyll? But of course, you probably wouldn’t—you live out in the sticks. I mean, you live in the country, and you wouldn’t know about such things. It is a new scientific discovery which is put in dog food, and it deodorizes a dog so he won’t smell like a dog.”
So, I thought and felt my temper rising. I live out in the sticks, do I? And I wouldn’t know, would I? I decided to act as ignorant as I knew he thought I was and as I knew he was. So I asked, “So he won’t smell like a dog—or he won’t smell like a dog smells?”
Well, it was time for lunch for sure, because Wally’s parents were in a hurry to get started to the Black Hills, hoping to get a few hundred miles farther before night.
Wally screamed for Alexander the Coppersmith to come back and leave Mixy alone, calling and scolding in a tone of voice that, if I had been a dog, I would have resented. It would have made me not want to come.
But—would you believe it?—that dog actually obeyed him. He came trotting toward the iron pitcher pump where we were, wagging his tail happily as though he was proud of himself for having chased a big, fierce, wild black and white cat, having saved all our lives by doing it.
Wally quick pulled a leather leash out of his hip pocket, snapped one end to Alexander’s collar, which had on its nameplate “Alexander the Coppersmith, Property of Walford Sensenbrenner, 222 Sunset Boulevard, Memory City, Indiana,” and tied the other end to the grape arbor post.
Then all of us went in to eat. Wally and I had to be reminded to wash our hands first, “To get the dog smell off,” Mom said cheerfully.
I said to her from the bathroom door, “We don’t have any on our hands. Alexander isn’t that kind of a dog.”
“Wash your hands,” Mom repeated, half singing the command so it wouldn’t sound like she probably felt.
As soon as our clean hands were washed, we all gathered around the table—Mom and Dad and Uncle Amos and Aunt Belle and Charlotte Ann, my baby sister, and Wally and me. Charlotte Ann was sitting in her high chair between our parents, and Wally and I were on a bench on one side of the table along the south wall of the room.
Pretty soon, when it was as quiet as it could get with the teakettle singing on the stove, a lot of happy old hens singing just outside the door, Alexander the Coppersmith already barking at something, and different farm noises coming in from the barn, Dad said, “The Collins family will ask the blessing together,” which is what he always says when he wants us to sing the blessing.
Right away he started off with the melody of a little chorus that had the tune of one of our church songs. As soon as I found the pitch, Mom joined with an alto, he switched to the tenor, and, if I do say so, the harmony sounded as pretty as anything. The words were:
We thank Thee, Lord, for this our food,
For life and health and every good;
These mercies bless, and grant that we
May feast in Paradise with Thee. Amen.
After we sang, “Amen,” my dad said an especially good prayer, asking the Lord to bless us all and especially Uncle Amos and Aunt Belle on their trip to the West. Part of his prayer was, “We thank Thee for the beautiful world Thou hast given us. Let this time of vacation be one of refreshment for their hearts and minds as well as for their bodies. And may they see in the hills and mountains and the other wonderful things of nature the hand of God, who loves us all, who gave His Son to die for our sins.”
He also prayed that Wally’s vacation would be a happy one “in the fresh country air and because of the outdoor exercise which is so good for a growing boy.”
My mind had a hard time staying with the prayer because “fresh country air” reminded me of Poetry’s toolshed, and “exercise” reminded me of potato hoeing and chores of a thousand kinds to do. I couldn’t imagine Wally’s being interested in that kind of exercise.
When the prayer was finished, I opened my eyes and took a quick look at the fried chicken and the oth
er food that I had been smelling for what seemed a long time. I also looked at my red aunt and noticed she had tears in her blue-green eyes and a very reverent expression on her face.
“Thank you, Theo,” she said. “That’s like it used to be in the old home—” She stopped and swallowed something in her throat, which she hadn’t eaten, and started again. “You three sing together nicely. Where did you get your voice, Bill—from your mother or your father?”
Wally answered, trying to be funny and not being, “From one of the crows out in the woods.”
If my friend Poetry or another of the gang had said that, I’d have thought it was cute. But when Wally’s mind thought of it and his sarcastic voice said it, I didn’t think it was humorous.
Uncle Amos didn’t think so either, because I saw his two upper eyebrows drop and heard a sharp voice from under his other eyebrow say, “That’s enough!” And the tone of voice reminded me of Wally himself yelling out across the barnyard at Alexander the Coppersmith to stop barking at Mixy.
As soon as the meal was over, everybody went out to the car, and Uncle Amos and my red aunt got in to drive away. Wally took his suitcase out of the car’s trunk and a large carton of no-odor dog biscuits and a baseball, a bat and glove, a fishing rod and reel, and a tackle box.
Uncle Amos drove past the plum tree and out into the barnyard, scaring our chickens and scattering them. Then he turned around and came back, stopping once more where he had been, and said through the open window, “We’ll drop you postcards along the way.”
My red aunt said to Wally, “Be a good boy, Wally, and have a nice vacation.”
Uncle Amos added one more command to Wally: “And leave some of the farm and neighborhood for others to enjoy after you are through with them.”
Well, that was the first sixty minutes of Wally’s week. There were more than ten thousand more worried minutes to suffer through.
The very second the car started to pull out of the drive, there was a noise as if the world was about to come to an end up near the grape arbor. I looked and saw a copper-colored dog running wild in six or seven directions and straining at his leash. The whole grape arbor was shaking as though there was an earthquake.
In the middle of the excitement I also saw the collar slide over and off the dog’s head. Then, faster than greased lightning, a blurred streak of copper shot over the board walk and out across the yard to the gate, past “Theodore Collins” on the mailbox, and down the road after Uncle Amos’s cream-and-green car, getting to the left front wheel before the car could pick up speed.
There was a wild and excited barking and also Uncle Amos’s voice barking out of his open window, “Alexander! Stop it!” And from beside or behind me or from somewhere, Wally’s voice started yelling, using the same words his father used, calling Alexander to stop and to come back.
Then the car sped up as though it was in a race and shot down that road at sixty miles an hour, leaving Alexander far behind.
In only about a minute, the dog got discouraged. Anyway, with Wally calling him, he started back, stopping every now and then to smell different things along the roadside. But when I saw his smiling dog face and his hanging-out tongue, I decided he wasn’t discouraged at all. He seemed very happy. It was just as if he was saying, “There, see what I did! I not only scared the daylights out of a wild, dangerous black and white cat, but I chased a great big four-wheeled car clear out of the neighborhood. They’re all scared of me!”
“Come on, Wally,” I said. “Let’s get started on the next ten thousand minutes.”
“Get started on the next ten thousand what?” Dad asked.
I answered, “Maybe we ought to get the dishes washed, just in case some of the gang come over and want to help hoe potatoes or something.”
I let my eyes meet my dad’s for a moment, and he winked at me with his left one. “That’s an idea,” he said. “You boys help Mother with the dishes, and then, if the gang comes, you’ll be all set to go swimming. We won’t do too much work on Wally’s first day here.”
I looked doubtfully at him, just as Wally said, “I’ll get my swimsuit out of the suitcase.” He started to open it right there in the front yard.
Mom stopped him by saying, “Wait. Bill, you help carry things up to his room. The two top drawers in the bureau are empty for his shirts and things.”
We stopped at the grape arbor on the way while Wally put Alexander’s collar back on. Wally tightened it one more notch and checked the other end to be sure it was tied tight to the grape arbor post, because you could never tell when Mixy might decide to come innocently past on her way to somewhere or other.
Right that second, I heard a noise out by the walnut tree, and, looking back, I saw a barrel-shaped boy just opening the mailbox. It was good old Poetry himself, wearing a red shirt. I had just told Poetry on the phone that very day that he needn’t stop for me because I probably couldn’t go swimming with the gang, anyway.
“Hi, Poetry!” I yelled to him as he came waddling across the yard toward where all our excitement was. He was welcomed by Mom, who acted happy to see him. Alexander the Coppersmith also welcomed him by acting as if he had never seen anyone like him before and said so with a growl in his throat.
Wally had only half liked Poetry the last time he’d been here. When he saw who it was, he said the same thing he had said the other time, “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Little Red Riding Hood.”
Poetry, who was the best make-believe player of our whole gang, answered by saying the same thing he had said the last time, “And what big teeth you have, Grandma.”
Wally’s big front teeth were too large for his small red head, as lots of boys’ teeth are until they get older and their heads grow a little more.
Alexander the Coppersmith kept on growling and eyeing Poetry suspiciously.
“I brought my wolf along this time,” Wally said. “Want to come and pet him?”
Poetry walked toward Alexander and stopped about five feet from the end of his leash.
“It’s a dog,” I said.
“Is that so?” Poetry said. “I couldn’t tell for sure.”
Mom, who by that time was out by the plum tree talking with Dad, called, “Better get Wally’s luggage upstairs right away.”
Poetry and Wally followed me inside. Wally came last, letting the screen door slam hard after him. They followed me across the worn kitchen linoleum to the dining room and upstairs.
Poetry had been there hundreds of times, but Wally had been there only once, so he looked around as if he had never seen anything like it. First, he looked up at the ceiling of the biggest and longest room, where my dad had stretched about fifteen feet of chicken yard wire and put on it several layers of his finest seed corn. He always kept his fanciest seed corn there in the winter and sometimes some of it in the summer. Sometimes Dad gets blue ribbons at the fairs and horse shows that we have around the country.
We got Wally’s stuff unpacked in the smaller room at the other end of the hall from mine. My room was the longest one on the south side and had an ivy vine covering almost half of the window. On a moonlit night, I always liked to look under that ivy out at the barn and the garden and across the fields to the houses of the different members of the gang. I also liked to listen to the friendly rustling of the big glossy leaves that grew in stems of five all over it and covered almost half of the whole south side of the house.
That’s one of the finest sounds a boy ever hears—ivy leaves whispering in the moonlight. In the summer I nearly always went to sleep at night listening to them.
“What’s the corn up there for?” Wally asked.
I explained. “That’s my dad’s fancy seed corn. The rats and mice can’t get at it up there. It’s worth hundreds of dollars, and he can’t run the risk of letting some mouse or rat start gnawing on it, so he keeps it up there. Rats and mice can’t climb bare walls.”
Wally looked around at the unpapered, white plastered walls and asked, astonished, “You mea
n there are rats and mice up here?”
“Could be. Want to hear one?” I walked over to the attic door and swung it open. “Come here and just listen a minute. Hear that?” I winked at Poetry, and he started scratching with his fingernail on the wall beside the attic door.
But Wally caught on right away. “Such big rats!” he said. Then he looked into the attic, where there were a hundred different things that weren’t any good but which Mom didn’t like to throw away, such as the old-fashioned red cradle she had been rocked in when she was a baby and a twelve-barreled candle mold, which her great-great-grandparents had used to make candles when they were alive on this earth.
“What’s that?” Wally asked when I picked up the candle mold and turned it over in my hands.
“My great-great-great-grandparents used it to make candles when this part of America was just being born.”
“Humph,” he said. “Country people certainly didn’t have much that was modern.”
That kind of fired me up, so I said, “They certainly didn’t, but they were pretty nice people. Some of their city descendants aren’t always as nice.” Then I shut the attic door and said to Poetry, “I thought I told you on the phone not to bother—”
“Your father called back right after we finished talking and told me to come. He said to come over and help you.”
“Help me do what?”
“He didn’t say—just come and help you.”
“Can’t we go swimming first?” Wally asked, probably figuring there was some work that would have to be done.
Just then I heard a strange noise outside, which I knew wasn’t coming from the barn. Looking out, I saw Alexander the Coppersmith making a lot of excited noise in the direction of the walnut tree.
Then I saw five boys coming across the lot. The tall brown-haired boy with an almost mustache on his upper lip was Big Jim, our leader. Another almost as tall boy, who right that second was turning a handspring, was Circus, our acrobat. A short, spindle-legged little guy, who right that second was looking up toward the sky to get sunlight in his eyes to help him finish a sneeze he was having trouble finishing, was Dragonfly, the pop-eyed member, who is allergic to practically everything. Beside Big Jim was a cute, curly headed guy, the smallest and youngest and best member, Little Jim himself. I watched him walk straight toward the iron pitcher pump, where he started to pump some water. He probably was thirsty.
Sugar Creek Gang Set Books 19-24 Page 13