Ginger Pye (16 page)

Now Addie Egan might possibly be right about the word being villun and not vilyun; but Rachel certainly hoped she was wrong in view of the fact that vilyun just simply sounded a great deal better. She graciously said, "We'll look it up in the dictionary and then you'll see. It's vilyun, vilyunous."

And off they went, up one street and down another, calling, "Ginger! Ginger!"

Although, at first, a very great many children helped Rachel and Jerry hunt for Ginger Pye, after a while they grew tired of the same old search. Though they all promised to keep their eyes open for the man whose picture they had examined at the Town Hall, and his hat which Jerry described, one
by one they dropped off. Then, only Jerry and Rachel looked, either together or by themselves. They never got any clues as to where their puppy might be, but they never gave up hope.

"Too many people know about the funny hat," said Jerry. "Naturally he won't wear it anymore—the unsavory character," said Jerry, giving character the same pronunciation the Chief of Police had—character.

"Oh-h-h," exclaimed Rachel, almost overwhelmed at Jerry's smartness in figuring this out.

In the evening, now, Jerry and Rachel had a new game they played. They drew their own funny papers, dividing a sheet of paper into four or six little squares for the pictures and the captions. And they always had, as the villain, the man, the unsavory character as they had pictured him in the original drawing, the person who had stolen their dog, Ginger.

Although Jerry and Rachel never said this out loud, they had a silent mutual agreement that the wonderful nighttime adventures of Martin Boombernickles would not be continued ever again, not until the return of Ginger Pye.

It was hard, as the days went by and no sign or trace of Ginger appeared, for them to keep on hoping that he would return. But they did hope this and so did Uncle Bennie. Uncle Bennie solemnly assured them over and over that he would find Puppy for them.

Whenever any of them thought of Ginger coming running back, they thought of him as the little puppy he was when he disappeared. They forgot that he would grow. Meanwhile, they called, "Ginger! Ginger!" all over the place.

Skeleton houses are not, as some people might suppose, houses chuck-full of skeletons. They are new houses being built and at that stage where only the wooden framework has been erected.

When the wood was getting low in the woodbin, Rachel and Jerry would listen for the sound of hammering and pounding echoing through the cold quiet of a winter day in Cranbury, telling them a new house was being built. Then off they would go with their express wagon or their sleds to the skeleton house and pile these high with chunks of brand-new wood to start the fire in the kitchen range.

This was turning out to be a very cold winter, but so far, and it was almost Christmas, there had been very little snow. It was so cold for a few days that the harbor froze over entirely, something that had happened only once before that Mama could remember. It was very exciting and, if you wanted, you could get from Cranbury to the city by ice boat. "It's like Holland!" yelled Rachel delightedly when she looked out of Papa's high tower window one day and saw, in the distance, ice boats the boys had made sailing swiftly over the harbor.

Keeping the woodbin full was Jerry and Rachel's special job. What was the sense of buying wood when, with a little ingenuity, plenty of it could be found? Ordinarily Jerry and Rachel were able to keep the woodbin filled with driftwood gathered along the shore. But now, with all the ice in the harbor, naturally there was no wood drifting in and they had to think of other places to find it. Next to the shore, the most important place for finding kindling was in skeleton houses. Because there had been so little snow, building on the new houses had not stopped and the woodbin was almost never empty.

The children always went to the skeleton houses after the carpenters had left, or on Saturdays and Sundays, in order not to be in the way. Naturally the children did not take great big pieces of wood, only small pieces of plank and shavings and the carpenters were happy to have these cleared away. They had wonderful times in the skeleton houses, climbing all over them, even up to the second floor that was not yet a floor at all, but merely great beams stretched across where the floor was going to be. They were such good climbers they never fell down and broke a leg or anything.

However, when a new house reached the plastering stage they could no longer go in. They used to go in the plastered houses, too, but in one of these Rachel had rubbed against the wet plaster and had practically ruined her coat. This was a brand-new bright red coat that Mama had made for her and the plaster turned the red to orange in spots. It looked awful. Mama did not scold, but then, Mama never scolded. However, she did suggest that hereafter, when a skeleton house was in the plastering stage, they'd better not go inside of it, just stay on the outside. Staying on the outside was not such fun but they stuck to the rule and went only into skeleton houses that had not the plaster in them yet. And so they ruined no more coats.

One cold evening Rachel and Jerry went to a skeleton house way over on Second Avenue, the street of Wally Bullwinkle and the mysterious footstepper. Even though the plastering had not been begun on this skeleton house, since it was dark they naturally did not go inside lest they slip off a beam into the deep and dank cellar. Instead they stumbled around in the dark where the porch was going to be. They had very good pickings that night for they had got here before anyone else, even before the Moffats who also knew about skeleton houses for wood, and who, ordinarily, were first on the scene. They soon had their wagon loaded high.

On these trips to skeleton houses they always
kept their eyes open for signs of Ginger Pye, and still kept calling him. They were always thinking of Ginger, and speaking of him, and remembering him. Even though it was almost Christmas they were not likely to forget their puppy, especially Jerry, whose particular pet Ginger Pye was.

Rachel was not likely to forget either since she had about the best memory of anybody in the whole Pye family. Rachel remembered things that happened before she was two. She remembered the house they had lived in when she was about one that was near the railroad tracks. And she remembered the trains, New York to Boston, streaking past with a sudden roar. She also remembered about Aletta Livingston who had lived next door to them in that house. Aletta was also about one year old and she always looked out of her window at Rachel when Rachel looked out of hers at Aletta.

Of course, with a memory like that, Rachel would not be likely to forget about Ginger ever; and now, as they were tying a rope around their wood to keep it steady, and drawing on their mittens, she said, "Remember, Jerry? This is just about where we first heard the mysterious footsteps."

Naturally Jerry remembered this too, though he didn't remember anything before he was two, the

way Rachel did. In fact, a lady had once asked him what was the first thing he remembered and he said he didn't know he was alive until he was five.

Now, ready to leave for home, the children stood silently for a moment. It was strange how, whenever they were in this part of Cranbury, they thought most keenly about Ginger. Perhaps this was because of the memory of the footsteps. Anyway it really seemed to them that they might be nearer Ginger here than anywhere else. In spite of Wally Bullwinkle's warning to stay away from here, and the memory of Bit-nose Ned, they came and called and searched up and down Second Avenue more than any other street in town.

They were very lucky that this new skeleton house was going up over here where, somehow, they felt nearest to Ginger. They could pay frequent visits to the new house, and Wally Bullwinkle, as well as all the other people who lived over here, would not wonder at seeing them around so often. All these people would see and hear the new house being built. They would see Rachel and Jerry. They would see the wagon full of shavings and wood, and they would think it was natural that, at the same time as getting wood, the children would try to find their dog all over again. These people and Wally would realize that you don't look once for a lost dog and then give up and never look or call again.

Yes. The new house gave them an excellent excuse to knock on doors over here all over again asking people about Ginger. However, they would try to avoid, not only Wally's door, but also the door of a certain lady they called "Mincemeat."

One night when Jerry and Rachel had been desperately knocking on doors asking people had they seen Ginger, a woman came to the door and before they could even get out the sentence about Ginger she held up her hands and said, "I'm making mincemeat. Can't you see I'm making mincemeat?" And she slammed the door in their faces. Her hands hadn't had any mincemeat on them that they could see, but the way she held them up and the way she said, "mincemeat," made them imagine they were just dripping with it. So they called her "Mincemeat" from then on.

One reason that they kept knocking at doors asking people if they had seen Ginger was that they hoped to glimpse the old yellow hat hanging on a peg in a hallway. Of course they could not be positive that the person who had stolen Ginger had anything to do with the person in the old felt hat or the mysterious footsteps. But, lacking any other clues, they persisted in thinking so.

Well, now their wood was all loaded and their mittens on and their overcoats buttoned up tight, and still they stood and listened in the vast dark night. The wonderful smell of new wood was in their nostrils and also the dank smell of black earth from the cellar recently dug.

Often, on Ginger-searching expeditions Rachel and Jerry stood still as mice. Naturally, if they made a lot of noise and called every minute, how would they be able to hear Ginger when he barked or whined, letting them know where he was? This was one of their listening periods. In fact, this whole trip was more of a listening than a calling trip. It was so quiet they would have felt funny breaking the quietness with their voices. It would be as though the world would shake in half if they called just once. Their ears rang with the quiet.

Then, in the quiet, Jerry thought he heard a dog yelping. But at the same moment, Rachel, because the stillness was making her feel spooky, to break the spell, called suddenly, "Here, Ginger, Ginger, Ginger! Here, Ginger pup!" And Jerry heard the dog no more.

"Sh-sh-sh," said Jerry, grabbing Rachel's arm. "I thought I heard a dog yelping. It could have been Ginger. It didn't sound far away either."

There was no more yelping, however, and though
they called and whistled and coaxed till they were hoarse, and then listened hard, nothing but stillness answered them. Jerry didn't even know from what direction the bark had come. Cold and downcast they carefully, not to spill any, lugged their wagonload of wood out of the lumpy yard of the new skeleton house.

Then, as they turned onto the sidewalk, in the dark, whom should they encounter but the man in the yellow hat! They could not help gasping in terror and surprise. But wait! On second sight they saw it was not
their
man in the yellow hat at all. It was just Wally Bullwinkle, the boy in Jerry's class, and he simply had the same sort of hat as Unsavory, that was all. Oh, they were relieved. This was not
their
unsavory character that they had drawn the picture of and posted in the rogue's gallery at the Town Hall and put in their funny papers as the villain. This was only Wally Bullwinkle, the owner of a dog as ferocious as the one they had heard about that had bit the nose off Bit-nose Ned.